VTR1000.ORG

Hehe, very good!

French is not one of the languages that I ever learned...

I made a tongue in cheek reference to "billet" aluminium. Just a word or two on that. The word "billet" only exists in the world of car & bike enthusiasts. It has no significance, it's a term that came from the advertising departments, not the engineering ones. Not sure when ...

Just on epoxying; the main thing to worry about is cleanliness, the joint doesn't tolerate any oil / grease at all. Epoxy also won't work on most plastics. Rubber can be stuck, see below. Some people go to silly lengths on the mixing - yes, mix it well, try to get to the stuff in the corners of your...

Thanks guys! Chris, yes, epoxy - done properly - is very strong; most aircraft are assembled with something similar, it's stronger than riveting. The epoxying I did wasn't done for strength, but simply to hold parts in place for the enxt step of machining. I epoxied the risers to the yoke, then set ...

Here are the swingarm lifting pins. There's a 42mm diameter hole in the frame where the pivot bolt is - this is what the black overs snap into. I made the pins with a 42mm diameter spigot, 18mm long. Bored out to 35mm inside, to clear the pivot head / nut. The 2 pins are held in with a length of M8 ...

Thanks Chris, that was really helpful! I hadn't seen the "attach file" button.

"Pimp your ride" article duly created, with some pics, hope you like them.

Cheers,

Those pockets were milled out on my IanC milling machine - no CNC, just me twiddling the handles. Good enough for what was needed. More for appearance than actual weight saving. The whole design principle was "anything I make / add on will be at least as strong as what it's fixed to". Havi...

I fillered the corners to make it look nice, sprayed it silver and gave it a couple of coats of transparent lacquer. I'd also epoxied stainless washers on where the fork pinch bolts go. I'm replacing the bolts with M8 studs so that when I tighten it all up, it's steel on steel rather than steel on a...

Next was to cut the odd angle on the bottom ends. After much hacking of bits of wood, the angle of the cut came out to 60 degrees. I used my shaper as I could get a nice large radius in the corner. I made a short video, but it's way too big to post. Never mind. After cutting teh angled end faces, i ...

Then came the risers. They started out as a bar of alloy 50mm wide bandsawed from a sheet of 25mm thick plate. I sliced bits off the ends, these became the top caps. Drilled, tapped & counterbored them, stuck the left & right risers together with double sided tape, then bored a 28.6mm hole. ...

The top face of the top yoke was sort of flat, but a cleanup with the mill made things nicer. I epoxied a bit of alloy into the hole where the badge was, as it would get half covered. The badge was held with double sided foam tape, it levered out nicely:

Close, but with some tweaking, should work - yes, I still need room for twist grips etc. I wanted to be able to return the bike to original condition, so I ordered a used top yoke from some breakers in Belgium. A bit grubby, but fine. As others noted, the top yoke metal isn't that thick - I measured...

Good, that worked, thanks Chris! I had some nice azobe left over from a patio job, I made these, stuck them to the top yoke with double sided sticky tape. It was fine for mockup purposes (although I probably wouldn't take it on the road with bars held in place with the tape!) Then made some nice han...

I'm in the process of installing higher handlebars on my '99 VTR. Thanks to endless help from board members here and general internet scouring, I think I'm getting close to a solution. My aim was (is) to be able to use standard Renthal-type bars, and arrange it so that the bars don't foul the tank o...

I'll take pics. I have pics of the modified top yoke, that's all painted & ready to install (just need the stand to get the old top yoke off, it's the old "make a tool to make a tool" circle).

Where's the easiest place to host pics online so that I can post here? Imgur?

Ian