Your right Paul I certainly have spent hours on the bike bt then I have always enjoyed that side of things, last few years we have been preping TT bikes. before that I was usually getting my bikes from breakers and sorting them out, before I went racing myself I was mechanicing for a couple of mates, doing fork rebuilds etc. And before that It use to be building the specials, mainly Harris Magnums.
Seat is now Gloss Black and fitted to the bike it just needs a bit of foam for me to sit on. Rear Diablo should be here tomorrow. Transponder bracket is fitted in place and the transponder has been charged up Other than it could do with testing it is ready to Rock & Roll apart from one number board.
Picked my rear Diablo up on the way home yesterday. During my lunch-break I had shaped and trimmed the seat foam so on arriving home the first task was to fit the seat foam, easily done with a pot of Evo-stick. Was just about to top up the fuel when I had a visit from one of the nighbours who then wanted to talk about bikes for the next 45 mins. Finally the tank was topped up, helmet, boots and gloves were put on and off I went for a little jolly in the country. I soon noticed the gear position was still to high and the front end wasn't quite straight. The roads were still a bit crowed with people making their way home from work so there wasn't much chance to open the bike up until on the way back home the road opened up onto a long straight which was void of cars, so I wound the throttle to the stop and had her flat out through the gears then as the 30 limit approached I was hard on the brake and unlike last time the bike didn't cut out. I'm hoping the replacement tank and pump have cured the problem but as this wasn't a true simulation of 3 laps on a race track I can't be certain. After getting home I removed the rear Metzeler Sportec and replaced it with the Diablo and if weather permits I will will do some more road testing prior to loading the bike up for Cadwell.
Had another successful road outing yesterday evening when I went for a 10 mile jolly to scrub the new rear tyre in, this time I managed to find a bit more space for opening the bike up and had the poor little thing at full throttle for about 2 miles. On the lower gearing it was reving hard and it does make me wonder how long the engine will last. Again there was no signs of the engine cutting out although at low revs and just off a closed throttle it did feel very fluffy as if it was a tad rich. I can safely say the suspension is not set for the road as pot-holes and derain covers are best avoided. As the bike stands the budget is up to £1835 to which I will probably end up adding a Rev counter, not worried about it at Woodlands as I doubt if I'll have time to look at it. Pic is of the bike after I arrived back home after testing yesterday
Thanks Felix, the only way I can justify taking part is to do it the way I have, with my experience I thought I would stay away from the extra power a bigbore kit would provide and with several preped race bikes already in the workshop the budget had to be adheared to. So thats basically what I'm putting into it a under £2k bike built and maintained by myself along with my riding abilities. What I hope to get out of it is a lot of enjoyment and a bit more corner speed that will help me when I go and do a few races in other classes and if I ever get my knee down that would be a real bonus, although I feel having a few metal pins removed from my body may help on that front.
Following the 3 DNFs at Cadwell due to brake failure here is what I have found so far, bearing in mind that at the meeting I changed the disc, pads, fluid and mastercylinder.
This morning I have been Checking for cause of the brake problems and I think I may be onto something. I suspect that a major part of the problem is the change to a better disc, firstly I ran a SPS iron fully
floater which is what I had on when I crashed, after that I changed to a modern semi floater off my 748RS
front end. Trouble is both discs are a nominal 5mm thick making them 1mm thicker than the standard 600SS
disc, in itself this should not be a problem as the narrowest point of the calliper is 7.5mm wide giving
the newer disc 2.5mm of clearance, however this is only true if the disc is aligned dead centre of the
calliper, now looking at how the pistons are protruding from my calliper there is a 2.5mm difference with
the outer pistons stuck out the futhest, which suggests the disc was running near enough up against the
inner edge of the calliper.
With the self aligning aspect of the the fully floater this is not so obvious
and also less of a problem, but changing to the semi floater after the crash probably made things worse as
shown by how many laps I did in race 2 compared to race 1. I have checked the speedo spacer I made and it is exactly the same width as the original speedo drive so
its not that.
Attention then turned to the spindle retainer that clamps inside the bottom of the left fork
leg, in the time I have owned the bike I have never disturbed this, on inspection it was found to be
protruding 1.5mm on the inside of the fork leg which in turn moves the front wheel and the disc 1.5 mm
futher away from the calliper mount, not a issue with the original narrower disc but may well be with the
thicker 5mm discs especially the semi floating one and as things got hotter and expanded clearances would have been futher reduced maybe to the point where the disc was continually rubbing the calliper causing the brake fluid to overheat.
Currently ony a suspicion/theory but it is something I can easily alter. It may also be the cause of my original new brake pads glazing over on Saturday evening practice as the thicker pads would certainly had clearance issues on the Saturday afternoon untimed practice, especially the inner pad, but again the fully floating disc would have helped mask it.
Interested to hear Paynep (Paul Paynes) and Fil2's views
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