Slow Monster rebuild - Page 86

Pedro · 23-06-2020, 07:22 PM

Only thing I have to say about bleeding brakes is get Stalhbus bleed nipples, not cheap granted but makes an empty system to fully bled a five minute job

http://www.stahlbus.com/products/en/...stem/index.php

Davy · 23-06-2020, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedro

Only thing I have to say about bleeding brakes is get Stalhbus bleed nipples, not cheap granted but makes an empty system to fully bled a five minute job

http://www.stahlbus.com/products/en/...stem/index.php

They look the dogs dangleys

Pedro · 23-06-2020, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davy

They look the dogs dangleys

They are, makes life sooooo much easier

350TSS · 28-06-2020, 06:25 PM

After last week's minor success with hydraulics, this week was a week of setbacks. No one to blame but myself but that is sometimes how it goes.
Ten days ago I was advised that my LED headlamp was in the country - it is still not with me and a suspect I shall get a card through the door asking for customs' duties. My glass is always half empty.

In the headlamp's absence i decided to try to re-re-make the instrument glass - 2 more Fails (both cracked when I tried to put the 22 degree bend in them) convinced me the acrylic material (Wickes replacement window "glass") was the wrong stuff. I bought some face shields but they were COVID grade face protectors and far too flimsy (and only just transparent). They might come in handy for the second wave. I did win some browny points as my wife thought I was thinking of the family instead of that "bloody bike". Fail #4.
I have now ordered Lexan polycarbonate 2mm which I should have used in the first place.

I then turned my attention to the escutcheons (moulded from the cam bearing end cap logo) tp be used to secure the over seat strap that hides the gap between the hump and the glove box enclosure in the seat hump.
After 6 attempts I had two that were presentable and had cured to a satisfactory hardness. A number never cured properly, I think there is somethng in plasticine that reacts with laminating resin (and Araldite Rapid) that stops the curing taking place. I cut up some clips from an old drawer runner but when I presented it to the seat it just looked completely NAF so that idea was scrapped.

With nothing better to do I thought I should connect the battery and test all my wiring.
Initially hardly anything worked except the LH indicator.
After a bit of twiddling most circuits are now OK but the MU unit threw me for some time as it has a latching logic (presumably designed to work with their expensive push button controls (which I do not want as they require fairly large holes (8mm) being drilled in the handlebars as I am not comfortable with Swiss cheese clip-ons).
I still have no discernable life in the TV monitor or the starter solenoid and worryingly the low beam wire to ther headlamp is permanently live independent of the light switch or the ignition switch. Puzzling . Fail # 5 to ??????? who knows with electrics?

350TSS · 02-07-2020, 07:22 PM

Got the card from Fedex asking for an advancement fee of £12 and duties of £32.59 so £44.59 so that they can send me my Chinese LED headlamp.
When I looked into it more closely they had assessed the goods value as $161.03 - and charged 20% VAT on the assessed value.
They also stated that the package weight was 7.9 kg. The box must have been built to keep out Kryptonite.
A terse e mail was sent asking for a realistic assessment of price and weight with firm expectation of a significant reduction.
I still do not have my headlamp though and being over charged £20 to £30 would almost be worth it to have it here so I can finish the bike.
I have spent the last couple of weeks (rather half-heartedly) testing the electrics and the results have been decidedly depressing. I was getting inconsistent results, test one circuit - OK - test another N0 OK - test the first circuit again - no OK - but the second circuit when tested again - OK. Also the M Unit seems to have a latching logic within it so to turn something off (LH indicators for example) you had to go through every possible combination of switch position and turning it on again actually turns it off. I think this is re-settable as the unit is delivered to work with latching pushbuttons but can work with a normal switch. I was always hoping to get all the circuits working before attempting the re-set but with contradictory and somewhat random results from my testing I was getting nowhere.
Today I took a big decision to start again from scratch on the wiring and spent about 4 hours removing the harness, all the tape and all the bits I spent ages designing and making to fit it all together. All scrapped now

I was never happy with the original arrangement - too congested, looked bloody awful, a nightmare to maintain and I suspect likely to be unreliable.
In my head I have designed it. Effectively I have moved the M Unit in front of the steering head in front of the instrument nacelle. I will save 2 connection boxes and by additionally by also rationalising the earth wiring about half the number of wires going around the steering head. The bundle of knitting near the battery will be eliminated. Just got to do it now.
As a footnote just as I was packing up I thought I would test the camera and monitor one more time, first, quite by accident, I discovered my test link wire (2 x crododile clips on about 500mm of wire) was defective (broken internally to the insulation). No wonder all my testing was producing odd results, second when I worked that out I found the link wiring between the camera and the monitor was open circuit.
Its a good job it is not good painting weather as I have about 30 hours of re-wiring to do now.

350TSS · 15-07-2020, 09:37 AM

The bike is now almost re-wired, it was not without its tribulations and I am sure there will be more to come.
I used 5 core cable to the tail light and 7 core cable around the headstock and if I say so myself aft of the headstock now looks quite tidy. The MU unit is now in front of the instruments and all the mess has simply migrated forward however there is more space there and the dash board should hide it all from view.

I do not have a neutral light nor a oil pressure light yet but the horn, brake lights, side lights, instrument lights all work as they should. The headlamp and dip and flasher seem a bit haphazard sometimes working and sometimes not. It maybe the latching of the switches within the MU as the LH switch is now definitely working as it should.
With some trepidation I took the LH switch apart expecting all manner of springs and tiny electrical bits to fall on the garage floor, but no, it came apart easily and is actually nicely engineered. I did find that the screw that provides the vertical pivot for the indicator button latch was slightly undone and could have been grounding on the handlebars.

I cannot yet test the full system as the LED headlamp is still with Fedex. They kindly advised me that they would charge me £53 + VAT if they discovered that the lading bill mistake was not their fault and they had to take the matter up with HM Customs. I emailed back that I thought that such a large charge could be construed as a penalty (being almost 100% of the value of the goods) and as such was not enforceable in English law. I also pointed out that withholding delivery of goods which were not their property pending payment of a penal sum could be considered as extortion which is a criminal offence. I still do not have the LED headlamp though so I cannot wire it or work out how it fits inside the headlamp shell or how it interfaces with the fly-screen.

I gave up in my original rear view camera and monitor as the coax cable was definitely kaput and I couldn't find a suitable alternative and I did not feel confident to repair it satisfactorily. I ordered a wireless one instead and await customs difficulties on that as well.

Today I shall be seeing what is wrong on the oil pressure and neutral circuits then clearing the garage to erect the paint booth. Unfortunately there is a very heavy ZX9R with two seized 6 pot Tokico calipers in the way.

350TSS · 16-07-2020, 07:33 PM

Some good news and some bad news today.
The LED headlamp arrived, I didn't pay any extra charges or duty and it is intact and seems to work as advertised. Sometimes it pays to be objectionable.
The bad news was that before setting up the paint booth I thought I had better just test the tank with some of Esso's finest. It did a reasonable impression of a collander. One leak around the plate which the fuel tap seats on and another almost as bad further forward on the underside. I only got about 2 gallons in before I abandoned the test. I think the tank will hold about 5 gallons. Worryingly, there was evidence of further vapour seepage higher on the flanks and shoulders of the tank. So I drained about 1.5 gallons and I left it with a fan heater blowing cold air over the top of the filler cap hole. I have ordered another batch of Caswell's ethanol proof tank sealer.
I charged up my battery and pressed the starter. Nice clicking noise from the solenoid but no engine cranking. I ran a lightweight (11 amp) lead to the positive terminal on the case of the starter and earthed the casing of the starter and it cranked (albeit slowly) and the 2.5mm wire got hot quite quickly, I am a bit puzzled by this and tomorrow will try a HD battery lead. I think the solenoid must not be making a proper connection even though it is definitely reacting to the starter button.

Darren69 · 17-07-2020, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 350TSS

Some good news and some bad news today.
The LED headlamp arrived, I didn't pay any extra charges or duty and it is intact and seems to work as advertised. Sometimes it pays to be objectionable.
The bad news was that before setting up the paint booth I thought I had better just test the tank with some of Esso's finest. It did a reasonable impression of a collander. One leak around the plate which the fuel tap seats on and another almost as bad further forward on the underside. I only got about 2 gallons in before I abandoned the test. I think the tank will hold about 5 gallons. Worryingly, there was evidence of further vapour seepage higher on the flanks and shoulders of the tank. So I drained about 1.5 gallons and I left it with a fan heater blowing cold air over the top of the filler cap hole. I have ordered another batch of Caswell's ethanol proof tank sealer.
I charged up my battery and pressed the starter. Nice clicking noise from the solenoid but no engine cranking. I ran a lightweight (11 amp) lead to the positive terminal on the case of the starter and earthed the casing of the starter and it cranked (albeit slowly) and the 2.5mm wire got hot quite quickly, I am a bit puzzled by this and tomorrow will try a HD battery lead. I think the solenoid must not be making a proper connection even though it is definitely reacting to the starter button.

It should work ok with bigger wires. If they're getting hot then no current can flow or not enough.

350TSS · 17-07-2020, 05:55 AM

Darren the big wires are all installed and the starter does not crank when the button is pressed. The solenoid clicks when the button is pushed but no starter cranking. I tested all the internal wiring to the starter before re-assembling it, pole to pole on the commutator and the windings inside the case. Also when I accidentally dropped a 10mm socket and it fell across the solenoid HD battery/starter connections the motor cranked over.
The test with the thin wire was just to confirm that the starter had not suffered any damage and still turned over.
So I definitely have power to solenoid (because it clicks), the HD lead from the solenoid to the starter is good (200 amp welding cable) and the starter motor turns over on 11 amp wire so I can only conclude that the solenoid whilst clicking is not making the actual connection between the input and output HD cables. It was a cheap Chinese one supposedly for a Kawasaki VX1800 cruiser chosen because a) it was the smallest size b) the solenoid was supposedly capable of taking enough current to fire up a big V twin c) it was cheap and d) it did not have the horrible low tension Ducati (semi) connector. Probably a lesson in there somewhere.
Today, I will refit the old Ducati one but it will need a new mounting bracket and the connections made up (probably solder directly to the OEM Hitachi/Ducati terminal pins then heat shrink sleeving between the pins and heat shrink sleeving over the two incoming wires to provide a mechanical support ot stop them coming out).

Darren69 · 17-07-2020, 11:15 AM

Ok, could be the solenoid then. You could (very carefully) put a screwdriver or something similar across the two poles of the solenoid and see if that cranks better. That way you could rule out anything inside the solenoid itself being duff.

slob · 17-07-2020, 11:41 AM

have you connected the LT wires backwards?
that would give you a ‘click’ while the contactor plate moved away from the HT contacts...

350TSS · 17-07-2020, 08:55 PM

I will try that tomorrow, it is entirely possible. The Kawasaki solenoid had a green and black and a yellow and red wire coming from it. I assumed possibly erroneously that any wire with black in it was more likely to go to earth.

350TSS · 16-09-2020, 07:18 PM

So after 2.5 months the project continues.................
The reason for the hiatus was that I needed to erect my paint booth and there was 230 kgs of dormant ZX9R in the way with siezed front calipers and a flat tyre that I could not get an air line on. After a struggle I got it shifted outside the garage but could not leave the poor thing out in the then very wet weather. The Monster needed its tank sealed before it could be painted and that was along and arduous process, JB water weld along the seams and Caswell's ethanol proof inside the tank.
I tried about 5 times before I got rid of the leaks and worse the witness stains on the sides and shoulder of the tank showing where petrol vapour was escaping through the outer skin.
Not very interesting to read about and nothing worth photographing.
Aside from de-rusting the inside of the tank the ZX9R should be ready for an MOT next week.
Back to the Monster, I have started the painting. I bought the paint a long time ago from RS motorbike paints. It consists of :
2 pack etch primer
water based base coat
water based colour coat (red - because it will make the bike faster)
2 pack lacquer.
I was very sceptical when I got the parcel, mixing 2 pack and water based paints did not "feel" right. However this is the best paint I have ever used; the etch primer (2 pack) went on so flat and covered a lot of very slight imperfections, the sort you can just see but are not worth breaking out the filler for. This was flatted down with 800 W&D
The grey base coat was also brilliant, going on smoothly and drying to a beautiful flat mat finish.
Tomorrow the red, also water based, probably 5 light coats, hope it works as well as the preparatory coats.

you are my world poem

Tim88 · 16-09-2020, 07:59 PM

That cliff hanger is a real shocker! My favourite thread and all! We need pictures!

350TSS · 27-09-2020, 03:24 PM

The spraying of the colour coat did not quite go to plan. The paint instructions said " use light coats" and "the water based paints are usually supplied pre- thinned" and "use no more than 10% water to thin the paint if required" and "the objective is a flat matt finish with an even colour" .
I tried light coats and all I got was a grainy, dusty finish and when I opened the valve a bit I got a nice deep satin gloss. Worse, as I was finishing off one mix a gobbet of paint dropped right on the top of the tank.
Instructions also said " do not flat off the paint before applying the lacquer and under no circumstances use water as it will dissolve the paint".
Thinking about it I realised that the paint was too thick to go on flat and matt.
I had to wait a couple of days for it to harden off before using 1200 wet and dry (dry only) and it took me the best part of a day to repair the damage. The wet and dry very quickly clogged and the paint trapped on the surface scratched the workpiece.
Today I had another go and I thinned the paint by 10% with much better results, though a long way from a flat matt surface. It is a bit satin in some places, particularly the transition between the top and the sides of the tank where you cannot help but put more paint on. I even managed to get the colour relatively consistent. across all the areas painted.
With hindsight I would not use this paint again, too much skill, experience and knowledge required to get an even finish. All sadly absent in my case.
Tomorrow the lacquer, hoping that it will a) adhere properly, b) go on flat enough to hide the multitude of imperfections on the "flat, matt colour base coat" c) the atmospheric conditions do not cause the lacquer to bloom.

23-06-2020, 07:22 PM	#1
Pedro Ciao, come stai? Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Somewhere Bike: Multiple Monsters Posts: 4,157	Only thing I have to say about bleeding brakes is get Stalhbus bleed nipples, not cheap granted but makes an empty system to fully bled a five minute job http://www.stahlbus.com/products/en/...stem/index.php __________________ Monster 1200R! KTM 990 SuperDuke

15-07-2020, 09:37 AM	#6
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	The bike is now almost re-wired, it was not without its tribulations and I am sure there will be more to come. I used 5 core cable to the tail light and 7 core cable around the headstock and if I say so myself aft of the headstock now looks quite tidy. The MU unit is now in front of the instruments and all the mess has simply migrated forward however there is more space there and the dash board should hide it all from view. I do not have a neutral light nor a oil pressure light yet but the horn, brake lights, side lights, instrument lights all work as they should. The headlamp and dip and flasher seem a bit haphazard sometimes working and sometimes not. It maybe the latching of the switches within the MU as the LH switch is now definitely working as it should. With some trepidation I took the LH switch apart expecting all manner of springs and tiny electrical bits to fall on the garage floor, but no, it came apart easily and is actually nicely engineered. I did find that the screw that provides the vertical pivot for the indicator button latch was slightly undone and could have been grounding on the handlebars. I cannot yet test the full system as the LED headlamp is still with Fedex. They kindly advised me that they would charge me £53 + VAT if they discovered that the lading bill mistake was not their fault and they had to take the matter up with HM Customs. I emailed back that I thought that such a large charge could be construed as a penalty (being almost 100% of the value of the goods) and as such was not enforceable in English law. I also pointed out that withholding delivery of goods which were not their property pending payment of a penal sum could be considered as extortion which is a criminal offence. I still do not have the LED headlamp though so I cannot wire it or work out how it fits inside the headlamp shell or how it interfaces with the fly-screen. I gave up in my original rear view camera and monitor as the coax cable was definitely kaput and I couldn't find a suitable alternative and I did not feel confident to repair it satisfactorily. I ordered a wireless one instead and await customs difficulties on that as well. Today I shall be seeing what is wrong on the oil pressure and neutral circuits then clearing the garage to erect the paint booth. Unfortunately there is a very heavy ZX9R with two seized 6 pot Tokico calipers in the way. Last edited by 350TSS; 15-07-2020 at 09:41 AM..

17-07-2020, 11:15 AM	#10
Darren69 Transmaniacon MOC Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Sutton In Ashfield Bike: Multiple Monsters Posts: 6,042	Ok, could be the solenoid then. You could (very carefully) put a screwdriver or something similar across the two poles of the solenoid and see if that cranks better. That way you could rule out anything inside the solenoid itself being duff. __________________ Roast Beef Monster! Termignoni and Bucci - Italian for pipe and slippers! S4 Fogarty, S4R 07T, 748, Series 1 Mirage

28-06-2020, 06:25 PM	#4
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	After last week's minor success with hydraulics, this week was a week of setbacks. No one to blame but myself but that is sometimes how it goes. Ten days ago I was advised that my LED headlamp was in the country - it is still not with me and a suspect I shall get a card through the door asking for customs' duties. My glass is always half empty. In the headlamp's absence i decided to try to re-re-make the instrument glass - 2 more Fails (both cracked when I tried to put the 22 degree bend in them) convinced me the acrylic material (Wickes replacement window "glass") was the wrong stuff. I bought some face shields but they were COVID grade face protectors and far too flimsy (and only just transparent). They might come in handy for the second wave. I did win some browny points as my wife thought I was thinking of the family instead of that "bloody bike". Fail #4. I have now ordered Lexan polycarbonate 2mm which I should have used in the first place. I then turned my attention to the escutcheons (moulded from the cam bearing end cap logo) tp be used to secure the over seat strap that hides the gap between the hump and the glove box enclosure in the seat hump. After 6 attempts I had two that were presentable and had cured to a satisfactory hardness. A number never cured properly, I think there is somethng in plasticine that reacts with laminating resin (and Araldite Rapid) that stops the curing taking place. I cut up some clips from an old drawer runner but when I presented it to the seat it just looked completely NAF so that idea was scrapped. With nothing better to do I thought I should connect the battery and test all my wiring. Initially hardly anything worked except the LH indicator. After a bit of twiddling most circuits are now OK but the MU unit threw me for some time as it has a latching logic (presumably designed to work with their expensive push button controls (which I do not want as they require fairly large holes (8mm) being drilled in the handlebars as I am not comfortable with Swiss cheese clip-ons). I still have no discernable life in the TV monitor or the starter solenoid and worryingly the low beam wire to ther headlamp is permanently live independent of the light switch or the ignition switch. Puzzling . Fail # 5 to ??????? who knows with electrics?

02-07-2020, 07:22 PM	#5
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	Got the card from Fedex asking for an advancement fee of £12 and duties of £32.59 so £44.59 so that they can send me my Chinese LED headlamp. When I looked into it more closely they had assessed the goods value as $161.03 - and charged 20% VAT on the assessed value. They also stated that the package weight was 7.9 kg. The box must have been built to keep out Kryptonite. A terse e mail was sent asking for a realistic assessment of price and weight with firm expectation of a significant reduction. I still do not have my headlamp though and being over charged £20 to £30 would almost be worth it to have it here so I can finish the bike. I have spent the last couple of weeks (rather half-heartedly) testing the electrics and the results have been decidedly depressing. I was getting inconsistent results, test one circuit - OK - test another N0 OK - test the first circuit again - no OK - but the second circuit when tested again - OK. Also the M Unit seems to have a latching logic within it so to turn something off (LH indicators for example) you had to go through every possible combination of switch position and turning it on again actually turns it off. I think this is re-settable as the unit is delivered to work with latching pushbuttons but can work with a normal switch. I was always hoping to get all the circuits working before attempting the re-set but with contradictory and somewhat random results from my testing I was getting nowhere. Today I took a big decision to start again from scratch on the wiring and spent about 4 hours removing the harness, all the tape and all the bits I spent ages designing and making to fit it all together. All scrapped now I was never happy with the original arrangement - too congested, looked bloody awful, a nightmare to maintain and I suspect likely to be unreliable. In my head I have designed it. Effectively I have moved the M Unit in front of the steering head in front of the instrument nacelle. I will save 2 connection boxes and by additionally by also rationalising the earth wiring about half the number of wires going around the steering head. The bundle of knitting near the battery will be eliminated. Just got to do it now. As a footnote just as I was packing up I thought I would test the camera and monitor one more time, first, quite by accident, I discovered my test link wire (2 x crododile clips on about 500mm of wire) was defective (broken internally to the insulation). No wonder all my testing was producing odd results, second when I worked that out I found the link wiring between the camera and the monitor was open circuit. Its a good job it is not good painting weather as I have about 30 hours of re-wiring to do now.

16-07-2020, 07:33 PM	#7
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	Some good news and some bad news today. The LED headlamp arrived, I didn't pay any extra charges or duty and it is intact and seems to work as advertised. Sometimes it pays to be objectionable. The bad news was that before setting up the paint booth I thought I had better just test the tank with some of Esso's finest. It did a reasonable impression of a collander. One leak around the plate which the fuel tap seats on and another almost as bad further forward on the underside. I only got about 2 gallons in before I abandoned the test. I think the tank will hold about 5 gallons. Worryingly, there was evidence of further vapour seepage higher on the flanks and shoulders of the tank. So I drained about 1.5 gallons and I left it with a fan heater blowing cold air over the top of the filler cap hole. I have ordered another batch of Caswell's ethanol proof tank sealer. I charged up my battery and pressed the starter. Nice clicking noise from the solenoid but no engine cranking. I ran a lightweight (11 amp) lead to the positive terminal on the case of the starter and earthed the casing of the starter and it cranked (albeit slowly) and the 2.5mm wire got hot quite quickly, I am a bit puzzled by this and tomorrow will try a HD battery lead. I think the solenoid must not be making a proper connection even though it is definitely reacting to the starter button.

17-07-2020, 05:55 AM	#9
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	Darren the big wires are all installed and the starter does not crank when the button is pressed. The solenoid clicks when the button is pushed but no starter cranking. I tested all the internal wiring to the starter before re-assembling it, pole to pole on the commutator and the windings inside the case. Also when I accidentally dropped a 10mm socket and it fell across the solenoid HD battery/starter connections the motor cranked over. The test with the thin wire was just to confirm that the starter had not suffered any damage and still turned over. So I definitely have power to solenoid (because it clicks), the HD lead from the solenoid to the starter is good (200 amp welding cable) and the starter motor turns over on 11 amp wire so I can only conclude that the solenoid whilst clicking is not making the actual connection between the input and output HD cables. It was a cheap Chinese one supposedly for a Kawasaki VX1800 cruiser chosen because a) it was the smallest size b) the solenoid was supposedly capable of taking enough current to fire up a big V twin c) it was cheap and d) it did not have the horrible low tension Ducati (semi) connector. Probably a lesson in there somewhere. Today, I will refit the old Ducati one but it will need a new mounting bracket and the connections made up (probably solder directly to the OEM Hitachi/Ducati terminal pins then heat shrink sleeving between the pins and heat shrink sleeving over the two incoming wires to provide a mechanical support ot stop them coming out).

17-07-2020, 11:41 AM	#11
slob . Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: East London Bike: Multiple Monsters Posts: 9,716	have you connected the LT wires backwards? that would give you a ‘click’ while the contactor plate moved away from the HT contacts...

17-07-2020, 08:55 PM	#12
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	I will try that tomorrow, it is entirely possible. The Kawasaki solenoid had a green and black and a yellow and red wire coming from it. I assumed possibly erroneously that any wire with black in it was more likely to go to earth.

16-09-2020, 07:18 PM	#13
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	So after 2.5 months the project continues................. The reason for the hiatus was that I needed to erect my paint booth and there was 230 kgs of dormant ZX9R in the way with siezed front calipers and a flat tyre that I could not get an air line on. After a struggle I got it shifted outside the garage but could not leave the poor thing out in the then very wet weather. The Monster needed its tank sealed before it could be painted and that was along and arduous process, JB water weld along the seams and Caswell's ethanol proof inside the tank. I tried about 5 times before I got rid of the leaks and worse the witness stains on the sides and shoulder of the tank showing where petrol vapour was escaping through the outer skin. Not very interesting to read about and nothing worth photographing. Aside from de-rusting the inside of the tank the ZX9R should be ready for an MOT next week. Back to the Monster, I have started the painting. I bought the paint a long time ago from RS motorbike paints. It consists of : 2 pack etch primer water based base coat water based colour coat (red - because it will make the bike faster) 2 pack lacquer. I was very sceptical when I got the parcel, mixing 2 pack and water based paints did not "feel" right. However this is the best paint I have ever used; the etch primer (2 pack) went on so flat and covered a lot of very slight imperfections, the sort you can just see but are not worth breaking out the filler for. This was flatted down with 800 W&D The grey base coat was also brilliant, going on smoothly and drying to a beautiful flat mat finish. Tomorrow the red, also water based, probably 5 light coats, hope it works as well as the preparatory coats. you are my world poem

16-09-2020, 07:59 PM	#14
Tim88 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: London Bike: M1100evo Posts: 98	That cliff hanger is a real shocker! My favourite thread and all! We need pictures!

27-09-2020, 03:24 PM	#15
350TSS Too much time on my hands member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Shipbourne Bike: M900 Posts: 1,421	The spraying of the colour coat did not quite go to plan. The paint instructions said " use light coats" and "the water based paints are usually supplied pre- thinned" and "use no more than 10% water to thin the paint if required" and "the objective is a flat matt finish with an even colour" . I tried light coats and all I got was a grainy, dusty finish and when I opened the valve a bit I got a nice deep satin gloss. Worse, as I was finishing off one mix a gobbet of paint dropped right on the top of the tank. Instructions also said " do not flat off the paint before applying the lacquer and under no circumstances use water as it will dissolve the paint". Thinking about it I realised that the paint was too thick to go on flat and matt. I had to wait a couple of days for it to harden off before using 1200 wet and dry (dry only) and it took me the best part of a day to repair the damage. The wet and dry very quickly clogged and the paint trapped on the surface scratched the workpiece. Today I had another go and I thinned the paint by 10% with much better results, though a long way from a flat matt surface. It is a bit satin in some places, particularly the transition between the top and the sides of the tank where you cannot help but put more paint on. I even managed to get the colour relatively consistent. across all the areas painted. With hindsight I would not use this paint again, too much skill, experience and knowledge required to get an even finish. All sadly absent in my case. Tomorrow the lacquer, hoping that it will a) adhere properly, b) go on flat enough to hide the multitude of imperfections on the "flat, matt colour base coat" c) the atmospheric conditions do not cause the lacquer to bloom.