Well this has arrived... its a 2004 XB12R... I really didn't need another project just yet, but when this came along at a bargain price it was simply too good to miss! its done 12k miles and is in really nice condition! lots of aftermarket carbon parts on it, plus all the original parts as well! Not sure what I will do with it yet, I am tempted to just ride it for a while! We will see...
Another victim of vibration...I lost a seat bolt…. No problem I thought, bound to be one on Ebay…. there was… sold for £100!!! seems its now a rare item! I measured the thread and set the lathe up to the pitch of the thread… been a while since I did any screw cutting, so I had to get the book out, which is the original one that came with the lathe! there is even a commissioning sheet, dater May 1959! I love making stuff like this!
its something that bugs me... no one to pass my knowledge onto... or my tools... I actually have had nightmares about it all going in the skip! I did say this build would sit at the back of the garage until the end of september when we come back off holiday... But there is not much riding weather of late so I couldn't resist doing a few jobs! I have however been doing quite a few miles on the last Buell... and I have to say that I love riding it! I love the wall of torque, pin sharp handling, and the sound! My ideas are starting to form in terms of how this one will look… one thing for sure is that the clip ons have to go, so the first job has been to make a new top yoke. I drew it up in CAD and sent the file to the water jet cutter along with a 25mm billet of aircraft grade alloy, it came back perfect! I had to machine a recess in the top, and this needed a bigger lathe than mine so I popped in to see my mate… Nice and easy job but I did come away with Lathe envy!
its been a while... not much going on in the workshop, but plenty of riding! Been doing a fair amount of miles on both the Guzzi and the Buell of late... Last month me and my best mate went out on both bikes... he had a T3 back in the 80's so riding a Guzzi again was a trip down memory lane for him He described the Buell as "brutal" I did a 1 min video of our day out
September is here so the Buell XB12R project starts in earnest... albeit slow at first as there are a few holidays! the strip down has started and one of the first jobs was to make an engine cradle so I can remove the frame easily... One of the first problems I encountered was the K nuts on the front exhaust were badly corroded the bottom on was easy to get to with the angle grinder... the rear took some thinking about. In the end I used the tip of my power file to grind away one side, which was surprisingly quick to do... That power file is a tool I bought thinking it would be of limited use, but I find I use it all the time...
well it didn’t take long to get apart! I can see why its such a light bike, even given the heavy engine… I love the design of the fuel in the frame, and oil in the swinging arm, and the way Buell seem to have taken every opportunity to save weight!
I normally leave the paintwork until close to the end of the build, but that is often Jan/Feb and as I paint outside its very weather dependant. As I am keeping the bodywork standard I decided to do it early and put it to one side. I am SO impressed with this new lacquer! It has a great gloss straight from the gun. I also have a new supplier of decals who has a machine that can cut quite small... he is quick to send them and very reasonable! The single most important thing when lacquering over decals iss to wipe them with panel wipe before you paint! they always have some sort of silicone residue on them!
