Slow Monster rebuild

[350TSS]

Scraped an hour in the garage today and roughly trimmed both the rear light holder and the number plate holder. The number plate holder needs to be trimmed at an angle at the top so that it clears the tyre on full suspension compression. I think once I have determined the angle I will bond a plate of CF on the top to stiffen the structure, also I need to make the plate to attach to the two truncated frame rails put two slots in the side of the holder then bond that in. I am currently thinking this holder will be semi-permanently attached to the seat so that seat removal will consist of undoing the latch, removing the two bolts to the frame rails and disconnecting the rear wiring AMP plug and the camera cable inside the hump.

I had originally envisaged leaving the number plate on the bike and connecting the two with Dzuz fasteners but the number plate lights and associated wiring will make this a bit messy.

[350TSS]

A good day, in the sense that I managed to make good some previous poor workmanship, but a bad day, in the sense that it took me nearly all day to achieve this. The intention was to attach the number plate bracket to the rear light holder. When I started I held the two bits where they were supposed to go against the seat latched to the frame and it looked all wrong. I managed to bond in the catch on the centreline of the CF seat without realising that the latch mechanism actually sits c12 mm to the right of the centre-line.
After a lot of messing about I managed to re-drill the 6mm alloy plate that holds the latch itself and the seat locating peg. I got away without having to make a new plate but it might have been quicker if I had. All sorted after about 3 hours and then I got to CF the number plate to the rear light holder.


Tomorrow I will tidy up the excess CF and attach a CF plate that picks up on the alloy bushes in the truncated rear frame rails and bond it to the above.
I have yet to work out precisely how I will route the cabling to the rear lights and the number plate lights, not forgetting the rear view camera cables (3) and how to make sure I can remove the seat with the minimum of fuss. I am hoping a solution will present itself when I have got it all bolted together as it almost depends on the length of the flying leads on the rear lights and the extent to which there is a straight or tortuous path to the inside of the seat hump.

[350TSS]

Not much actual progress today but I worked really hard.

First I cleaned up the excess CF from the number plate housing and, although it looks Ok and appears to be extremely strong for the weight, it is not quite square. I can probably finesse that in the mounting by spreading the un-squareness between the rear light position and the angle of the number plate, as the number plate will be more immediately visible the un-squareness will be largely lost on the lights. Annoying nevertheless as I spent some time trying to ensure it was square but it may have moved as I applied the second coat of resin and CF.
I then cut and trimmed the CF plate to pick up in the two truncated rear frame tubes which will act as a support for the rear light number plate mount.
Previously I had made the threaded plugs to go in the end of the truncated tubes, they were boxed up in a Chinese take-away box and I saw them last week whilst looking for something else, Could I find them now? About an hour was spent going through all the boxes (and there are lots of them). They seem to have vanished off the face of the earth. I went through the boxes a second time. I decided to make some new ones, this time a little larger in diameter as the old ones were just a tad loose when fitted to the frame tubes.

The rear frame tubes are nominally 18mm ID but the tubes are seamed so a precise ID is difficult to determine. The new bushes I made at 17.8mm OD for 22mm with a 5mm step at the end to the OD of the bar at 25mm OD. There is a longitudinal hole threaded 6mm.

The bushes started to go in OK with a little gentle persuasion from a soft faced mallet and got about 12mm in then stuck. A heavier 1kg soft face hammer was pressed into service with not inconsiderable vigour and they got to within 4mm of seating properly but would go no further. Bollides!!!!

So they had to come out, about an hour later they were out and then turned down again to 17.2mm and the damage inflicted on the flanges turned off. Finally they were driven home.

Over a cuppa I thought about the seat removal, the interface with the number plate unit and the frame and the wiring harness and realised that ease of removal was ultimately about reducing the number of interfaces. Also I considered the effect of the addition of the plate being attached to the frame and the seat/number plate unit. The conclusion was that any movement in the seat /number plate unit (caused by me moving around on the seat or descending heavily after hitting a bump) would cause compression loads on a 3mm thick sheet of CF and it would shatter/splinter over time around the bolt hole. Rubber mounting it would rather defeat the object of having the support plate. So best not bother after all and I now have threaded plugs in the frame tubes with 6mm threaded holes that I do not need.

[350TSS]

Some days, even though you spend a good few hours on a task and not much actual progress is made, you feel satisfied with the result because it turned out better than you expected. Yesterday was one of those days.
All I achieved was to get the number plate mount attached to the seat, and the mounting arrangements for the rear view camera and the all the rear lights sorted. This included the wiring routes and the means by which the seat can be quickly detachable. By keeping the number plate /rear light cluster mount semi- permanently attached to the seat both can be completely removed by a quarter turn of a 4mm allen key and the separation of I x 5 way amp connector and 2 camera cable connectors. All the wiring and associated connectors will be contained within the protected space of the seat hump and every transition through a CF panel is protected (semi sealed) by a rubber grommet (rather rubber blanking plugs converted into grommets).
The trouble with purpose designed grommets is that if you want a grommet over a 5mm cable the hole you have to drill is something like 12mm. The problem I had was that the camera cables had coax connectors 11mm diameter which needed a minimum 20mm hole for a proper grommet and in a lightweight construction like my rear number plate a couple of 20mm holes would seriously weaken the integrity of the structure. Also because a proper grommet is quite inelastic the hole through the middle had to be big enough to allow the largest connector and the other cables to pass through, so about 12mm but the actusl cables only amounted to c8mm so the grommet would not seal.
I used rubber electrical box blanking plugs and punched an appropriate sized hole I needed according to the size of the cable, these only required an 8mm size hole in the CF as the blanking plug was sufficiently elastic once the hole was punched to stretch over the large coax connectors. Undoubtedly the cable is less well protected against the CF edge but I am sure they will be OK long term particularly if the cable is adequately supported either side of the “grommet”.
The part I was most proud of doing yesterday was this:

The problem was to find a means of getting the rear wiring loom into the rear seat hump whilst limiting/preventing water ingress and reducing the chance of the CF chafing the cable loom (about 8mm diameter but with a 5 way AMP connector (hole required 40mm x 19mm) which if the seat was to be removable had to be extracted from the hump and disconnected).
I used a scrap bit of CF, some 20mm plastic electrical conduit with a groove machined to take an “O“ring. The machined plastic conduit was inserted into a 20mm hole cut in the CF and bonded in. Some closed cell rubber was inserted inside the tube to form a soft holder for the cable and then the complete component was cut in half with a hacksaw.
Two pivot holes were drilled 3mm at the apex of each half. And a small piece of 3mm polypropylene was cut to act as a friction free guide for the opening of the two “doors”. The “o” ring will be stretched over the AMP connector and once the loom was pushed into the seat hump will be rolled back over the two halves of the electrical conduit keeping the CF “doors” latched. Took some time to think through and make but pleased with the elegance of the solution, no additional bolts and 5 seconds to extract the connector.

[350TSS]

There was a slight setback today, I had intended to start pouring the ethanol resistant resin into the tank to seal it from the inside. I worked out that with the shape of the junction between the top and the bottom I will need 6 separate pours, I will position the tank so the part to be sealed is the lowest point and simply pour the mixture through the filler neck wait for that to cure and move to the next section.
Unfortunately I had forgotten that I had not finished smoothing down the JB water weld I used to bond the two halves together. After about an hour with 180 grit I had done about 150mm (total circumference about 1500mm), the stuff is very hard and does not readily “feather edge” like filler does. I eventually resorted to a half round file and made much better progress.


On one 100mm section the file kept clogging and I found that in that section the JB weld was still soft. Obviously I had not thoroughly mixed it before applying it. This had to be dug out with an electrical screwdriver and unfortunately most of the detritus ended up inside the tank. This section (middle of the right hand side) was repaired and the first pour of the ethanol resistant resin was undertaken (headstock area).

The number plate /rear light structure was filled and rubbed down and a small fillet of CF was added to stiffen it slightly (using the scrapings from the pot of the ethanol resistant resin). This will be ready for primer tomorrow as will the seat base.

The rest of the day was simply starting to tidy the garage, 90% of my CF work is now complete and there is CF and filler dust everywhere and this needs to be gone before the engine gets opened up.

Trouble is I am a dreadful hoarder and in moving things to sweep up I discovered an old 2.5 tonne trolley jack that was seized through being left in a damp shed at my father’s house (he died in 2003) and I have been tripping over it ever since. Every time I notice it (stub my toe on it) I give it a squirt of penetrating oil and give it a try to see if it has freed off. This was its last chance, one last squirt and a scaffold pole over the jacking tube, if no go then out the front for the scrap metal man. It freed off and once the corroded pin had been cleaned up it worked nearly as good as new – result. There is a lot of hours yet to get the garage first tidy then clean and I will probably come across about 20 other “projects” before I get a semblance of order.

[350TSS]

I missed a couple days in the garage collecting/buying essential stuff and then taking number one son to University. I couldn’t face garage clearance which does not seem like proper progress so yesterday and the day before was spent on a) a fourth pour of resin into the tank, b) painting the seat base and the rear light cluster (satin black) and c) putting together the rear light wiring harness.
The wires from the LED lights are minute, less than 1mm OD with insulation, there are 14 wires that have to be spliced to fit into a 5 way AMP connector. Getting the crimps to bite on such small wires was problematic so they had to be soldered and I had to remember to put heat shrink sleeve around the incoming wires so that the little yellow seals had something large enough to work on. I needed 3 or 4 hands and it was a fiddly and frustrating few hours. This was made a lot worse when I realised I had spent 3 hours making a female connection when I should have been making a male to marry with the main loom. DOH!!!!
I decided that it would be easier to solder and join the tiny wires to 5 x 1mm wires to go into the AMP connector and this was much easier and only took an hour or so to complete.
I also managed to cover the seat hump pad with ambla and fit the Dzuz fastener which turned out OK. The 12mm closed cell rubber foam was cut with scissors which, however careful you are, leaves a ragged edge which shows when the ambla is laid over the top. The edges of the foam were accordingly smoothed out with a drum sander on a battery drill. The rubber foam was then glued to the CF base with Evo Stik and the ambla laid over the top with only the edges glued to the back side of the CF. If you glue the ambla to the foam it is very easy to get bobbles of adhesive that show through. Also the ambla needs to be stretched over the foam and if glued you end up with creases because you only get one shot at laying the ambla on the foam with contact adhesive. Pictures to follow.
Pleasingly the fourth resin pour proved to be worthwhile as when I picked up the tank it was adhered to the towel that it was resting on - proving that the resin had found a potential leak from the seam and hopefully caulked it.

[350TSS]

As promised
search for bp gas stations

[350TSS]

Yesterday I made this


which is the first part of upholstering the seat. I wish I had thought more about the upholstery before I made the seat mould as I would have allowed for foam and the thickness of the ambla in the mould design. As it is the foam will have to sit on the outside of the seat pan and the lines at the tank junction / continuation of the tank bottom will be stepped. It is too late now for me to do anything about it.
The strap is made from ambla with 20mm Velcro to attach it to the mould. The ambla was cut 70mm wide and about 60mm longer each end than was needed to cover the hump. The furry loop side of the Velcro was glued to the back of the strap along the middle and the edges folded inwards and glued down. I originally intended to stretch the ambla and mechanically secure the ends under the seat but the addition of the Velcro removed any prospect of that as the Velcro does not stretch. This meant that the trailing edge of the strap, because of the curvature of the hump, was about 3mm too high so some black 4mm piping was then glued to both outer edges. I positioned the strap so the leading edge of the strap overhangs the removable rear hump pad, covering the unsightly junction between the pad and the seat hump, this will also act to limit the volume of water entering the glove box.
As to upholstering the beat base itself, I will use 6mm closed cell rubber over the top and sides of the seat pan and add two thicknesses of 12mm closed cell rubber on the top surface only. I will blend the edges with a drum sander - more dust in the garage.
Attaching the ambla for the base is bit problematic, at first I thought that I would simply glue some hook Velcro on the inside of the return underneath the seat. This will not work for two reasons, first the front and central seat mounts intrude into the space and there is insufficient depth for the Velcro to make a continuous run along each side, and, second I do not think velcro will adhere satisfactorily to the corrugated surface of raw CF and even if it does the corrugated profile will not allow the two halves of the velcro to mate satisfactorily.
Along the sides and the front edge I plan to screw some 3mm x 12 (or 15)mm csk socket cap screws with a nut on the inside about every 40mm along the bottom edge of the seat this will form a row of inward facing studs. The ambla will have holes punched 6mm to sit over the nuts. I will then cut 3 strips (1 each side and a curved one for the tank end of the seat) out of 3mm polypropylene about 12 to 15mm wide with holes drilled 6mm to clear the nuts on the studs. Once the ambla is positioned over the nuts, the polypropylene strips will be placed over the nuts and a 3mm x 12mm washer will be used to clamp the polypropylene strip and thus the ambla in place. If the nuts sit proud of the polypropylene strip a washer will be used so the clamping action is effective.
I can see the first side going on easily, the second will be tricky as the ambla will need to be stretched and the positioning of the punched holes will be critical for the finished product to look OK.
The attachment of the ambla at the seat pad end is extremely problematic as I have no return to screw studs to nor do I have any space for any fixing arrangement to sit underneath the seat pad. I really have not worked that one out yet.


I allowed 4 hours to do the seat upholstery and I have spent that already making the seat pad and the strap nevertheless my ETTC just got down to 150 hours. Also garage clear out is not progressing well, this stuff is far more entertaining.

[350TSS]

Garage clearance once more took a back seat over the past couple of days, first my son’s car failed MOT (rear tyre gone oval and a lack of brake force on NS rear wheel which turned out to be one of the two actuating pistons seized solid). I can see this job being a long haul as the rubber flexible brake pipes are quite hard and probably will not appreciate being clamped which means that I will have to put a rubber glove under the master cylinder cap and hope I do not lose all the fluid when I try to get the cylinder off. What was worse was that every time I got underneath the damn thing it started to tip it down. I bloody hate working on cars. Anyway, a new wheel cylinder is ordered and whilst I wait the attachment bolts, the brake pipe and bleed nipple get a good daily dosing of penetrating oil in the hope that the flange nut comes out without strangling the brake pipe itself.


Today the last pour of ethanol resistant resin was made into the tank. I will leave this for about a week to cure off properly before I test whether or not it is petrol tight. I think I would like to make some form of pressure tester so I can blow compressed air into the tank to see if it is likely to leak but I cannot work out a way of sealing the filler cap hole. Compressed air would be preferable to petrol as if there is a leak the petrol will contaminate the site of the leak and make sealing it with resin more difficult and I cannot really get my head around filling it with water as that is just anathema (also petrol is thinner than water and will penetrate where water won’t).

Today rather than clearing the garage, I made the clamps for the ambla seat upholstery out of 3mm polypropylene. I cut the polypropylene with a jig saw as a Stanley knife just will not cut 3mm. I had the usual problem of the jigsaw blade getting hot and the polypropylene welding itself together behind the saw blade. This means you have to cut it out about 3 times and with all the white semi molten plastic you never really manage to follow the line that you prescribed to be cut out. Thus you end up with a lot of remedial filing/ linishing to get a straight edge. It came out reasonably OK in the end though. I do wish I had chosen 4mm csk screws as the basis for the clamping “studs” as I spent most of the day picking up errant 3mm nuts that my banana fingers just cannot grip/manipulate.


Unfortunately I cannot complete this just yet as I need some longer countersunk 3mm cap screws for where the CF is especially thick and where the strap fits over the hump although I did make a start on cutting out the 6mm base layer of closed cell rubber foam. I still have no idea how to secure the ambla at the rear end of the seat.

[Luddite]

Great work as usual, Richard. It must be very satisfying to see things finally taking shape.

Originally Posted by 350TSS

I think I would like to make some form of pressure tester so I can blow compressed air into the tank to see if it is likely to leak but I cannot work out a way of sealing the filler cap hole.

Have you considered using smoke to check for leaks? Some of the larger car dealerships have 'Smoke Wizard' units for leak detection. These pump smoke at low pressure into a sealed system and any leaks are obvious from the escape of the smoke. I'm sure if you can find a dealer with this equipment they'd be able to check your tank for you.

https://garagewire.co.uk/news/smoke-...k-diagnostics/

Would a large rubber bung (or even cork) cut to size and tapered be good enough to seal the fuel filler hole? Or a thick rubber balloon inflated into the neck perhaps?

[Mr Gazza]

Wine or beer brewing kits have big rubber bungs and you can get them from suppliers of kits and home brewing equipment.

I've just read how they used beer brewing bungs on the Black Buck Vulcans to seal the pressurised bulkheads where they had run extra cables through from pylon mounted radar jammers, borrowed from Tornadoes... They had to build the pylons too, but that's another story,,,What a brilliant story though... Read "Vulcan 607"

Just put a little air in it and plunge it into the bath, like a bicycle inner tube..

Another good leak tester is clutch and brake cleaner.

[350TSS]

Luddite , Mr Gazza- Thanks for the comments/suggestions. I saw them after I had started this morning.
Using virtually the last bit of my road sign I knocked this up this morning using a Schrader valve stem off an old inner tube.
photo sharing

There is a 6mm thick closed cell rubber gasket between the filler neck and the circular plate, the gasket avoids me having to seal the filler recess drain pipe which runs right through the tank exiting next to the fuel tap.
The tank breather pipe will be connected to the one way valve and if this leaks a 6mm bolt will be threaded into the breather pipe and clamped with a hose clip.
The more complicated end was the fuel tap boss which has 2 x 9mm holes drilled very close together to accommodate the on and reserve portions of the petrol tap. I could only tap them out 10mm but even this was not satisfactory as the correct drill for a 10mm x 1.5 is 8.5mm. I tapped the holes anyway but the resulting thread was almost certain to be porous. Then I had a brain wave, just install the tap which should be petrol tight and therefore very nearly air tight.
My plan is to wait about 5 days until all the ethanol resistant resin has fully cured then put about 15psi into the tank and see if there is any air leaks, if there are none I will leave it overnight and see whether there is any appreciable drop in pressure. I am not sure what I will do if there is????
The rest of today was spent cutting the closed cell rubber foam for the seat base, first a cloth pattern was cut (top tip do not use cloth that has a capability to stretch as I almost cut the first sheet of 6mm foam too small). Then this 6mm layer was trimmed to fit over the whole base (top and sides) then a 12mm layer on the top surface only. I had intended to put another layer on but I do not think it is necessary as pressing with your finger you cannot feel the CF base underneath. The ambla was then roughly cut to size ready for trimming tomorrow or whenever my longer csk screws arrive.

Beautiful work, keep up and keep us posted.

[350TSS]

Over the last few days my focus has been clearing/cleaning the garage. I found stuff I thought I had lost, and lots of useful stuff I forgot I had, and lots and lots of stuff got organised so I knew where to find it again. It is still overcrowded but has 10 black bin bags less stuff in it and most of the horizontal surfaces have had a dustpan and brush and/ or a vacuum cleaner applied. My dinner however will continue to be served on crockery from the kitchen.

Today was the day for the pressure testing of the petrol tank and on advice from a mate I decided that 15psi risked damage and 5psi was enough to determine whether or not the tank was sealed. The Schrader valve was duly connected to the airline and my pressure testing scheme failed comprehensively, a) the seal over the filler neck just would not hold air and b) the petrol tap itself, not the junction to the manifold on the tank, but the interface between the body of the tap and the operating cock was not airtight. After buggering about for about an hour I decided that the only real test would be petrol and unusually I had none in a can handy.
I spent the final hour or so rubbing down the top surface of the tank, removing the small marks left by handling the tank with rubber gloves that had traces of resin on them that had subsequently left surface imperfections.

[350TSS]

Not much progress made over the last 10 days, even though retired, real life (half term for the youngest) gets in the way sometimes. What little time I have had has mostly been garage clearing and organising stuff.
Some small jobs have got done, mounting the solenoid and rubber mounting the 30 Amp RCD (main fuse) to the battery box and making the retaining strap for the battery (5mm bungee looped over a cotton reel and clamped the other side of the battery). Sometimes these little jobs take a lot longer than expected, working out where cable runs are going to go and how you will access things for maintenance and finding and then having to shorten the bolts etc., etc.
My upholstery of the seat stalled a bit as the first attempt ended looking naff. The plan to first wrap the whole seat using 6mm foam, capped on the seat base only with one further layer of 6mm and one of 12mm did not work out well as the sides of the seat ended up looking lumpy where I had ground the foam with a drum sander, pulling the ambla really tight exacerbated the issue. Fortunately I did not glue the foam down with Evo stick but rather used double sided carpet tape so it all came off again without damage.
I tried putting the bottom layer on the top but had to stretch the 6mm foam to make it fit over the additional thicknesses and then it looked worse when I stretched the ambla over it.
One continuous 6mm layer immediately beneath the ambla is the way to go but it means a) re-sanding the two seat base only layers reducing their width by 6mm and b) cutting a new 6mm foam to wrap the seat base layers.
I have yet to pour petrol in the tank to test it. I have decided to apply a hard high gloss coat of polyester resin to the outside of the tank, seat and the fly-screen, before finally painting them. The reason for this is that I have rubbed them down so many times that I am pretty sure the original gel (hard) coat on the outside has almost disappeared and the epoxy resin binding the carbon fibre together is nowhere near as hard and it marks quite easily just with general handling. The priority arose from marks appearing on the seat hump whilst struggling to stretch the ambla over the seat base. I reason that if, when I do pour petrol in the tank and it leaks, I will not be repairing it from the outside anyway so I may as well get ahead with the re-establishment of a tough outer skin for those components. Today a first coat of polyester primer got sprayed onto the tank base, the seat hump and the fly-screen.
Tomorrow I hope to lay down a second primer coat on those already done, spray the tank top with two layers of primer and then on Friday lay down about 5 light and 25% thinned coats of the high gloss on everything.
After this hard coat has cured, it makes sense to paint all parts at the same time first in primer then in topcoat which means that I must very soon make firm decisions on the livery. I wish I knew how to use photoshop so I could play around with a few options before committing to the final spraying.