Cheers people. Here's the next installment.
Once I got the bits home I was like a kid with a new toy. I hadn't felt so excited about a project as with this one, so I started to sift through all of the boxes of parts to see what I had.
As Sir trev says there were loads of parts, three full engines in various states of disrepair, fork legs, wheels, downpipes, the list went on. One thing that was missing was virtually every nut & bolt, DOH! Luckily the larger engine & wheel bolts were there, so it was just the smaller fixings, which were going to be replaced with stainless items anyway. I sifted through the parts, finding the best items & started to put the jigsaw together with 2nd hand bolts that have been kept from previous rebuilds to see if I had a full bike, which I had.
So now the real rebuild starts.
1st things 1st. I stripped her back down, bagged up all of the large bolts & springs & took them to the local platers for zinc plating. While they were away, the frame was taken for powder coating & I scoured Ebay for stainless bolts & found a company called Kay's Fasteners that sold stainless flange bolts & nuts, which looked far better than standard, so ordered a selection of sizes.
While I was waiting for the big bits to be done, I ordered new swinging arm bushes, rear shock nuts & rear brake torque arm bolts direct from Suzuki, boy, they know how to charge!
1st to be done was the plating, so that was taken into the shed until the frame arrived.
After a couple of weeks of waiting, I rang the powder coaters to see if the frame had been done "Sorry mate, forgot to call you, yes it's done". So off I trundled & collected the frame, swing arm & stands
So, we have a frame, a load of plated bolts & springs & new headrace bearings, it would be rude not to put the jigsaw bits back together.
Next on the agenda were the wheels. Being honest they weren't in too bad a condition, but it still took over 2 hours of wire wool & Autosol to get each wheel lookng something like. Once I'd cleaned them I sat down, very patiently & painted the insides black.
I had about 3 sets of forks, but each set of stanctions were quite badly rusted, so started to look at rechroming. I found a company about 4 miles from me, but they wanted to charge £165, which I thought was a little steep. Somebody on the X5 Facebook page said that they had used GS125 stanctions in their x5 lowers. I found a set on Ebay for 70 quid, they were in exceptional condition, so bought them, stripped & cleaned the fork legs, fitted new seals & fitted the forks to the bike. This is where the next problem occured. As I tightened the right fork leg, the bottom yoke decided to break. It turned out that there was a crack in it that I hadn't seen. Luckily I had another one, so cleaned it, sprayed it black & fitted it back on the frame. Job done.
Other things that got the clean & paint attention were the clocks, & rear end, it's starting to look like a motorbike now.
I turned my attention to the engine. I had 3 engines in bits, so tried to find the best parts to build one good base to start with. I cleaned & sprayed the crankcase covers & put the bottom end together. All of the top ends were in a bit of a state with oversize pistons between .5 & 1mm, not too good to be honest as I wanted to have them rebored to be as good as new.
Luckily a friend of mine contacted me & said that his mate had a fully rebuilt engine that I could have for £100. I bit his hand off & said yes.
Unfortunately, when i came to strip the engine, it was in quite a mess. The only plus point was that it was still on standard size barrels & pistons. I told my mate who said that his mate would take £50 for it. Sold!
I sent the barrels away to Grampian motors for a rebore. They had a week's turnaround & use decent, Japanese oversize pistons. They did a great job.
So, we now have a rolling chassis with a bottom end of an engine all looking rather nice.
Next step will be to start on the smaller, more niggly bits that take the time & money.