Brothers in the Build.

I've just finished watching a recording of the Le Mans MotoGP with Mrs Cutter, about 8 hours after it happened. What a race!  Ducati are on the podium with Rossi  having had a smart consistent push to third aided by carnage and confusion at the front.  Rossi, Burgess, and the Ducati team are doing what they said they would, developing the bike. This result became possible after some "chassis" (that's an archaic word for what is really a carbon airbox that holds the front-end, engine and rear-end together) mods, but Barcelona brings a new engine which Burgess has made clear is an important part of improving the behaviour in corners. If it has more power that won't hurt either. I won't talk about the ironies of the Simoncelli, Pedrosa and Lorenzo, Dovizioso dust-ups, other to say that I feel sorry for Dani but enjoyed watching Simoncelli stuff it up Lorenzo who has been playing the pious champion mind-games off the track. Anyway back to C-Shack business..

Last weekend was a milestone in terms of the project bike, not just because a particularly daunting (to me anyway) stage was completed, but more because of the manner in which it happened. A fellow UK Monster Owners Club member, Sam, had arranged to swap his Mivv X-Cone cans for my Sils. This was a deal made in heaven, with Sam lusting after the oval Sils he had wanted for a long time, now in a position to make use of them as he de-caffeinates his 620 for a change in riding position. In turn I got what I had been secretly longing for, pipes that are really different, with a real cafe-racer megaphone look mixed with a bit of modern GP vibe.

True, the brushed steel X-Cones are a fair bit heavier than the carbon Sils which seems a bit of a backward step performance-wise, but they are still a lot lighter than standard.  However, they look phenomenal. I was worried the back end was going to look cluttered and low with everything in black around the back wheel, These swept slim cans will clean things up no end without my having to resort to high-levels which inevitably look too modern for a cafe-a-like, and on a tail-chop bike need shortening.

The Silmotors :

The Mivvs :

They look longer when in position due to the link pipes which continue the line back to the manifold.

You may be wondering what was so special about all of this, and what was daunting about exhaust pipes. The answer is nothing, what was special was that Sam, as well as travelling a couple of hundred miles to do the swap, also decided to help me out with the wiring job for the Motogadget speedo and associated LEDs. Yep, the wiring that has been worrying me for so long. He spent several hours doing a class wiring job just as a favour to a fellow Monster owner. He even had to be forced to accept a little lunch - the chickens pinned him down while Mrs Cutter force fed him Spag Bol. I have rarely met such a polite, kind, hard working and talented bloke and I owe him big time.

The speedo, complete with it's micro switch, sensor, four internal warning lights, and the three extra LEDs I'm mounting (for the remaining required "idiot lights"), are all functional. All I have to do is tidy and route the wiring, put in a in-line fuse for the 12v supply, and bracket-mount the speed sensor and switch. The wiring was scarier than it looks below where it's pretty much finished, with some changes having to be made in the loom at the back end of the bike as well as at the front. However it wasn't at all scary for Sam, who pulled of the neat trick of making it look easy without ever making me feel like the talentless chancer I am!

More news just in, this weekend -  apart form sorting Kriega luggage for Mrs Cutter's 695 and my VTR, as well as a RAM mount and charging socket on the latter (all this in prep for Silverstone and Assen GP visits) -  I found some time to look at the final drive on the M900. I'd been uncomfortable with how close the sprocket nuts seem to be to the swing arm, and as usual instead of noting the obvious (studs seemed a bit short - how could that be?) I was making up all kinds of panicky theories. Powder coating affecting tolerances, 750SS sourced wheel not right, sprocket carrier different or not seating properly, spacer in the wrong way round, Resolving to play around with different sprockets and swap to the old carrier to see what was what, I realised I'd put the sprocket on the wrong way round - it has indentations on one side that allow the nuts to screw further down the studs. Just a couple of mm. difference but enough to now look right.

Wth everything going so well I decided to try and put the chain on, which really needs a side-plate pressing and rivet-end squashing tool. These usually come as a multi-function jobbie that breaks the old chain too. A bit of web searching came up with some alternative methods and I tried to improvise:

This is some kind of car tool which, with a socket used to keep it's jaws open, makes a good pressing tool. This would have been fine if the instructions on the chain packet had mentioned that you need to have the side of the plate with the writing on facing outwards ( it says "Japan" unlike every other link that says "DID"). Or if I had enough sense to know that, to work as a press-fit, the holes need to be tapered, and therefore direction of application is important. I soon realised though, when my pseudo-press bent the plate instead of pressing it on. I straightened it in the vice (should be OK as all strain is lengthways) and resolved to try again later or maybe borrow the right tool from my mate Roly if he's got one. Sometimes it's best to take a breather and re-group.

I'm feeling very up because the project has so much momentum now. I need to ring a seatmaker.....

Forza Ducati! Roll on Silverstone and Catalunya!

Looking back on a week in 'shackland...

So I'm back at work feeling that I have something to sustain me - a week doing project-related stuff was good for the soul. I made some stupid mistakes and then rescued them. I spent a lot of time pottering around. I had previously drained my tank and left it out to air for two days in order to lose lethal explosive fumes prior to transportation. As you can see Mrs Cutter felt it prudent to take shelter in the cluckbunker while I drained the fuel. The chooks had more faith...

The net is full of every warning, technique, argument, superstition, example, confusion and revelation you could imagine about dealing with petrol fumes in tanks; baking, dry ice, pumping with exhaust fumes, washing with water, detergent, acetone, thinners, blood of virgin jellyfish, incantations, dances, prayers, stuffing with tribbles or guineapigs dressed as tribbles. You name it there's a contradiction to it. In the end I thought; air it right way up for a day, wrong way up for a night, and on it's sides for a day/night. Sniff it. Fall over. Lock it in the boot. Warn the painter to warn the welder that a fool delivered it.




I visited Don at Boyz Toyz taking the tank and my designs in the car. What a gentleman - really friendly and helpful, and he even brought my phone back to life....  Yep the industrial estate where he's based is a bit of a bomb site, and as I opened the car door - PLOP! - phone makes a death dive bid-for-freedom into six inches of muddy water. I never would have believed  it could survive it, but it's fine after he applied his compressed air line to it, though the slide action is still a bit gritty. We talked about Ducati's at length as he's an air-cooled ducati nut too, and we worked through the colour swatches and the striping.

That night I was tossing and turning, had I really taken enough care picking the colours? As a friend pointed out, I hadn't seen the swatches in daylight only artificial light. Oh well, forecast was cold but sunny and the Firestorm needed a blat. I was on hols after all. The sun didn't arrrive until much later and I froze my butt off, especially as I took the wrong lane in some roadworks that dumped me past the right junction. I had been there the day before but still needed a warm evil McD and the fantastic googlemaps GPS implementation on my phone. Section 1. eat chips, Section 2 turn left and after 2.5 metres push, don't pull door, etc etc. The fact that you can type in just the name of a custom bike painting firm based in an estate mainly made up of old containers, and get precise directions is something to behold. What we take for granted these days is unbelievable. Science still a bit slow in coming up with immortality mind...

Don wasn't that suprised to see me, I think he's seen it all. I met a nice bloke there who was picking up bodywork from a previously white and blue 1800 Suzuki techno-muscle cruiser. He'd had Don spray it up in satin black with stealth artwork that only showed up at certain angles. WIth his moral support, I decided the colours I'd picked for the stripes were right, and spotted a Piaggio scooter Don was working on that had the right shade of vintage white for the base colour.

That night I was tossing and turning......had I really, really, I mean really, picked dark enough stripe colours to avoid the pizzabox effect? Mrs Cutter was now fixing to put one or other of us out of our misery....

Yes! I decided that even if the rich metallic green and red where more traditional than I had planned in their greeness and redness, I had faith that it was going to look very cool. The black frame and wheels would mitigate the Luigi's Deli sun canopy effect.

Then I tossed some more (they can't touch you for it you know), and I turned some more. Shite! Did Don think the drawings I gave him were totally accurate in terms of stripes being 90 degrees to actual tank mounting position??  A monster tank has every angle and curve you can think of on it somewhere. The next morning I rang him and did everything I could to assure him I wasn't some kind of paint-shop stalker. A discussion then ensued about taking reference 90 degree angles from fuel cap and original logo. I would get a call if this didn't sort it out, and would then have to collect tank and photograph in situ, on the frame sitting on it's wheels. I never got that call, so hopefully everything is fine. Turnaround is up to about 3 weeks, (including welding up the hinge plate on the base to cure the rust problems) so I am just waiting in great, great, anticipation. In the meantime a polished alloy, race-style keyless gascap has been ordered...

I started work on mating the airbox to the Keihin carbs. I had to do some cutting mentioned in the instructions. I had to do some cutting not mentioned in the instructions, or by anyone else ever as far as I could see. But then again, (and excuse the diversion from the carbs here, we'll get back to that in just a while), I thought I was the only one who had problems with a Cyclecat top yoke rubbing against ignition key block. That is until I researched some old posts on UK Monster Owners forum by a gent who inspired me with his blog right back at the beginning m900.blogspot.com. He mentioned in a forum post that a few 900s from around '95 to '97 had the frame mounting for the ignition in a slightly different place, so I was not alone. I ground the offending face, which includes the steering lock bolt, down a couple of mm. and it now fits fine.

 

Back to the carb/airbox union. I won't go into the full embarrasing details. Suffice to say that some cutting, and some hot gluing, and some foam, have allowed clearance for the carbs. This without totally obliviating the purpose of the K&N filter, and all the gasket and sealing gubbins, and other malarky that could have been wasted due to a fool and his 3000rpm hole saw.

In a medical analogy, it wasn't that that the surgeon cut off the wrong leg - no, no, it deffo needed to come off. It was just that while he was doing it he thought he was cutting off an arm. 'Nuff said. It all came together in the end. We'll see if the extra "intakes" affect performance further down the line:

Most of the rest of the week was spent trying to persuade the loom to go back in place in a slighty less visible way than it did originally. The project referenced above did this in a very precise and sublime way. I am not even going to think about achieving the same level of tidyness, as this continues to be a quick and dirty build. Well dirty anyway. The tango with the loom is given added spice by the fact that half of it is joined to the top of the air/battery box where the coils and ignition modules live. The other half has to fit under and around said box. Meanwhile the box and rubber unions have to be pressed unwillingly down on the carb manifolds squashin' said wiring and confusing and tangling it with fuel lines. This is stuff I hate and am crap at. Therefore I am doing it at a rate of five cups of tea per strand of wire, divided by the square root of the total sum of cable-ties, to the power of 10 trips to the loo with a bike mag.

Notice ID tags for wiring, most of which have now fallen off. The task is not complete. But I have faith. I am going to carry on low and slow. I'm going to meander it into place. Yep, a week in the shed endeth and the lesson is moderation in all things, including moderation itself. I haven't been back for a few days. And when that tank returns - all being well - I will be super-motivated. My mantra "there still lots of scary stuff to do" endures, but in the end, in the words of my keyboard player "it's going to be badass!"

Thanks to my good friend Shaun  for sorting out tickets for Maceo Parker last night, now that really was badass.....