Dutch FT project

[ex119x]

just bought a set of cb700sc rear shocks as was recommended in the ' race bike' thread.

I thnk you will like the shocks. I have mine set on the next to highest spring preload and middle on the damping. That is for race use and I weigh about 120 K. If you are lighter and riding on the street I would start on the softest settings for damping and preload.

[FT500R]

just got these bad boys in the mail

[WTF304]

That's a monster light .... what that come off of ? .... might look real good with an HID ...

[FT500R]

Its definitely BIG! it's quite old too.
It says made in Japan on the glass. if I were to guess I would say it comes from a suzuki gsx1100e or something similar.

[FT500R]

Changed the fork seals of the fireblade forks yesterday.




next up are the stem bearings and fabrication of spacers and bushings to fit the brakes to the wire wheel.

[FT500R]

altered my top and bottom yoke today.
Got rid of the steering stops on the bottom yoke and the hole for the ignition switch in the top yoke.
Ill paint them later today.

[triguyracer]

Question about the cb700sc shocks been looking on ebay and see there are quite a few for sale,most list them as 15 inches eyelet to eyelet.My stock ones are 13 inches,am I missing something when I look at ones to buy,did they use diff ones on some models that where shorter or longer ?

[FT500R]

they are longer than the stock ones, don't know exactly how long. Ill measure them later.

I've finished painting the yokes!

[WTF304]

It is possible..... the one's i put on mine were from a CB550 nighthawk same year as my FT .... fit fine just had to swap 1 bushing from the FT stockers to the CB's. If anything those should fit it and if there was any difference between the CB's it would have been due to position and weight, only sense i can make from that. Had to but some M16 washers from homedepot cause the width of the eye's were shorter to space the tops like they should be but the bottom eye's were exact.

[ex119x]

The shocks from the 700 Nighthawk are substantially longer. The point is to change the steering head angle. Stock it is raked out too far and gives lazy handling. By raising the rear end and going to a slightly smaller front wheel you are rotating the entire bike and decreasing the steering head angle to a more sportbike like angle. I haven't measured mine, but I should. That in combination with the straight in line forks from a CBR instead of the stock leading axle forks makes the front end very responsive. I like a steering damper at that point because the bike can feel a little twitchy at times.

[FT500R]

just got word from the guy who made my spacers!

he also made my day

the shocks are 37 cm long (center eye to center eye) so about 14,6 inches

this was a rough measurement though.

looking forward to your topic patrick4wd!

[FT500R]

i've test fitted the spacers and bushings.
Looks good!:



ofcourse I couldn't resist to put the wheel in the front forks.



Fortunately the caliper runs free from the spokes (forgot to measure)
One of the claws hits the claw mount on the forks while the other one fits behind it. I can try to solve this by making the right bushing a bit smaller or I'll solve it with the adapter plates for the claws which I'll have to make anyway.

Any tips on cleaning a spoked wheel? tried with WD40 and some sanding linnen but that doesn't sort the wanted effect.

[thumb]

spent quite a few hours over the years cleaning rusty spokes and lacquering them ,only for them to rust up with the year again
Have a look at these on the Evil bay search "spoke skins"

[triguyracer]

steal wool works good,I have 3 of the xs650 wheels and forks with alloy triple clamps that I use on my vintage dirt trackers.A drill with a fine wire wheel works good also,1000 or 2000 grit sandpaper works, a bit of grunt work but will work well 

[FT500R]

I've made some time this weekend to work on the little thumper:

First I swapped the original head bearings with conical ones



The conical head bearings for a FT fit nicely on the Fireblade stem. It's incredible how easy a set fireblade forks can be fitted this way.

Together with the fireblade forks, the XS650 wheel, FZR1000 discs and Multistrada calipers my frankenstein bike looks like this:



I have to fabricate some adapters for the calipers to fit to the forks.


The next day I test-fitted the BMW F650 rear wheel



I've also removed the rear to see what I would want to change:


I'm still in doubt about the BMW rear wheel.
The hub is quite wide, this gives some issues with chain allignment. It also rubs on the brake caliper mount (easy grinder fix though)

Both the rear sprocket and the brakedisc are a different diameter as the stock FT so that might give some issues aswell.

I'm also thinking that a 18 inch wheel might look a bit better...

Does anyone know a bike with a 18 inch spoked rear wheel with discbrakes? preferably honda because those are like lego's

cheers Paul

[WTF304]

Man that looks sweet .... i like how it looks, keep at it.

[triguyracer]

You might try looking for a used late model motorcross or dual sport bike that uses a disk on the rear there are many to chose from.Your build looks great

[Kornfed]

Curious about the progress.
Did you finish the bike?

[FT500R]

After many many moons of inactivity I decided to give the project another go this weekend.
Where the bike was still technically ridable in the past I figured that if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right and really disassemble it.
Warning the pictures are quite horrific, the bike has been under this cover for over a year.



The bike was surprisingly easy to tear down. Took me about 1,5 hours from the first to the last picture.
Plan is to do the engine first. I'm not going to give it a complete overhaul but just do some basic maintenance (valves, camchain etc), freshen up the paint and all new stainless steel bolts.
After/in parallel I'm trying to source and fit a Honda nx650 or transalp rear spoked wheel.
Eventually the plan is to turn it into a nice little bratstyle bike to blast around the city on.

I'll keep you guys posted on any progress

[J6G1Z]

Holy cow Paul! Those are some tough working conditions. Glad to see that you're still at it. Keep up the good work.

J.

[FT500R]

Yep,
Thats one of the reasons that progress has been very slow.
Every time I disassembled the bike I had to make sure I was able to assemble it again within the day.
Unfortunately a real garage is almost unobtainable here in Amsterdam.

I've taken the engine inside now so I can work on it during the evenings in my living room.

This project will never be a fast paced one but nonetheless I hope to eventually have a nice little bike that I can enjoy.

[J6G1Z]

Do you have a back porch, balcony, or maybe even a bath-tub? 

You wouldn't be the first guy to build a bike in his living room.

Good luck
J.

[FT500R]

I do have a balcony and since the weather today was very good in the early evening I decided to work on the engine a bit.

Armed with a ton of de-greaser, a copper brush, some steel wool and a lot of toilet paper I tried to clean the very dirty engine.

I realized quite quickly that Honda did not design the engine with cleaning in mind, way to much unreachable nooks and crannies.

This is how bad it was:




After some scrubbing (who ever had the idea to make these large crevasses where chain grease builds up?)


The eventual some what clean result


Goal of today was not to get it shiny clean but clean enough so I can have it in my living room without receiving to many complaints
I you guys have tips how to better clean it, especially in the small corners and in between the cooling fins they are more than welcome.

I also removed the rev cable mounting. Ill probably fabricate some sort of plastic insert and than cap it using a small steel plate using the original bolt hole


Unfortunately I also discovered that I am not the first to tinker with the bike, I found a large array of different screws, nuts and bolts with this being the absolute winner:


After cleaning its time for ordering parts!
The FT has a strange angled inlet manifold to help clear the battery tray but since I'm not using this anymore I wanted a straight inlet.
In one of the old Yahoo message board files I found a post about the possibility to use a Harley inlet manifold for which you only needed to oval the mounting holes a bit.

I ordered it and got it in the mail some time ago

However the carb mounting hole is slightly smaller than the original carb (42 vs 44mm) after some persuasion it does actually fit.
I am a bit worried about the original bracket that holds the throttle cables but I'll test that later.

Next part is deciding on how to paint the engine.
I'm leaning towards this look

so silver/polished side covers and cam cover, black cilinder, cilinder head and polished cooling fins.

[J6G1Z]

I've used the foaming oven cleaning spray before. It is becoming difficult to find in the USA though. If you find some & try it, make sure you wear protective clothing, gloves & eye protection.

It looks like you might have a lot of rain in your area. Raw aluminum will not stay nice looking if it is exposed to moisture. It will turn chalky white, or worse. If you want a nice silver type of appearance, look for a Powder Coating shop. Here are a couple of wheels that I had powder coated.

J.

[J6G1Z]

Here is something else you might be interested in.

https://www.z1enterprises.com/bolt-set-ft500-ascot-82-83.html

http://www.ukbolt.co.uk/448-qty-kit-honda-ascot-activa-atlas-aviator-stainless-engine-frame-allen-bolt-65886-p.asp