Well Oulton Park went well for me, we had a small issue with an incorrectly fitted head bearing which screwed things up a little but other than that it was 3 starts, and 3 finishes, which I was happy with.

I’ve done a full race report on the Team Norbar site along with Fish and Moose, my team mates.

I think the high speed off at Brands last year had more of an effect on me than I realised. I was cautious and nervous before race 1 in the 400’s and even had the holding area “wtf am I doing here?” moment, but I pressed on and rode well within my comfort zone. I’m going to up my game for Pembrey, it’s a fast short circuit with hardly any reference points and I’m hoping to do well.

I’ve settled in with the Norbar boys and girls and it’s working well for me. I’m far more self sufficient now I’ve learnt a lot about my bike but the experience of the team shows and will only teach me more each time we meet. I still feel like a spare part as I did last year but as soon as I can help with something I’m there like a shot. We had a mass stickering party on the bikes at Oulton with team and personal sponsors so the bike is looking far better.

The caravan needs some work to fix a few things but it’s warm and dry and so much nicer than a van that I didn’t fit in! A good nights sleep is essential to ride well or the concentration lapses and you can get into trouble. And speaking of a good nights sleep, how my two daughters managed to sleep in ’till midday with dyno runs and racing going on is anyone’s guess! They loved it though as it was their first full racing weekend.

The bike has had a few mods since Oulton, a new fuel tank connector as it was playing up, some F3 clutch springs which will hopefully cure the clutch slip and just a general check and tidy up. The rear calliper was leaking and once I stripped and cleaned it up it was leaking like a bitch so I tried fitting an ‘O’ ring inside and it seems fine now. I find it odd that it’s just a clamp together type without any seals but there you go.

So we’re off to Pembrey in deep South Wales tomorrow, and I’m a little apprehensive after watching some onboard footage. Turn 1 is a tight hairpin and looks like it could get messy with outbraking moments but we’ll see.

It’s also forecast for rain, not ideal but I’ve always gone well in the wet. Probably due to all my winter snow riding while commuting to London for years

Gaz Button is rumoured to be attending Pembrey in a pit bitch capacity so I’m looking forward to catching up with him if he’s there, we always feel a little more relaxed when he’s around as he can fix anything, and I mean anything!

Steve’s out on the Loctite hybrid, which is a missile, and with the cooling sorted he should go well. If I’m on the money you could see a Higerty bunfight at some point during the weekend. Ian ‘mines a tripple voddy’ Smith isn’t with us though, personal commitments have stopped him from attending. He’ll be back for the Brands GP in 2 weeks time.

That’s it for now.

Ready for fitting

It’s been a while since my last post, here’s the latest developments.

I’ve been busy sorting out the seat unit fixings I got from Moose. The issue was that they were too low by 20mm for my lanky 34″ pins, especially with the new rearsets fitted. I bought some aluminium bar and a sheet from fleabay, the seller can cut it to size so I ordered a bar to add to the top of the front bracket and 2 cubes for the rear. I know the front bar will be heavy but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

I went to see Malc who works in the engineering dept at work and who likes to play with metal things, for his advice. He used to do grass track and drag racing so has an interest in what I’m trying to achieve. After going through the options I left the brackets and ali bars with him and to my surprise he delivers the finished items the very next day!

Malc had tapped 2 holes on each side of the front bar so it’s secured to the bracket by 2 screws and the seat unit can screw directly into that. The rear bracked had the 2 cubes welded to the top and had also been tapped, nice! He then lent me a rivnut tool so I can install the rivnuts to the sub frame correctly. The finished article is very strong, a little on the heavy side but it aint gonna break that’s for sure.

That should cover my heftyness...

Next up was to cut the plate to add some strength to the seat area and I get to play with my new toy, a pop rivetter! I’ve never used one before so I tested it on the offcuts of the cut plate and it was simple enough. After carefully drilling the 4 holes I gingerly rivetted it and it came out ok I reckon.

Now the hard bit, to get the main fixing holes in the right place. I ended up inserting pop rivetts into the tapped holes and balancing the seat unit on top so I could mark where the holes should be. It actually worked! Once the holes had been cut in the seat foam for front fixing access the whole thing was complete.

I’m gonna have another chat with Malc and ask him to tap some holes into the ali rod I bought to make the fairing fixings then I can mount that and then cut it in half for easy access.

My Bally racing loom arrived a few weeks ago and I went over to Spencer’s on the ponce for the propper crimping tool. That’s the next job on the never ending todo list.

It's a bit cheeky..

That'll do nicely...

I’ve done a lot to the bike over the last few days so here’s a quick rundown.

• Replaced frame
• Rolling chasis completed
• Polished frame
• Lot’s of bashing
• Engine installation
• Fitted new rearsets
• Repaired electrics plate

I first started off by removing the swing arm from the foobar’d frame. The new frame has the older type swing arm and shock fitted so it’s a straight swap. I had to get the BFH (Big Fucking Hammer) out to remove it from the frame which was enjoyable! there’s something really satisfying about beating the crap out of something with a big heavy hammer

I cleaned the new frame up a bit and fitted the swing arm after re-lubing everything. Next were the forks. Fish had advised me to change the bearings for the roller type as mine were probably the original ball type and the reason I needed to keep adjusting them. This was no-mans land for me, so after a little head scratching I decided to just undo the yokes and hope for the best.

PING! a thousand ball bearings fall out when I lift the frame, ok not a thousand but quite a few :p lucky I have the roller bearings ready eh . I fitted the new bearings and bolted it all together but the lower one doesn’t feel right, it’s loose and the stearing is quite tight. I decided to leave it alone and come back to it once I have the wheels in. As my bike was in pieces after the crash and my engine was loaned to Tom it’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle to put back together again, especially when I didn’t take it apart!

With the help of the parts catalogue I get the wheels installed and it feels like I’m getting somewhere at last. Steve pops over to check out what I’ve done as I’m kinda stuck as to what to do next. He’s impressed I’ve got this far I reckon After a quick shifty over her he advises to get the plate ready for the electrics to sit on and then get the engine in. So that;s the plan for the next day sorted.

I decided to re-polish parts of the frame that had gone dull and this was my first time trying something like this. It took about an hour to re-polish it but it will need further work as the race seat sits higher up than stock so shows a lot of original anodised frame parts. That’s a job to do once it’s built though as I want a running bike not one that just looks pretty. I’m still concerned about the loose stearing bearing so I decide to pull it all apart. I try the lower bearing installed the other way around and re-install the forks, sorted! An easy mistake to make but now I know.

I remove the old mangled aluminium sheet from the old mangled up subframe which had all the electrics mounted on it and decided it is easier to try and salvage this than make a new one. Out with the BFH again! after a bit of bashing, some re-forming and some more bashing it actually looks fairly straight. I fit the rear mud guard and newly rejuvinated ali plate, looking good!

Next in is the motor, now I have done this before when my engine blew a piston at Snett, but I used a trolly jack at mums garage to lift the engine up. I don’t have a trolly jack and the snows so think out there I can’t go and get one. So a plan is hatched using a large plastic box and my heftyness I lifted the motor onto the box and slide it under the frame. It’s a little to high but I manage to get the motor in position and then find a problem. The frame had been repaired on the rear mounting as some point and the gap’s too small for the rear mountings. Bugger. I call it a night happy but frustrated, the story of my life lol.

The next day I attack the frame mountings with a large file and take off about 2mm from each side and after a lot of heaving, swearing and tantrums I get the motor installed

Over the last few weeks a lot of bike porn has been arriving and some of the nicest is a new set of rearsets from Race Supplies Direct . I’ve been running standard pegs up until now but have been suffering with ground clearance on my size 11’s! These are well made, well thought out and look the business. Race Supplies make these themselves so they are cheap in comparison to alternatives. I know a few riders run them and I’ll hopefully be brokering a deal for YPM’ers with the supplier so watch this space.

The rear sets bolt on easily, the only adjustments I have to do are to shorten the rear master cylinder hose and to open the hole up on the plunger as it doesn’t fit over the rear set spindle. Should be easy enough. I can’t resist a little sit on the bike now and my god does it feel alien. I know it’s been 4 months but this is strange, I have no idea how I managed to ride one of these things. Maybe it’s because there’s no tank on the frame or sommit, the rear sets are higher of course but this just feels wrong.

Time to grab the tank and front mud guard that have been freshly painted. I bung them on and mock up the seat unit, oooooo she’s looking mighty fine! Sitting on her now feels better but it’s always different when your riding rather than staitionary on padock stands.

The next jobs are to mount the exhausts and calipers then split the new fairings and mount that. I got some ali rod to make the fairing mounts first, that should be a laugh. Other than that I’m going to teach Jay how to clean carbs in situ and fit the new wiring loom once that arrives from Bally. I’ve got a venhill throttle on order as my standard one got propper mullered at Clearways and ordered a custom cable to replace the standard one.

It’s suprising how quickly this has all come together and the main thing is I’m learning a lot. I’m confident on how the different areas assemble which was the whole idea about doing this myself. The hardest bit is still to come though, getting the package running will be interesting to say the least.

I’ll get some photo’s sorted once the snow has gone and I can get the bike out of the garage.

It’s christmas day and this is the 1st chance I’ve had to update the blog with some new bling that’s been arriving over the last week or so. Moose had some seat height brackets made up and offered them to the class so I snapped a set up. My seat unit had a simple bent up plate supporting the front with some angled bracket Steve sorted for me bringing up the rear. It was finished off with some lush mahogany blocks in the middle to protect the CDI etc.

Sexy ali brackets and blingin' tank logo's

After my off at Clearways my bike was taken to technical inspection where the the scruit asked who the carpenter was!

So even tho I am loosing weight gradually to get into race trim (yeah righto!) I needed something a little more sturdy to a. carry my heftyness and b. survive a trip into gravel land.

The brackets arrived last week and they are superb quality. Moose got the price down to £45 delivered because we ordered a few between us, now all I’ve got to do is fit them to the sub frame. I think I’ll wait until the new plastics show up coz I need enough room to move about with my lanky legs.

Speaking of which I’ve ordered a set of rearsets for 2010. I’ve been using cutdown standard footrests on standard hangers and have been struggling a bit. I always ground down the toe sliders and can’t seem to get off the bike as much as I need to. Lifting my size 11’s up and back a bit should help along with the increased seat height.

The tank decals arrived as well, a simple black with chrome fork logo, I’m going for the R7 style tank with nothing else but the logo.

I picked up the old frame and forks from the Team Stoater garage today along with a box of assorted bits that had been removed or fallen off, what a jigsaw puzzle this is gonna be!

So I’ll take this oppertunity to wish everyone a a merry Xmas, Happy New Year and a safe 2010.

Re-sprayed bits

The 1st bling has arrived! I picked up the re-sprayed tank, mudguard and hoops from a good mate who sorted them out for me today. The tank had a few dents in it from my 2 outings on my arse but you can’t even see them now they’ve been properly filled. It’s handy knowing someone in the motor trade

This lot along with the white fairings will make me look like frosty the snowman out there so I’ve now named my bike ‘The White Thing’, hoping that some of Smithy’s speed will suddenly posess her!

I need to get the rubber back on the hoops this weekend courtesy of the bike friendly Watling Tyres then the work can commence on buffing up the frame. My fleabay special polishing kit has arived, with a multitude of mops, coloured bars and polish. This is gonna be fun!

The frame had already been polished before but it’s gone dull so hopefully a re-buff and wax seal will do the job. Jay’s been given polishing duties and can’t wait to break out the power tools! So once that’s done it’ll be a trip over to Stoater HQ (mum’s garage) to retrieve the old broken frame etc to build the rolling chasis.

Let’s not forget the whole reason we’re doing this is to replace the broken frame caused by Tom when he ran over the bike at Brands! You still owe me that bike fella! :p

But it’ll give us the chance to learn how the whole thing fits together and be a little more self sufficient.

That’s all for now…I’ve got a white thing to build!