UPDATE

Update on the project so far.
Not going into too much detail but here we go, i have downloaded the blogger app onto my phone now (droid4lyf) so blogging can be done as soon as i take a snap. I have been in melboirne for work the past week so all progress has been on hold. Had some free time today so i thought id get some things done. I fitted the digital cluster and mounted it to the stock cluster mount. Wiring was easy as it used the same connector as oem bit a few pins had to be swapped around. I also purchased some pilot LED lamps as the cluster doesnt have lamps for oil and kick stand lights. Ive goto make a bracket to mount them sometime this week. Left hand side engine casing has been filled and sanded due to previous owner dropping the bike. Both cses will be painted black hopefully next weekend. I repained the chain and heel guards as i wasnt happy with the previous results, pics to come soon! All in all was a good day of prep. Tightened all handle bars fitted all controls and even fitted the new grips. Stay tunned for more to come!

MORE GOODIES ARRIVED!!!

Some more goodies arrived today, I got me some fairing bolts and spin dials from probolt aus, an adjustable LED relay and some LED indicators YIPPIEES

 GOODIES FROM PROBOLT!!

 Indicators, dont worry there are four of them teehee, relay and throttle cables i forgot to mention earlier but more about that later.

 Relay fitted, i only had un-shielded terminals available so i just taped the loom up to the relay with electrical tape to prevent any electrical dramas. All terminals crimped and soldered for security.

tried to get a front on shot with the relay but camera phone was being gay.

Thats all i have for now, i did fit the indicators to the front and rear of the bike and tested operation, the relay works a treat and also makes the clicking noise as i found some LED relays dont. Stay tuned as the bike is nearly complete for some good ol' riding!

TRIPPLE CLAMP AND CLIP ON TEST FIT!!!

So i have been a bit lazy lately but had a few spare hours last weekend. So I fitted the top triple clamp and clip ons. Also mounted the levers on just to see how they look with the new black paint.

 As you can see above test fitted the triple tree top clamp and clip ons

 Closer shot of the triple clamp.

 Front brake master cylinder painted with killrust epoxy paint

 Left hand side clip on with clutch lever test fitted.

 Right hand side clip on with Brake lever and master cylinder attached.

One more shot for looks :)

MODIFIED TYGA TAIL LAMP VIDEO

GOLDEN BLING!

Today's task was to come home after teaching kick boxing and get the rear wheel mounted and chain on. So here we go and what a pain in the arse it was to get the rear wheel on. I greased the outer bearing seals and also applied a little grease to the spacer lip that fits inside the dust seal. 

Above is the rear wheel fitted and tensioner adjusted forward ready to fit the new chain.

GOLD GOLD GOLD who doesn't like GOLD! I couldn't wait to fit this ever since i got it in the mail.

To put the chain on i started at the top of the rear sprocket and moved forward to the front sprocket the back down and around to the rear sprocket again. Above you can see the chain hanging as i was measuring how many links to cut. The 520 size chains come in a 120 link configuration so after test fitting i found i had to cut 3 links off. to do so i used a die grinder to grind the pin of the link i had to cut then with a small socket under the pin i used a punch to push it through. A fair bit of messing around if you dont have a chain breaker but not so difficult. Unfortunately i forgot to take photos of me doing this process but ohh well you will see what i mean if you ever have to do it.

Here we go with the master link on, now importantly grease the hell out of the o rings when you fit them. the master link comes in from behind with o rings on both side of the pins. I found i had to use a small socket again on the front side of the chain over the pin and using multi-grips, i clamped the master link through the master link plate. Depending on which side your chain is the master link clip goes on a certain way, if in doubt refer to instructions on box! I didn't have a chain riveter so i just used the clip provided.

master links all fitted now just need to adjust the slack. Many good informational videos on youtube how to change and adjust chains.

Look at how awesome the new chain and sprocket looks...........im so happy! Now remember after fitting a new chain take it for a spin and re-adjust then again after a week or so.

You can see the teeth on the old sprocket are worn, the teeth are starting to get a little thin for my liking. I also found with the old sprocket and chain that it needed adjusting every 2 weeks.

Time to strip!!

The metal parts on the bike, mainly steel parts were kinda rusty and looked a bit shabby. So of they came, i removed the exhaust headers, top triple tree clamp, clip ons and H frame. With a bit of sanding with a wire wheel and some sanding pads they went from rusty to kinda silvery-ish again.

 Parts sanded ready for paint!

 I also cleaned inside the headers and ohh my should of seen how much carbon came out. i knew the bike was running rich but now i know how rich.

 Yes i did it, i had to, i got the die grinder out and got rid of those nasty welds on the inside, they looked pretty restrictive especially before i cleaned them when it was full or carbon.

 Clutch lever mount thingy of and ready for paint

 I used a wonderful product call Killrust. ohh my god this thing is amazing, its and epoxy paint and once dried looks like powdercoat, no jokes. Due to the cold weather i got a little help from an old oven to bake the paint on. It was about 11 degrees ambient temp in the shed so roughly 200 degrees oven temp was used due to the door being open.

More painted parts, clip ons, H frame and tripple clamp done!

 New levers fitted to lever mount clutch side, pic dont do it justice, the paint on the mount actually looks really good in person. I just have bad camera skills.

Shortening chinese cans

I purchased a Chinese slip-on muffler from ebay and fitted it to the bike. It looked nice but i thought a shorty can would suit the tyga tail better. So of to work the muffler went and i measured and marked ready to cut.

 some tools i used to shorten the muffler, there was an air saw in there somewhere too which i used to cut through the outer shell, inner silencer and glass mat. So first we start by drilling the rivets of the end can out.

 above you can see the pieces that were removed, easily done with an air saw or hack saw.

bye bye excess can cans!

thats what the shorty looks like on the bike, she is a bit too loud for my liking so later im thinking of maybe repacking more glass mat inside and maybe another silencer to go in the end pipe to quieten her down a little.

Modified tyga tail lamps!!

So as I found out my throttle cables were oh so close to snapping the project has been set back a few weeks. Whilst waiting around for parts to arrive I decided to modify the Tyga tail/brake lamp assembly. Tyga manufacture marvelous aftermarket fairings for our little pocket rockets but unfortunately the lighting for the tail lamps are too dull and not bright enough which is a disappointment. But don't be put of as changing the LED globe on the printed circuit board is not too hard as it seems. Getting to the printed circuit board on the other hand is a fair tough task without the correct tools.

I suggest for this modification to have handy the following tools.

1. dremel/die grinder with cutting tip/disc
2. soldering iron
3. solder sucker
4. solder
5. small flat tip screw driver
6. sikaflex
7. new LED globes

First I started to remove the lens cover by using a saw toothed knife as i dint have a dremel and cutting disc at the time. This took time and patience as I slowly worked my way around the lens cover until I could get a little flat blade screwdriver between the backing plate and lens cover to pry apart the two components.

lens cover removed

once the lens cover is removed next there are 2 screws which hold the circuit board onto the back cover. remove these two screws then pull some of the wiring through to make it easier to work on the circuit board.

Next task is to de-solder the old LED lights from the solder board and remove all the old solder with a solder sucker. Now for my new LED lights I chose to go with 10mm .5watt with a forward voltage of 2.0v-2.3v I wasn't sure if this was going to work with these LEDs but i gave it a shot. The standard resistors on the board are about 112-120ohms each (two resistors) according to my calculations I need 33ohm resistors but before I went replacing resistors I trialed the new LEDs with the old resistors in place. 

New LEDs soldered onto board and old LEDs sitting on multimeter!

As you can see the new 10mm LEDs are mammoth compared to the old LEDs. The circuit board was designed for small LEDs but with a bit of tweaking and bending the 10mm monsters fit nice and snug. Using a nice hot soldering iron helps as I find it takes less time to melt the solder onto the pins of the LEDs. This helps protect the board by not putting the iron onto the board heating all the components and possibility of damaging more parts. But good practice is to keep the soldering tip clean, tint your soldering iron before soldering and clean after use.

cover refitted

trail run, they work with original resistors and are quite bright too. note these are park lights!

with brakes applied, these are noticeably brighter than original LEDs, unfortunately I don't have photos to compare. 

UPDATE! kinda sticky situation

ohhhhhhh nooooooo lucky i pulled of the throttle tube and casing because inside i had found the accelerator cable had frayed was only hanging on by a few threads. muahahahaha off to order some new cables :)

hopefully i don't find anything else wrong with this lil gem

GOALS GOALS GOALS

So my goal to date is to clean the motorcycle up with a budget of only $300. So far to date total cost so far is up to $283.49. Have made the budget so far and this cost to date so far includes front and rear sprockets, gold chain, LED indicators and adjustable relay, grips, spin dial adjusters fairing bolt kit and a few paint cans.

MY GOODIES

Some more goodies have arrive yippie! Adjustable levers for under $40 mind you pretty good quality too.
New grips, front and rear sprocket and a gold D.I.D. chain to match as I have decided to go for a 520 conversion.

Look at the size difference between old and new teehee!

TYGA BLING

The itch to bling and accessorize hit me and the first items purchased were carbon fiber slip-on muffler which I later on decided to shorten. At the time I purchased the muffler the were not available as shortys but guess what a few weeks after i shortened it they popped up all over ebay.
Don't know if you can spot it in the photo below but i also purchased some bar ends and rear stand knob thingys.

 shorty pipe fitted

Tyga had a sale on some time during the year so I decided to buy a Tyga rear tail kit (think this was just after tax time). I had the box sitting in my room taking up space for a few months before I decided to fit it. Wasn't too hard to fit but if you prevail you shall succeed.

 painting tyga tail 

I also decided to paint the rear subframe black aswell to match the paintwork. Some left over caliper paint worked a treat.

 rear frame of for some black paint

 right side + shorty pipe 

Here is the bike with the Tyga tail fitted. I decided to keep the original front as it believe it suits the lines best and also the front was already sexy. The rear was too square and out of date for me and the Tyga tail compliments the rest of the bike.

 tyga tail fitted LHS

tyga tail fitted RHS

The Beggining

It wasn't until January 2012 when my brother and I decided to go for our Learner permits to ride motorcycles. But sure enough after we got them we had that itch to go for a ride. To the beaches and around the streets we rode. Getting accustomed to riding the little cibbies.

It wasn't smooth sailing after receiving the bike. She wouldn't run properly and spluttered, I was starting to get worried that I had bought a dud. On the forums I went and researched I did. I checked the plugs, they were new but fouled pretty bad from not running right. Oil was fresh and coolant levels fine I was really getting worried at this point. I replaced the plugs 2 times and got her running finally. She ran and idled nicely and purred like the pretty thing she was. Of to service SA to get a permit to ride on the road to get an interstate inspection done and registered with new plates.

My bad luck continued unfortunately. I noticed whilst riding her to the inspection place that she was not responsive and didn't pick up until about 10k rpm. I made it about 15kms out from home and then she bogged up on the overpass. I then had to push her up the bridge, across the medium strip and roll her back to the servo on the other side. After trying to fire her up again i gave up and the tow truck was called and on their way. I took her to a reputable garage and 200 or so dollars later she was perfect again. The mechanics found the plug leads around the wrong way. Being a Motor mechanic myself I knew it wasn't me who put them on wrong because the plugs were done 1 by 1 so I couldn't mix up the plug leads and second of all she never ran right from the day I got her.

Any whos another permit and few dollars more later I finally got her registered and running like a dream. All the headaches made up for the amazing first rides I had. What a great learner bike, 4 cylinder 250cc of pure japanese engineering. You cant buy a current 250cc production bike built like these mc22 were built. Yeah sure they might be more modern and look cooler but i doubt they'll leave a smile on your face like these pocket rockets do.

PROJECT MC22

Project MC22 begins this winter!

Due to the cold weather and rain I have stored the precious little beast in the corner. I see her every morning and every evening after coming back home from work. She looked a little...... tired? old? I wasn't too sure but she didn't look right to me. So i have decided I am going to tidy her up, make her look fresh 'n' clean and give her back her glory like she deserves.

First let me introduce you to her!

 October 2011, found a nice cbr250rr on bikesales.com.au from a dealer in Queensland. Rang them up as soon as i saw the add and inquired. Before you know it deposit was paid and I was patiently waiting for the beast to be delivered to my door. The above photos are the actual pictures from the advertisement. She looked a bit rusty and old and well worn. The odometer reading was only about 26454kms or something like that. Now im not that stupid, this bike has either had its clocks wound back or has done more than 100 thousand ks and the odometer clock has just reset. None the less there was something about her that just made me want her.

It was not until late November or early December when the bike arrived on my doorstep. Yes that's correct, due to the dealer being in Queensland and me in South Australia i got it shipped. All shipping fees and handling were paid by the dealer. All I had to pay was a little sum of $2750 and she was mine.
To my surprise she arrived clean 'n' fresh with new rear disc and pads and brand new Bridgestone BT45 tyres front and rear. Due to Vic laws i guess bike couldn't be sold by dealer unless it was roadworthy? who knows i saw it as a win for me.

 Above photos are the 2 beasts the day they arrived, the black and yellow is my brothers which he purchased from Vic and funny enough it arrived on the same day. Funny story my dad was home at the time. He saw my brother come home from work then leave home for work again. He was wondering why did he come and go so quick? He then walked outside and saw a motorcycle sitting in the back yard. OK he thought, so he bought a bike. HEHEHEHE about 10:30am that same morning I arrived home also. In the door and a quick hello dad and back out. The poor old man didn't think to much and just smiled. He then went outside again to have his afternoon smoko and what do u know another friggin bike in the back yard. What's going on today he must have been thinking. HEHEHE