It lives to see another day
Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:20 pm
My son bought my '04 last year when my '16 came in. During Father's day he and his '04 blessed me with their presence all weekend to black it out. It seems that Cerulean Silver is not a cool color to have in College Station Tx. Last October he had a little incident with it east of town on a FM road while hooning it with some buddies and he missed a turn. He was very lucky that he slid off into a field and walked away without a scratch. The bike was not so lucky. It tweaked the forks, main fairing stay, and bashed up the tupperware. All in all, things could've been much worse for his feej, we were able to reuse his oem tupperware which had been replaced earlier with a black Chinese fairing kit.
Because I hadn't seen the bike yet and we weren't sure the extent of the damage, we decided to buy some forks from a forum member who was parting his out, along with a low miles oem shock. His feej's suspenders were definitely tired and due for a rebuild, especially his leaky fork seals. So we began gathering the parts we knew we would need along with a very nice oem windshield because his old one was hazed up.
We got started on it in February, but on disassembly discovered that there were some broken mounting brackets that would need to be ordered, it was not a problem except that he needed to head back Sunday night. So we agreed to pick things back up again after said parts arrived. We planned to do a weekend in March, but got rained out, the second weekend we shot for later in March also got rained out. Part of the issue is he lives around 3 hours away, so I said never mind, I'll just do the finish out on it.
We originally feared that the fork tubes might've gotten bent because of the way he described the crash and how the bike veered afterward, but in the end they were fine and had merely slipped out of adjustment in the triple clamps. Still, the fork seals and springs were shot, so we ordered the stuff and I did the overhaul last month. This weekend was the one where this little project was going to get done one way or another with no more interruptions, cause dad has his own shite to work on, like an aux tank.
This is what was staring back at me at 8am this morning. The forks have a fresh rebuild with new seals, bushings, and springs. Can't see it here, but the low miles shock is in and ready to go. We had to tweak and caress the fairing stay back into shape. The right side impact had bent it back about 5/8" meaning the left side was also bent around 5/8" forward. It's steel and the welds held up ok, so with careful measurements, we were able to work the kinks out and get things lined back up again. I love my Gen III, but I have to say the cast aluminum stay in it would not have survived this kind of impact. I figure the couple of hours we spent on it saved him some benjies.
The backyard paint job Friday actually came out pretty decent all things considered. There's something about wet paint that seems to scream out to bugs and trash to come and contaminate it. Weather for that day wound up being excellent for this task.
This piece had some stress cracks around three of the bolt holes. I managed to repair it using a soldering iron and some scrap abs plastic to weld the cracks back together. Only problem was when I sanded the surface smooth, I'd gone through the paint and had some significant patches of bare plastic. The paint supply store guy Friday was happy to recommend and sell me some adhesion promoter made just for this exact application, throw some primer over that, wait 30 minutes, and then it was turned black. I was a little concerned about this piece because I'd not done this repair procedure before, but it worked out just fine.
After around 6 hours and a couple of trips to the store, I was able to get things buttoned up. These shots were taken just before the shakedown run. I think he's going to be pleased with the new suspenders. I'd say this bike now rides smoother than mine does.
Because I hadn't seen the bike yet and we weren't sure the extent of the damage, we decided to buy some forks from a forum member who was parting his out, along with a low miles oem shock. His feej's suspenders were definitely tired and due for a rebuild, especially his leaky fork seals. So we began gathering the parts we knew we would need along with a very nice oem windshield because his old one was hazed up.
We got started on it in February, but on disassembly discovered that there were some broken mounting brackets that would need to be ordered, it was not a problem except that he needed to head back Sunday night. So we agreed to pick things back up again after said parts arrived. We planned to do a weekend in March, but got rained out, the second weekend we shot for later in March also got rained out. Part of the issue is he lives around 3 hours away, so I said never mind, I'll just do the finish out on it.
We originally feared that the fork tubes might've gotten bent because of the way he described the crash and how the bike veered afterward, but in the end they were fine and had merely slipped out of adjustment in the triple clamps. Still, the fork seals and springs were shot, so we ordered the stuff and I did the overhaul last month. This weekend was the one where this little project was going to get done one way or another with no more interruptions, cause dad has his own shite to work on, like an aux tank.
This is what was staring back at me at 8am this morning. The forks have a fresh rebuild with new seals, bushings, and springs. Can't see it here, but the low miles shock is in and ready to go. We had to tweak and caress the fairing stay back into shape. The right side impact had bent it back about 5/8" meaning the left side was also bent around 5/8" forward. It's steel and the welds held up ok, so with careful measurements, we were able to work the kinks out and get things lined back up again. I love my Gen III, but I have to say the cast aluminum stay in it would not have survived this kind of impact. I figure the couple of hours we spent on it saved him some benjies.
The backyard paint job Friday actually came out pretty decent all things considered. There's something about wet paint that seems to scream out to bugs and trash to come and contaminate it. Weather for that day wound up being excellent for this task.
This piece had some stress cracks around three of the bolt holes. I managed to repair it using a soldering iron and some scrap abs plastic to weld the cracks back together. Only problem was when I sanded the surface smooth, I'd gone through the paint and had some significant patches of bare plastic. The paint supply store guy Friday was happy to recommend and sell me some adhesion promoter made just for this exact application, throw some primer over that, wait 30 minutes, and then it was turned black. I was a little concerned about this piece because I'd not done this repair procedure before, but it worked out just fine.
After around 6 hours and a couple of trips to the store, I was able to get things buttoned up. These shots were taken just before the shakedown run. I think he's going to be pleased with the new suspenders. I'd say this bike now rides smoother than mine does.
