Ninja Race Bike - 4
The last couple of weeks have not been very good for posting up motorcycle content. Usual life events seemed to pile up and most of my time was spent outside of the garage despite my best efforts. Last Sunday I finally got back in the garage and have been hitting up the race bike preparations pretty hard. Take a look and see some of the progress below.
First off I did a little shopping on Sunday to get some tools that will speed up the safety wore drilling. I look at every project with its different challenges as just another opportunity to continue to outfit my shop with more tools. Through the judicious use of coupons and spare cash over the last few years I have just about anything I could want for every situation. They may not be the best tool, but they are the right tools.
Here is my new 8" drill press and 4" drill press vise. I got these specifically to finish up the safety wire drilling, but I know they will be useful for many other things along the way. The speed at which I have been able to drill out the bolt heads has tripled and I haven't broken any more bits.
This is just a bit closer into the shot above so you can see how I positioned the bolt in the vise. I used a washer to give the vise jaws some extra grip and pinched the bolt head between the vise jaws so that when the bit punches through, it doesn't hit anything. I punched a mark in the spot where I wanted the hole to go through to keep the bit from wandering and lined up the vise underneath the chuck. I powered through three of these banjo bolts in the time it took me to drill one bolt with my hand drill. I set the speed of the drill press to its lowest speed of about 760 rpm and it just moves right through the metal.
And here are the results. I know the picture is a bit fuzzy. I couldn't get the camera to focus on the metal, it kept wanting to focus on my fingers. You can see that I got the hole lined up nice and straight right where I punched my mark.
The other side however didn't go through as straight. I suspect that it is too much pressure by me on the feed handle causing some drill bit flex with the 3/32" bits I use. I could hear the sound of the bit scratching at the metal instead of the smooth sound of the bit boring its way through. I had two that went like this. Both are still useable, but it just lets me know to slow down a bit to ensure I get through the head nice and straight.
And then I go and do this. This one veered off another way and punched itself through the bolt head face. In the end I could still use this with safety wire,but it looks ugly and might cut the safety wire when I tighten it. I did slow down my feed a bit, but it looks like I need to slow some more. I will also look into getting cutting oil and maybe changing the bit as this one might be dull past the point of recovery.
Some other things I did to the bike were the removal of some unnecessary weight including the grab handle and passenger pegs. According to the CVMA rulebook, I don't need to remove these. Since I want to make the bike legal for as many club races as possible I checked both WERA and AFM. Removal of both of these items is mandated in their rule books so off they came.
I also took the time to redo some of my earlier safety wiring attempts now that I have practiced some. For the most part it came out better, but it took a few tries at times. I still have both brake caliper banjo bolts and the oil system to wire up, but I don't want to do anything that keeps me from doing some road testing on the bike. That is my plan for this week. After that I will finish up the other safety requirements and then start looking at upgrades like new fork springs and roller bearings for the triple trees. Time is running short, but I believe I'll be ready for January.
Blue
First off I did a little shopping on Sunday to get some tools that will speed up the safety wore drilling. I look at every project with its different challenges as just another opportunity to continue to outfit my shop with more tools. Through the judicious use of coupons and spare cash over the last few years I have just about anything I could want for every situation. They may not be the best tool, but they are the right tools.
This is just a bit closer into the shot above so you can see how I positioned the bolt in the vise. I used a washer to give the vise jaws some extra grip and pinched the bolt head between the vise jaws so that when the bit punches through, it doesn't hit anything. I punched a mark in the spot where I wanted the hole to go through to keep the bit from wandering and lined up the vise underneath the chuck. I powered through three of these banjo bolts in the time it took me to drill one bolt with my hand drill. I set the speed of the drill press to its lowest speed of about 760 rpm and it just moves right through the metal.
And here are the results. I know the picture is a bit fuzzy. I couldn't get the camera to focus on the metal, it kept wanting to focus on my fingers. You can see that I got the hole lined up nice and straight right where I punched my mark.
The other side however didn't go through as straight. I suspect that it is too much pressure by me on the feed handle causing some drill bit flex with the 3/32" bits I use. I could hear the sound of the bit scratching at the metal instead of the smooth sound of the bit boring its way through. I had two that went like this. Both are still useable, but it just lets me know to slow down a bit to ensure I get through the head nice and straight.
And then I go and do this. This one veered off another way and punched itself through the bolt head face. In the end I could still use this with safety wire,but it looks ugly and might cut the safety wire when I tighten it. I did slow down my feed a bit, but it looks like I need to slow some more. I will also look into getting cutting oil and maybe changing the bit as this one might be dull past the point of recovery.
Some other things I did to the bike were the removal of some unnecessary weight including the grab handle and passenger pegs. According to the CVMA rulebook, I don't need to remove these. Since I want to make the bike legal for as many club races as possible I checked both WERA and AFM. Removal of both of these items is mandated in their rule books so off they came.
I also took the time to redo some of my earlier safety wiring attempts now that I have practiced some. For the most part it came out better, but it took a few tries at times. I still have both brake caliper banjo bolts and the oil system to wire up, but I don't want to do anything that keeps me from doing some road testing on the bike. That is my plan for this week. After that I will finish up the other safety requirements and then start looking at upgrades like new fork springs and roller bearings for the triple trees. Time is running short, but I believe I'll be ready for January.
Blue
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