Restoring Zephanie

[Stereordinary]

Thought it was about time to post a thread on the restoration of my bike, post accident. As documented in another thread, I was rear-ended while fully stopped at a red light, back on December 14th 2021. Here's a photo from that.

Thankfully I walked away from that with little more than some soreness and bruising. There was months of dealing with insurance, and during that time I had to really contemplate whether or not I'd be keeping the bike and attempting to repair it. Once I'd really spent some time surveying the damage, I felt confident that I would be able to fix it, so I settled with insurance, and the bike is now on a rebuilt title. Ultimately I will be doing some mods to it, but that's for a later post.

Rewinding back to just after the accident, and inspecting what I was dealing with, the worst of the damage was a slight bend in the rear subframe. I don't even know if you can see it in this photo, but it's right there behind the left side rear shock.

I grabbed a few of my coworkers and a bicycle frame straightening lever, and we simply bent it back. It took all three of us, but we got it, and it looks nice and straight now.

I started taking off the bad bits, and cleaning up whatever still good bits I had. This gave me a good idea of what I needed to purchase, and as luck would have it, a seller on eBay just happened to be parting out an entire ZR550 right when I needed some of those important bits, so I worked out a deal and got my grubby mits on a list of items. Mostly the fuel tank, front fender, side covers, and rear cowl. I went back later for the rear shocks, and rear fender. Other things I got from other sellers on eBay, and a few things from WeBike.

More momentarily...

[Stereordinary]

A few more photos.

[Stereordinary]

[Stereordinary]

Let's see, so there was the fenders, all the plastics, shocks, headlamp, gauges, front turn signal bracket, and what seemed like the biggest problem, the front brake leak. Now, the front brake leak may have been there before the accident. I had started to notice that I was getting a little less stopping power for about a week before. But it's also possible that the accident exacerbated the leak. Either way, I figured that a full front brake rebuild with new seals, hoses, and pistons wouldn't be a bad idea anyway, so I ordered all the supplies, and set out to do the rebuild.

First thing was disassembly and cleaning.

In the process of cleaning the brake calipers, I did a stupid. My genius ass thought that if the brake caliper paint was resistant to brake fluid, and brake cleaner, surely it wouldn't be phased by acetone, right? So you can imagine my facepalm moment, when sure enough, all the paint started coming off. Great. Just made a simple job complicated. I set about stripping and sanding all the paint off, and prepping the calipers for new paint. I ended up on the phone with a rep from Cerakote, and he convinced me to splurge a little and get one of their starter kits. I'm glad I did too, because it was a great painting experience.

[Stereordinary]

The paint sat untouched for a full week, as recommended by Cerakote, but also because I was vacationing in DC for a week anyway, so that worked out nicely. Getting back to it, I was putting in the new brake pistons, some stainless steel deals from BrakeMasters.

But I did not realize that their pistons are designed to be used without the thermoplastic inserts that came stock in the brakes. I managed to get one of them in with some hammering, but the other one wouldn't go in at all. Of course this was when I messaged BrakeMasters and they told me not to use them, and that now I would have to cut out the one that I'd hammered in there. Guys, do you know how difficult it is to drill or otherwise cut that stupid thermoplastic? It sucked. A lot. But I managed to get it with a Dremel.

Don't do this:

[Stereordinary]

Here's the finished repainted and assembled brake caliper, and a photo from the remounting and bleeding process. Note the new stainless steel braided brake lines from HEL Performance.

[Stereordinary]

Next thing I needed to address was the gauges. This is still an ongoing thing, but I needed to get the bike operational and out of my work building, so I just went the easy route. Which is that I bought a used set of gauges off eBay, transferred my original speedo and tach inside, and mounted them. It looks ok for now, but there are some cracks in the plastic, and other scuffs, and one of the mounting bolts is kind of not really actually attached to anything, making them sit at a funny angle, and wobble a bit. Since I was buying parts and had a nice healthy budget thanks to the insurance settlement, I also nabbed a set of mini gauges. I got one from 4into1.com, and the other from WeBike, cause that was the only way I could get a compatible matching set. So I still need to make a bracket to mount them, and run up the odometer to match my bike's actual mileage, but I do think that I will end up using them. Another stock set of replacement gauges for this bike is basically unattainable at this point, so aftermarket is pretty much my only option. But love it or hate it, they're practically half the weight, so there is an upside.

Photos!

[Stereordinary]

So after all that I thought I was done. Bike was looking good in her new red dress, and everything seemed fully functional.

But of course, it wouldn't start. Tried all kinds of stuff, load test on the battery, rebuilt the carbs...

At some point I had the carbs out for the third or fourth time, and I took the opportunity to install a new manual cam chain tensioner. Apparently I forgot to take a photo of that.

I think about two weeks went by, just trying to get it started almost every day. Finally pulled the spark plugs...

Bingo. Put a new set in, and she fired right up. Does anybody have a good reliable way to clean sooty spark plugs? The ones I pulled out weren't very old, and I'd like to see if they're still good.

[Fishrider]

Nice job so far. I think there are a number of spark plug cleaners on the market. That and a wire brush should do it.

[Stereordinary]

With that, I've been back on two wheels again, after three whole months.

Already I've done maybe 80 miles or so. Not a lot by some standards, but for me that's a decent amount. I've been taking it pretty easy, partly because I'm cautiously making sure the bike is in fact buttoned up ok to be safe to ride, and partly because my riding confidence has taken a little dip after not riding for three months. Keep in mind I'm new to riding in general.

So what's left to do, and what are the mods planned going forward?

• I think the front brake may still need to be bled a little bit. I've done this multiple times, but it still feels like I'm having to pull the lever in too much to get good aggressive braking.
• Also, those old spark plugs seem to be an indication that she's running a little rich. I'm keeping good records of fuel mileage, as maybe the carb clean was enough, but I may have to get in there and turn the fuel/air mix screws in a quarter turn or so.
• Gauge swap, as mentioned above.
• USD fork swap. Yes, I've been vocal about this for a long time, despite my better judgement, I'm still researching options for doing a front end swap to some nice upside down forks. I've actually already bought two sets of forks thinking that they would work, but one set (ZXR250) is too short, and the other set (ZX9R) is too long. So the search continues.

And that's basically it for now, other than showing off the nifty little Renntec rack I've got installed now. This will be handy as me and some buddies have a moto trip planned in July.