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Post by donkeychomp on Feb 16, 2023 23:05:07 GMT 1
I reiterate. Jammy git.
Alex
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Post by JonW on Feb 16, 2023 23:06:08 GMT 1
lol
All Ive got to do now is store it well and not drop any of it... hmm...
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Post by donkeychomp on Feb 16, 2023 23:38:55 GMT 1
STORE it?? I need a fekkin Bounty tank. G'wan then. How much? LOL
Alex
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Post by JonW on Feb 17, 2023 0:09:59 GMT 1
STORE it?? I need a fekkin Bounty tank. G'wan then. How much? LOL Alex Er... The Bounty is going on my Resto 250>350, it will complete the bike. I think I said, but I never posted about the build on here it was on another forum perhaps. I just didnt get round to painting the panels/tank. The storing is for the Mars for this bike, which is a very long way from becoming a bike again, the frame is in two big chunks and a bunch of little brackets (with some still missing)... This week there is also some extra good news tho... A kind forumer has done me a deal on a cut (and modded) rear subframe. Ive still got to get that from the UK and repair it with an indicator bar I cut from the totally rusted through rear subframe that I had on a beyond repair LC I bought locally many years back. Im excited to do this as Ive had the cut off bar for years just waiting for the right project and this is the one, not least as I've realisd that this project is all about repairing the worst of the parts that I (and everyone who has offered parts) had and would probably never get round to using as they seemed beyond repair until now.  With that in mind, its worth saying again I guess that I'm still looking for a few brackety bits for this frame if anyone reads this and has some? - rear brake light switch 'C' shaped part - I could make this of course- Airbox mounts (both) - the backward facing ones on rear engine mounting tube - Side stand mount- Centre stand mounts (both), or even just plates that replicate the shape? And still looking for two last bolt ons : - lift handle - the bolted on bar for lifting the bike onto the centre stand - I know these can be got new, but I'd like to restore one really. - centre stand... one can only hope... no one has one with damage? |
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Post by donkeychomp on Feb 17, 2023 1:18:59 GMT 1
Jon, if I had any of those parts I'd bung 'em in the post to you. Sadly, I don't. Hopefully someone, somewhere, will have them.
Alex
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Post by JonW on Feb 17, 2023 2:49:50 GMT 1
Jon, if I had any of those parts I'd bung 'em in the post to you. Sadly, I don't. Hopefully someone, somewhere, will have them. Alex Thanks Alex, thats very kind of you mate. I was just having a coffee and contemplating how doing a bike project is always interesting in how I find myself approaching it and then how over time I seem to waver and then later cement on what the bike will 'be' and at that point I seem to finally get really excited and begin to really enjoy the process of its 'creation'. hmm... yeah... sounds wanky but I think its what happens... I just know that I dont want to just keep doing the same build over n over etc. ie. Once Ive done an OEM version Ive done that so now I want to do a modded one etc. I think deep down I would like to think that I start with a plan and stick to it, but I know that in reality I dont. eg. My F1 (in build for 15 years now lol) started as a modded bike and has now become almost totally OEM. My LC2 started as a heavily modded bike (I didnt have many OEM parts, I started with just a frame lol) and is now OEM-ish. And the list goes on... with every project lol I reckon that all 'serial builders' find the same thing so I'd be interested to hear from those who maybe do the same... or maybe they dont?! Maybe its just me haha. ...anyway, what I was thinking was that when I built my hybrid 421LC (10+ years back) I wanted to build a lairy LC with more modern parts ('the mad LC I always wanted' etc) and that was all good but over time it became more of a technical project to do stuff others hadnt done and to cram a bunch of tech into it. GPS speedo, fan with controller, integrated digital temp, 916 style steering damper, 421 with a bunch of cool parts etc etc etc. Then when Id done that it was cool, but i wanted more... so I managed to get another frame and I did frame strengthening as well for it with that frame and then swapped frame and used the frame it had been using (along with the original LC engine I still had) to build a matching numbers 250 resto bike, converting totally to 350 at the same time. I went all out on originality and it got loads of NOS parts as well. So I had a full resto and a lairy modded bike. Cool... That would have done me really, I had some loose plan to do that both with an LC and a YPVS. 4 bikes in total in my garage; one modded and one standard of each. Perfect... who could need more?! etc... We all know how that goes... ... a mate found a guy selling some parts out west - ie 'in the country' here. He wanted some wheels but he also had a frame. The frame was a rare-for-Aus 350 frame.. but I didnt want to build a 350 so was a moot point. I already had one. So I had to come up with a theme. Gotta keep doing something new, something 'else' (elsIe? I'll get me coat lol). Anyway, while I had no spare LC engine I did have a bunch of spare 51L parts and realised the 51L made the power of the 350LC but would be more linear with the PVs and it'd be a giggle to try them back to back, plus no one really knew or cared about the 51L engine, makes sense then that I make it the star of the bike since its a rare thing. A plan was made and I started. It defo got a lot more interesting when I decided to 'JDM it a bit' as well and went a bit out on that limb with that as well since the JDM thing isnt a road well travelled in the west, creating the RZ251LC, the name paying homage to the JDM RZ250 and the 51L engine as well. I was (and am still) excited by this build, so much more than the previous ones if im honest. It just seems more 'me'. I felt my builds were maturing as I dug deeper into what I liked and what was a bit different, things people hadnt done much or at all etc. The challenge of a full OEM resto is very different than modding, its one of finding parts and getting the detaisl 'right', not about engineering as Yam already did that for you. The challenge of going in a new direction is immense, youre on your own... Then I had an idea to build this bike. The one this thread is about. Well 'sorta'.... It started with some boxes of bits I had of parts that werent much use about 7 years back. I had way too much stuff stored and had a plan to ratify and reduce the stuff I was hoarding that was basically junk. It was the parts that a, were not good enough for my projects, b, were damaged somehow (scratched, broken, bent and/or very rusty), d, too good (hmm?) to chuck out cos Yam dont make em anymore, yet no one would want them even for free. I needed to reduce this spares holding, it was taking up so much room... for nothing! An example of this was everyone who came to my house for something bike related who had a YPVS got a free cush drive to take home for a while... they were worthless to sell as no one needed one at the time and yet I couldnt just chuck em away of course. I had so so many of them lol. At one point I cleared a whole box by sending 5 old/rusty/dead/usable? cranks to my crank guy and he sent me one back with a small bill for his time, offset with a small allowance for the rest of the parts. Perfect. I was making progress. Next I made 3 piles; Keep and restore to use, give away as is, chuck in the bin. It was really hard to chuck stuff away and very little went in that pile... all I had was stuff that it would take more effort to restore. But I would do it. I was committed to the plan. I spent something like 9 or 10 months bending stuff back into shape, welding, blasting, grinding, powder coating and plating things. I sold some things, gave away stuff and hardly chucked anything away. Yes almost all of it was recycled, in a fit of effort that would shock even Greta. I was happy. The parts were back in circulation and not in boxes in the back of my garage. Result! In one box I started to put some of these cleaned up LC parts that I thought I might actually use if i did another LC. Not that I expected I would, but well, y'know... I occasionally saw things cheap on ebay or bought or was gifted job lots of parts with LC bits in them for other projects and kept repairing and restoring things I might one day use to build a bike. I also let stuff go to more deserving homes or when I needed money for other projects, crueling myself later when I needed those parts again lol. eg. A guy wanted some HL ears. I restored a set, he didnt like them as they werent perfect. Fair enough, but they were bent junk prior to the resto and the transformation was nothing short of amazing lol Anyway, I stuck em on ebay... sold in hours. Ooops, too cheap I guess. Guy who picked em up was over the moon with them and talked about how he was super grateful to find a set. A little while later I started searching for another set... I'd already realised my mistake, time had gone on and parts in Aus had really dried up during C-19. I'd been a fool to let them go. I did much later find a bent and broken set to restore but they cost me almost as much as I'd sold the previous restored set for and now I had to restore a set again. Luckily I like fixing stuff and making it nice again. Its what many of our generation had to do to in the 80s etc, I just still do it. 'Im living in the past' my misses says... lol Anyway, over time the box started filling up that I realised that while I had no frame and had looked unsuccessfully for years for one, that I had quite a lot of LC parts for this 'one day' bike project. What sort of project it could be I had no idea about. I didnt want another resto, I had a lairy one and a lightly modded one... so what should this one be? I still dont quite know the answer to that. But... some ground rules were set. I wanted a Mars bar, Id never had one. I wanted to continue to use as many restored and repaired parts as possible. I wanted this bike to continue how it started, with parts that were at the back of sheds and would probably be 'too far gone' for their owners to reuse, but theyd not bin them as they were parts that shouldnt be binned as they were NLA etc. Maybe I could step in where they had given up and the parts would be used. With the ground rules set, its the direction I still lack. It will come, I know that. But for now I'll keep gathering the parts to give me options. Ive got some brake options, some wheel options and some engine options as well. At some point I'll see something that will spark an idea and I'll head off down that path, but for now 'we wait...'. While writing that last bit I realise that the most sensible option (other than sell the parts and forget all about this project lol) is to make a 'bobber chopper beardy brown seat bike', most of the work is already done with the DPO removing the brackets lol... Most look awful, but I did see one I liked the look of once many years back and know i could improve on it, but it was the only one I ever liked of that ilk and most of the parts Id need are silly money now to do what I considered would actually work as the bikes they are from are now worth good money. Amusingly, I did once start to buy stuff like an early Rd tank. It was $20... there is a long story of buying this that involved bidding in Cambodia and picking up from a lovely guy who restored Harley WLAs just up the road from me! The story and meeting him and seeing his workshop was the best bit lol. A bloke offered me a few hundred for it a couple of years later after Id fixed some dents and taken the paint off and cleaned the rust out... I wasnt using it so it went and made his day. Today they cost double that in worse condition... yeah Im an idiot haha. Anyway, I guess what Im saying here is that I consider that building bikes is all about 'the challenge'. Whether it be to locate OEM parts, to restore parts or to engineer parts to fit and work in a new application. Working out what the challenge for each project will be is part of the fun. Making that challenge harder for yourself is also part of that. For this year's Dakar rally, the entrants from last year were asked what they wanted for 2023. They said they wanted it to be tougher. They must be mad, right?! who makes things harder for themselves, especially on the bloody Dakar!? Well i think serial restorers do the same thing. It may well be tough to do a project one way, but next time you want to do it better and if you think thats not possible, then maybe you just make it harder to get to the finish. That does seem to be what Im doing here, Ive set a ground rule that makes this a much more immense challenge than just buying new bits (bodywork aside lol) or even 'better bits', but Im loving doing it. Ive interacted with people all over the world about parts which has been wonderful as some of them have been really helpful and generous and like what Im doing. Also my mental list of what is needed is never far from my mind which means Im always thinking about the project. Im deeply involved. Its great fun. Thats what I (we?) do this for... |
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Post by donkeychomp on Feb 17, 2023 23:04:57 GMT 1
An interesting tale Jon. We've all been there with selling/donating parts then cursing later on!
As for the next build...please don't do the brown seat thing. But, it's up to you of course. What I'd like to see from your fevered brow is a totally different hybrid. Using forks swingarm wheels etc from something no one else has ever done. And I don't suggest a Honda Melody. I think I'm doing just that with my build (though I may be wrong, usually am!)
Alex
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Post by JonW on Feb 18, 2023 0:54:40 GMT 1
Haha, well yeah thats how it goes with parts, easy come easy go tho. Im sure people have given/sold me stuff they later wished they had kept as well, but at least the part was being used. Nowadays I only ever have parts that Im using for a project... well, 99% of them are like that. I might have a few options for some areas of a build, but generally thats the plan now and once the decision is made on the project then the parts not used go. Im not into spares 'hoarding'. And I dont mean that word in a bad way, some people are keeping stuff cos they dont know what to do with it or out of some sentimental attachment (like old trashed parts). Its not like most people set out to store parts like a chest of gold coins lol This was why I kept asking for people to look in the old boxes of junk for me for bits for this bike. I dont mind restoring things and maybe I could help lighten their junk spares load by getting rid of something they would never use, plus it would be getting used on a project when maybe it would never have got a new life with the current owner. That approach has been illuminating, quite a few people contacted me with parts in just that state of limbo. Chats were had, new friends were made and parts were saved; Exactly how a hobby should be. Hmm... Good idea... I had considered doing something different with the suspension on this project, but I have most of an Lc front end already... I would just need new fork legs and springs. Of course, for the same money I could probably find something better lol. I also have a set of RGV front end and one of Andy's triple clamps... Ive always wanted to use some Honda CBR wheels - I like the spokes... I have a set, but the axles sizes are not an easy fit with the RGV or Standard forks. hmm... I also have a KTM swingarm... but that would mean I need to locate other parts to use that and its better off being used on the KTMAHA project, if that ever sees the light if day again lol So, not much 'new' in all that, but to be fair a lot of the LC mods have already been tried before at least once.... tho not Honda Melody... Hahaha! What I will say is that I am tempted to do something 'more old skool JDM' than the 251LC is, its more standard than it is JDM etc. more 'light 80s JDM'. I do love this JDM style as you all know. Eg, Id love to use more TZR stuff like they did back in the day but its now very expensive. FZR is cheaper, but still not cheap. I would like to have a more 'western twist' but I'll have to work on that a bit more. It wont be a mad JDM bike, with silly long handlebars or tail, but perhaps I can head down that route and do something cool. Id love to use some mad JDM cross over 'slug shaped' pipes, but I have some non x-over stainless Gibsons I bought many many years ago that are hydro formed which might look the part. What I do know is that will be 350cc ypvs as Ive got the parts for that. While this is in no way 100% it, it is something a little bit more in this kind of direction... maybe... its also not a Marsbar, which we know is a given with this one lol I do like the swingarm, anyone recognise it?  Anyway, nothing set in stone yet... its still forming in my mind... All ideas welcome, feel free to post pics of cool stuff that might help set direction! |
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Post by JonW on Feb 18, 2023 2:08:41 GMT 1
Love these pipes, hate everything else lol  fk no!  that swinger is back... what is it from?  RGV style works ok... but...  hmm...  nothing says 'LIKE THIS!!!' yet... |
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Post by lcmarky on Feb 18, 2023 9:49:09 GMT 1
Interesting reading & beautiful bikes. I have zero interest in building a bog standard bike and talking to those that do build them it’s just getting almost impossible to source parts.
It’s the engineering for me that I enjoy & having an idea to turn into an actual ‘thing’. I’m finding having built a few bikes now, that it’s easy to spend lots of time building and not enough time riding which I’ll reverse when my 400LC is on the road…
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cnkxu1
Thrash Merchant
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Post by cnkxu1 on Feb 18, 2023 23:16:21 GMT 1
I think you need to look to the future when mobility becomes a reality. Three wheeler with two wheels up front.
Tongue firmly in cheek!
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Post by JonW on Feb 19, 2023 0:07:39 GMT 1
Interesting reading & beautiful bikes. I have zero interest in building a bog standard bike and talking to those that do build them it’s just getting almost impossible to source parts. It’s the engineering for me that I enjoy & having an idea to turn into an actual ‘thing’. I’m finding having built a few bikes now, that it’s easy to spend lots of time building and not enough time riding which I’ll reverse when my 400LC is on the road… I hear you Mark, I have and will continue to build the occasional nut n bolt resto bike as I like the challenge of finding all the parts. In fact just this weekend I found the left side F2 mirror that Id been looking for, NOS to match the RHS NOS one I bought 5 years back or so. I refused to pay the silly money asked for some but in the end it still cost way more than a mirror should. ahh well... challenge complete on that part at least! I also enjoy the engineering. Figuring out how to make stuff fit and work is great fun. Takes hours of looking and thinking of solutions. Forget Suduku and all that other crap, build a custom bike if you want to flex your mind in older age lol I rarely ride, its dangerous where I live, but it wont stop me building. One day I hope to move to a place where i can go for a nice run in the country without the worry of myopic drivers who got their licences from their conrflakes packets and cops who have quotas. |
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Post by JonW on Feb 19, 2023 0:09:00 GMT 1
I think you need to look to the future when mobility becomes a reality. Three wheeler with two wheels up front. Tongue firmly in cheek! Haha, speak for yerself old man! HAHAHA!  |
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Post by JonW on Jun 8, 2023 5:06:22 GMT 1
While Ive been off my feet with some fun n games with health, Ive been stacking up some jobs that will filter down to be completed and then posted on here... Firstly... I finally got round to rebuilding the damaged seat tang on the seat base with a soldering iron and some of the right type of plastic. I then gave it a final wash and its now ready to be fitted with the brand new foam and cover from webike... ....but that will have to wait as while the latches were already zinc plated, the captive stud plates missed the last plating run and so the building up of this seat will need to wait until they are done.  Grr... would have been nice to have this all stapled up and ready for use... but, tis not to be. |
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Post by donkeychomp on Jun 8, 2023 22:07:26 GMT 1
Did you not try one of Al's tangs Jon? Superb bit of kit. If postage was an issue I could have mailed it for you.
Alex
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Post by JonW on Jun 9, 2023 0:30:59 GMT 1
Did you not try one of Al's tangs Jon? Superb bit of kit. If postage was an issue I could have mailed it for you. Alex Thanks for the kind offer but this one was actually all there, just the two 'tines' had been twisted to one side and there were fractures in the plastic. It only needed a repair really, heating and straightening and then 'glueing' the cracks and the odd small missing chunk back in. Really only @10mins work... that took over an hour lol... most of that was clearing a space to work and finding the right plastic in the box where i had put it for safe keeping... it was super safe, even i couldnt find it lol |
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Post by JonW on Jun 10, 2023 8:41:58 GMT 1
Another part of the puzzle completed today. I started with these:  Some forumers may well remember many months back Jay posting pics of this very subframe on the forum. In the end he found one that better fitted his needs and when I was looking for parts for this bike he answered my plea for parts and contacted me to offer up his old one. This is a prime example of a, the great people on this forum, and b, that people have parts in boxes that are too good to chuck out but that they will never use - ie the exact type of stuff I was after for this project. I wanted to repair things that would otherwise probably never be used. this bike isnt really a project that should be adorned with NOS but rather be a testament to restoration of the parts no one wanted, just like its frame etc. Anyway, Thanks to Jay I had the main raw material for this hard to find part. This week I finally received a care parcel sent over from blighty and in it was this subframe so I set to work. No time like the present. FWIW The old indicator bar was actually off another totally rotted out subframe I had many years back, it was the only part worth keeping from that junk really. At least that saved me the crazy money people are asking for the recreated bar thats being sold on ebay these days... plus, mine is now all original. (Its black in the photos as I had blasted the rust off it and hit it with a rattle can to keep it clean) First up was to remove the additional indicator brackets. I was kind of tempted to keep them, but decided I had the parts to make this a standard unit so that's what I would do. Next up remove the cut indicator bar.  (the lines on the cut bar are me working out the alignment) After a clean up and some careful clamping, the indicator bar was reinstated. All this needs now is blasting and powder coating.  |
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Post by donkeychomp on Jun 10, 2023 21:29:22 GMT 1
Great stuff! This forum is in a league of it's own when it comes the helping each other out.
Alex
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Post by JonW on Jun 11, 2023 2:23:09 GMT 1
yes defo. Without this forum none (and I mean NONE) of my bikes would be build. The advice and parts help (and banter) here is the best on the net. Im grateful everyday for my mates on here. |
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Post by urbantangleweed on Jun 11, 2023 7:03:12 GMT 1
Great stuff! This forum is in a league of it's own when it comes the helping each other out. Alex It really is a great forum Alex. It's been incredibly helpful to me over recent years since I got back into YPVS's. Out of curiosity, I just looked to see how many members there actually were, it's 8167  But it's the relatively small core of active ones with such great in depth knowledge of these bikes that makes it what it is, kind of like a quiet little backwater for the enthusiast rather than the keyboard warrior types that seem to be almost everywhere else! Hopefully, their sort never find us........ |
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Post by donkeychomp on Jun 11, 2023 21:00:47 GMT 1
Occasionally they do appear. I'll mention no names. But yes this is more like a friendly pub and everyone knows everyone else and they all get along with each other. A mutual love of LCs is an added bonus!
Alex
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Post by steve63 on Jun 12, 2023 12:39:42 GMT 1
I've got three of those sub-frames. One is all complete, one has just a small piece of the indicator mounting tube still remaining and the other has all traces of it removed and some small brackets welded on below for some mini indicators. The last one I did many years ago. I've bought enough tube to replicate two of the mountings but it's just plain tube so I'll have to fabricate the other bits. Should be fun . As a Yorkshireman I feel unable to spend more money than is necessary, even if it does create a lot of work. |
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Post by midlifecrisisrd on Jun 12, 2023 13:47:21 GMT 1
the other has all traces of it removed and some small brackets welded on below for some mini indicators That may be originally like that 🤔 Jap bikes never had the tube, they had mounting bracket tabs like you say Been looking for one but not many worked there way over here Steve |
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Post by JonW on Jun 12, 2023 14:17:16 GMT 1
Id like a Japanese one as well for my 251LC. Didnt know about them until you mentioned it Steve. I could have done this one like one of those. hmm... I did have the bar tho, so hard to not do it OEM. JDM for completness:  |
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Post by steve63 on Jun 12, 2023 14:29:29 GMT 1
the other has all traces of it removed and some small brackets welded on below for some mini indicators That may be originally like that 🤔 Jap bikes never had the tube, they had mounting bracket tabs like you say Been looking for one but not many worked there way over here Steve No, I did it myself. If you're going to remove it, do it 100% I say . The brackets I welded on were very similar to those in your picture but a bit smaller. I'll see if I have a picture somewhere. I did the same with the main stand brackets, cut them off and sanded all trace of them away. I've seen a few hacked off ones and it looks like a bodge. |
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Post by JonW on Jun 12, 2023 14:38:36 GMT 1
If i ever find another subframe, I'll do this for the 251LC as I have a cut rg250 rear subframe with some similar brackets on what is left of it. (pic from ebay)  |
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Post by JonW on Jun 25, 2023 14:19:58 GMT 1
Next part to fix... the kind of side stand you'd not bother to fix a few years back... This is one that Dusty gave me, it had seen better days... even been cut off a bike lol. It had a missing (ground down) foot, some iffy welding repairs and of course the remains of the cut off end of bolt and the saw had sliced away the edge of the yoke when cutting off the bolt. Drilled the bolt and recut the thread and built up some of the foot today... but, then my cheapo linisher seized! sigh... will have to see if the brushes havent just dropped into the motor or something. Pics only of the raw material, ive not finished yet... its the one on the right:   Arrows point to the cut away edge of the yoke and the rusted in bolt end.  Cheers again Dusty for this part! |
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Post by JonW on Jun 30, 2023 8:46:20 GMT 1
To finish off the side stand I need to use my linisher... So I stripped it and I found what is broken. It hadnt seized at the motor as suspected, instead the belt gave up the ghost! Check this out!  It still ran and only stopped as it jumped off the pulley! The bottom of the (captive) belt case was full of dust and chunks of belt… no wonder it’s been running weirdly. Amazing it ran at all really. So… New belt ordered… it’s a washing machine belt apparently. Anyway…. time waits for no man… The 'trashed shite into usable parts’ continues... With... {drumroll!}... the grab rail. I bought this one in the UK in December on ebay and a mate of mine brought it over with him when he came for new year. Thanks Lee! It was rashed on one corner and a bit rusty in places. Not awful, but not usable as it was. I could have re-plated it, but that’s not what I was after… Chrome is so, er… 70s lol I blasted it and cleaned up some of the rash with a file, then built powder coat up over the road rash area (three coats) and after a sand to re-profile that area I did one final cover coat over the whole rail. It came out pretty well i think. Ive done these before and some come out better than others, it all depends on how much effort you put into covering and sanding the repair before you do the final coat. Ie its in the prep... just like any coating, even paint. Something the pros wont bother doing for you tho, unless they know you I guess. I reckon it looks fine, and now the plugs are in the open ends you’d never know it was previously damaged. I reckon it's going to be perfect on my ‘all black bike’.  Of course as you can see in the pics (bit of a giveaway!)... it could not be black on its own, just the grab rail black would look weird I reckon. So, Ive also done a headlight bezel set as well as that’s the only other dressy chrome on the LC. My 421LC is like this and I like the look on that bike. Both the inner and outer bezel are fully repaired OEM Yamaha junk parts. I received a couple of outers when a mate was chucking them out and put them in the mix with some inners Id already got as I'd replaced them with NOS parts on bikes Id already built as they showed damage. The bent outers were like 3D figures of 8. (figures of 16... or is that 64?). Pretty much any LC that gets dropped seems to land on one side of the headlight bezel - the speed and angle I believe dictate just how much rash, deep gouges and bends the bezels get and in how many directions, X Y and Z... and some have been crashed more than once! I wish I'd taken before pics, but I didnt. To be honest I wasnt sure I could fix them. Hours of adjusting, bending and and rebending... plus tapping out dents and even welding up bigger damage meant I actually managed to get 2 full sets like this from the junk parts I had. To give you an idea of the effort, these parts actually had a couple of powder coating trips as I wasnt happy with the first results. Re-bending / re-sanding and re-coating finally helped get them to be good enough to be tested/proved on a headlight bowl in the final stages and this really helped as well - what looks round or flat to the naked eye, isnt always 'LC fitment' lol. Since I do my own powder coating at a mate's workshop (Thanks Nick!) it was ok to take them home and do more work on them and go back and try again. I dont think any pro coater would be very happy with all the messing about of course, but it shows what you can do if you put your mind to it I guess. Most wont want to faff about overcoating let alone doing thin or thick coats where you want and sanding in between lol To be honest the hours that went into making these usable is not something I would recommend is right for everyone, but while super time consuming it is very satisfying work as they were defo parts that would ordinarily have gone in the bin, especially the outer bezels. But that's exactly what this bike is about : Genuine FULL restoration - "Junk to gold!" (Er, or at least 'usable') Here is one of these bezels built up and finished. I fitted new parts from Yam... other than the flat/wide head short M5 screws with are NLA… but can be found lots of places, and don’t need to be gen yam of course - Mine came from Aliexpress.   The only thing Im wondering now is if i should have done these as gloss back to match the bodywork… hmm... (pics hosted my Naith… Cheers m8! |
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Post by donkeychomp on Jun 30, 2023 22:50:52 GMT 1
Can we look at all this from a 'green' perspective? You salvage and repair parts that would normally be binned outright. The cost of saving them is negligible. The cost of buying new isn't. So you are healing the planet, albeit in your own tiny way, and doing a damn good job at it to boot. Another example is some dickhead I had the misfortune to meet the other day at the coffee shop. He drove a Tesla and was chatting to someone about how green his car was and if we all had cars like this pollution would be zero the world over. I had to point out Lora parked outside and how much greener that car was than his washing machine with 2 tons of batteries that can't be safely disposed of and how much acid rain the it creates just to make the fekkin batteries etc. He got a bit miffed. I felt like punching his lights out.
But I digress, superb work Jon and I wouldn't expect anything else. Keep it up matey!
Alex
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Post by JonW on Jul 1, 2023 1:53:38 GMT 1
Thanks for the kind words mate. Its appreciated. I do think that's a valid approach to older things. There certainly is an argument that making a new 'something' (especially an electric car) is worse for the environment than keeping an oldie on the road. Not least the batteries etc. I saw a video about the fields of Chinese electric bicycles and cars by Serpenza (sp?) the other day, that makes for scary viewing... but I digress... But, I'll digress a bit more... What irks me is the locals here insist of burning wood in heaters in winter. Sending all manner of soot and embers over my house and cars. Their smoke is unregulated. Car emissions are really low now, but you can burn what you like (and make all the smoke you want) with a log burner it seems... plus you can still call yourself green... yet no one can see you under the thick cloud of blue/grey emissions. Not very clever in 2023 and yet the council tell me they have no plans to regulate wood burning for heating. Go figure. Anyway, this thread isnt about cars or other emissions, weve got another one for that of course. But, yes I do wholeheartedly believe its in our interests to not send damaged LC parts to landfill. Not only does that mean that we dont have to make new ones, but we also dont need to find a more space to store our cast offs while it degrades. Disintegrating bits of motorbike dont do the local environment much good either and some of it is plastic of course. Im sure the hours of using a blaster and an oven for powder coating plus the powder itself wasnt exactly bigging up my green credentials, but saving the parts for use on this bike must be making a difference overall as you say Alex. Anything we can recycle as humans must be helping. Either way, Im happy to be reusing old OEM parts. Of course, for those new to this, the simplest way to getting a black headlight bezel is to buy an aftermarket headlight and simple have the bezels coated. No work is required; pay money, strip and take to your PC'er of choice. The grabrail isnt as easy, but eventually someone will do a good aftermarket unit i'm sure. But... and I think I'm preaching to the converted when I ask; where is the fun in that?! |
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