The Safety Wiring Finale… I hope?!

Saturday I jumped into the shop ready to tackle the next thing on my list of race preps. As I was about to get  started I noticed a project I had forgotten about. I was thinking about refilling the oil when I noticed that I hadn't safety wired the oil feed to the cylinder head yet. From the various rulebooks I have reviewed as laying out my race bike prep plan, all of them have a line that states all bold that have pressure behind them need to be wired. This means all brake and oil banjos. The Ninja 250 has a feed line from the oil pump to the head that travels outside the engine case. It incorporates the low oil pressure switch that runs to the dash. 

The top fitting of the external oil line was easy. It is a simple banjo bolt. I had a supply of banjo crush washers and a pre-drilled bolt in my spares so I just swapped it out. I did drill the internal oil feed hole in the spare banjo out a bit as it was smaller than the OEM banjo. As this is the oil supply to the head I didn't want to have reduced oil flow. After cleaning the bolt with carb cleaner it went back together with no issues.

The lower end of the external oil feed hose that comes straight from the crankcase uses a bespoke banjo bolt that has a threaded top for the oil pressure switch as can be seen here on the right. I marked the bolt and chucked it into my drill press vise. The nut on the opposite end of the vise is just to even out the pressure of the vise jaw grip.

 

An action shot of the Harbor Freight Safety Wiring system in action. The challenge is getting the hole through edge of the bolt. I can't drill through the center of the bolt or oil will leak out and the face of the bolt is now at an angle to the drill bit. It took a bit of finagling to get the hole started. Once started it was no issue. Unfortunately I didn't get it far enough away from the center section and grazed the center cavity of the upper threaded area. Basically I ruined the part and will have to get a new one. 

In the mean time I just replaced the whole thing with an extra banjo bolt. A couple of new washers and a torque wrench and I was set. In the end it will work as I don't have a gauge cluster for the oil pressure sender to report to. I will have to replace my mangled part or find if there is another area on the case that I can tap for the oil pressure switch if I want to run a low oil pressure warning.

I finished up the day by going through all of the bolts that I have drilled and wired them up. In the pic above you have the oil filter and oil drain. I have wired and removed about 20 feet of wire over the last few months by doing all of this safety wiring. I know I will have to redo some of it before my first race. I'll be bringing my twist pliers and wire in case the tech inspectors need me to redo something.

After having safety wired the whole bike I can say that once you get the rhythm of drilling the bolt heads it is not that hard. You have to go slow and get some spare bits. I have broke about 10 bits while doing all these. I do understand the choice some guys make to buy pre-drilled bolts. The expense is too much for me and my budget race team (of one). Anyway, I will be doing more work in the shop so swing back on by and see what's up.

Blue