New Project Bike

[D-Mac]

Looking forward to updates! My brother has a friend doing the same kit this Winter. The end result looks amazing.

Life (work) is kicking my ass right now. I will be finishing up my project this winter. Gotta get it done so I can move onto the next one

[Sport-Touring]

[Gerry Sweetland]

Looking forward to updates! My brother has a friend doing the same kit this Winter. The end result looks amazing.

Life (work) is kicking my ass right now. I will be finishing up my project this winter. Gotta get it done so I can move onto the next one

Hope you find the time to complete your project Dean, you have a beautiful start on it.
Gerry

[Gerry Sweetland]

Here is a bit of an update.

Sent the tank and rear rim off to Ryca last Tues.  They should have it today or tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll get those parts and the rest of the kit in about 4 weeks, maybe less.  In the mean time I have lots to do with what I have on hand.
I have separated the engine from the frame and made a home made engine stand like one I saw on the SuzukiSavage.com forum.


I want to seal the engine up so I can roll the "engine stand" onto my trailer and take it to a self serve car wash along with the frame and swing arm plus a can of Gunk and degrease every thing.
I drew a couple of plates up in CAD for the intake and exhaust and machined them out on the mill.
Here is the blank ready to run.


Here it is after machining.
 

When I machine thin material like this I set it up in CAM to have tabs, then I just put the finished part in a vise and use a Dremal with a cut off wheel to remove the part from the blank.  A little touch up on the belt sander and they were ready to attach to the engine, along with a piece of inner tube that I cut out using the cover as a template and a Xacto knife.



I also needed to seal the hole in the case where the starter goes.

I have read over on the Triumph.rat forums a procedure for getting rust out of an old fuel tank and sealing the fuel filler hole using a device used by plumbers for temporary sealing pipes as they work on them.  I went to Home Depot and was able to find the device.  It worked perfectly!

Here are a couple of after shots.



Next up was to address a small oil leak in the head cover.  This engine is weird in that the rocker arms are assembled in this head cover casting.




There quite a few bolts of various lengths that fix the cover to the head.  Another idea from Savage.com was a PDF you can download and print and use as a guide as you remove the bolts to be sure and put them back where they belong.


There is no gasket for the seal between this cover and the head.  You are supposed to use a high temp silicone gasket compound.  Some of the bolts were a bit rounded off and there are 5 bolts that get a O-ring type gasket under them when you reinstall.  I found a place on line that is out of Grand Rapids that seems to be a pretty good source for Suzuki OEM parts.  I called them yesterday with a long list of part numbers to make sure they have everything in stock.  The nice girl on the phone said to just put all the numbers in an email and she would advice on availability and current pricing.  I got a response back with in the hour and all the parts are in stock from Suzuki and would be at their parts counter in 3 to 4 days.  I can save shipping by picking them up.  The name of the place is Parts Pit stop, here is a link http://www.suzukipartspitstop.com/

Another issue that the Savage has is the cam chain adjuster over extends before the service life and specified stretch maximum is reached.
If the distance as shown in the photo below is at .71" or more you should modify the piston on the tensioner.


Mine measures .67".  I'm going to go ahead and modify my tensioner as shown in this link.
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1191167029

While waiting for my parts to come in from Parts Pit Stop I am going to start measuring and cutting the frame as needed for the kit and work on the cam chain tensioner mod.
Thanks for reading,
Gerry

[Stripes]

Awesome!  



 

[mjauto]

 

Wish I had time and your ambition, well done. Look forward to seeing it through to the end!

Matt

[cage free]

I saw one of these in a vendor booth at the Concours bike show in Del Mar Ca a few weeks ago, gotta say not bad considering its humble beginnings..It was built by a custom bike shop using the Ryca kit.. They were asking $5500. I personally would buy a Honda CB 500 for the same cash and have a warranty but to each his own..

[Gerry Sweetland]

I saw one of these in a vendor booth at the Concours bike show in Del Mar Ca a few weeks ago, gotta say not bad considering its humble beginnings..It was built by a custom bike shop using the Ryca kit.. They were asking $5500. I personally would buy a Honda CB 500 for the same cash and have a warranty but to each his own..

To each his own, for sure.
I guess part of what I'm paying for is the enjoyment I get out of sourcing the donor, tearing it down, repairing and updating where needed, modifying to make it my own where I can and putting the whole thing back together and riding a bike that I somewhat built myself.

Time for a small update.  I'm waiting for the kit and options I ordered from Ryca to arrive.  Hopefully I hear from Ryan this week or next with the final invoice and shipping details?  
In the meantime I have put the cases back on the motor using new gaskets and I have painted the cylinder low gloss black.



Part of the fun is picking out a color for the bike. At first I was going to go with a red frame and white tank, seat cowl, front fender and side covers.  I am going to go with a rattle can paint job so I can paint it my self with out investing in spray equipment and all that goes with a two part epoxy type paints.  I have always liked the white that Ford used on the Shelby Mustangs.  It is called "Wimbledon White".  So I picked up a can of Duplicolor in Wimbledon White and a can of Duplicolor "Chili Pepper Red" and did a sample.  Probably can't see the true colors in the following photos but any way, I didn't like how the white was more of a cream color than white.


So then I started thinking about a different color.  Maybe a silver frame with a somewhat British Racing Green on the tank, etc.


That looked OK, the silver sprayed nice but I wasn't sure if I liked that either.
My wife bought me a new poster to hang in the shop that she found down at the local antique mall.


I have always loved Ford GT40's and the new Ford GT.  So I did some Googling and found out the colors for the Ford GT in the poster are "Performance White" and "Sonic Blue Pearl".  Found that these colors are available from Duplicolor and made a sample.


I like this, I think that will be the color combo, Performance White tank, front fender, seat cowl, and side covers.  And two Sonic Blue Pearl stripes on the tank and seat cowl with two somewhat narrower blue strips on the front fender and then some how have the two blue stripes on the side covers with some how integrating the Ryca logo in them the way Ford did on the sides of Ford GT.

One last thing for today, I was going to modify the stock top triple clamp by machining out the material between the reinforcement webbing in the casting but decided to just go ahead and model the casting in SolidWorks and make my own out of billet alum.  In addition I wanted to integrate the turn signals, high beam and neutral lights in the top clamp using LED's.  I have the clamp modeled, still doing research on the LED's
 

I am probably going to start making chips on that today.

Thanks for reading,
Gerry

[veefer800canuck]

Mad skillz!  

[Gerry Sweetland]

Been a while but time for another update.
I got to say I am new to this sub forum, I usually post over in the Region 4 forum but the Admins. moved my build thread over here.  The last Suzuki I had was new 1986 GSXR 750.  Rode it for about 4 years, had a lot of fun with it.  Like a lot of other bikes I have owned over the years I wish I would of kept it.  
I'll hopefully get to know some of you Suzuki folks as I continue this thread.

Right, well I finally got around to machining the top triple clamp.  Here is a photo of the stock set up in the mill and a link to a movie of the mill doing it's thing...


http://youtu.be/2KFnijWxUZY

And a photo of the part almost done, still need to machine the pockets for the forks and steering stem...


And here is a photo of the finished top triple clamp as well as a full size card stock mock up of the dash panel I am designing to hold the tachometer and the speedometer I purchased with the kit from Ryca.  The standard Ryca kit has the turn signals and high beam located in the top of the fuel tank, I would prefer them up on the top triple tree.


I may even try to locate the ignition switch up there as well.  Gonna have to play around with it in CAD to see if I have the room.

I received my shipment from Ryca yesterday.


Every thing came well packaged and well marked with identification, especially the hardware ...



The rear sets, wish I could get this nice a finish on my machined aluminum  


Here are a couple of photos of the fuel tank...



I'm gonna work on the dash and get that figured out and machined than I can start putting the bike back together.
I am probably just gonna assemble all the fiberglass parts and the fuel tank with out paint for the time being.  I need to find someone with a heated paint booth if I am going to paint this winter.
Thanks for reading,
Gerry

[Papa Lazarou]

 

[MisterSmooth]

...I have a 3 axis CNC mill and lathe in my shop so I am going to design and machine my own turn signals and various items as needed to add to the build...

In-house CNC, eh?  That's all kinds of awesome!  


I kind of like the Wimbledon White and red, don't mind the cream color at all.   Although all of your color choices are good, you can't go wrong there.


Thanks very much for sharing this with us, as the British say, "It's mega."    

[2RR2NV]

GT 40 colors FTMFW!!!!  


a CNC in your home?  WTH??????  so not fair.  

[Dan K]

One day when I retire, I will build a bike like this.

Awesome job so far, looking forward to watching as the progress continues. And that's my favorite color scheme on a bike - the blue and white Gen2 Tuono's came in that color scheme.

- Dan

[CLAY]

Gerry- totally cool.  I LOVE seeing bike builds like this.  

[Nodaclu]

I'm keeping this GIF around...

I learned from my KLR project that I enjoy rescuing bikes from the dead and restoring them even more than I enjoy riding them.    

I certainly don't have your fabricating skills or equipment, but I'm still watching this one with interest.

[Gerry Sweetland]

Thank you all for the kind comments.  
About the CNC, when I was working I was doing some design and CAD work supplying drawings and documents to the CNC guru's out in the tool room where I worked.  Never really ran CNC or did any setup but worked closely with the fellas in the tool room and was always fascinated by CNC.  So when I retired about three years ago I new I wanted to start building some bikes and thought a CNC machine would be nice to have.  At first I was going to convert a small dovetail column milling machine from Grizzly or similar to be CNC.  I would need to buy servos and drivers, ball screws, ball nuts and have the ability to machine or have machined various aluminum parts for the conversion.  It would be quite a project and a lot of folks have done it quite successfully.  In doing my research I stumbled across a company called Tormach http://www.tormach.com/ out of Wisconsin.
They had a pretty good reputation it seems and I really thought their products were quite affordable.  So I purchased a PCNC 770 turn key system and have been very pleased with the machine, software and the support I get from Tormach even going on two years after warranty.  
Thanks again for reading!
Gerry

[MisterSmooth]

Thank you all for the kind comments.  
About the CNC, when I was working I was doing some design and CAD work supplying drawings and documents to the CNC guru's out in the tool room where I worked.  Never really ran CNC or did any setup but worked closely with the fellas in the tool room and was always fascinated by CNC.  So when I retired about three years ago I new I wanted to start building some bikes and thought a CNC machine would be nice to have.  At first I was going to convert a small dovetail column milling machine from Grizzly or similar to be CNC.  I would need to buy servos and drivers, ball screws, ball nuts and have the ability to machine or have machined various aluminum parts for the conversion.  It would be quite a project and a lot of folks have done it quite successfully.  In doing my research I stumbled across a company called Tormach http://www.tormach.com/ out of Wisconsin.
They had a pretty good reputation it seems and I really thought their products were quite affordable.  So I purchased a PCNC 770 turn key system and have been very pleased with the machine, software and the support I get from Tormach even going on two years after warranty.  
Thanks again for reading!
Gerry

Gerry, every person on the Forum who reads this is both mildly jealous and thinking, "I wonder what Gerry would charge me to CNC machine a  _____."  

Fill in the blank with "upper triple clamp", "GPS bracket", "big block of Wisconsin cheddar", what have you.  

[2RR2NV]

Thank you all for the kind comments.  
About the CNC, when I was working I was doing some design and CAD work supplying drawings and documents to the CNC guru's out in the tool room where I worked.  Never really ran CNC or did any setup but worked closely with the fellas in the tool room and was always fascinated by CNC.  So when I retired about three years ago I new I wanted to start building some bikes and thought a CNC machine would be nice to have.  At first I was going to convert a small dovetail column milling machine from Grizzly or similar to be CNC.  I would need to buy servos and drivers, ball screws, ball nuts and have the ability to machine or have machined various aluminum parts for the conversion.  It would be quite a project and a lot of folks have done it quite successfully.  In doing my research I stumbled across a company called Tormach http://www.tormach.com/ out of Wisconsin.
They had a pretty good reputation it seems and I really thought their products were quite affordable.  So I purchased a PCNC 770 turn key system and have been very pleased with the machine, software and the support I get from Tormach even going on two years after warranty.  
Thanks again for reading!
Gerry

  almost $7k?   ouch!

mildly jealous? not even close. how about ...  selling the kids. oh wait, can't do that.  

[Papa Lazarou]

Will you grind the Suzuki logo out?

[Stripes]

Keep it coming Gerry!