CBR900RRW

Hello all, I've been working on my 98 blade for some time now & I'm hoping to get it on the road for this summer, I bought it some time ago in a pretty sorry state after the previous owner high sided it & the decided to strip it down & sale all of the bodywork & left it stood in his garage for some time, I paid £350 for it which I thought was pretty good.

The progress has been very slow as I suffer with ME & have had very limited funds & energy to rebuild it but I'm determined to get her back on the road this summer & be back on 2 wheels again after a two year break.

This is what it looked like when I got it.

The frame took a fair clout, it looks worse in this pic than it was, the frame was checked & is straight, the engineer told me to either have the damaged area cut out & a new bit welded back in or fill it, it worked out much cheaper to fill it so I bought some JB Weld & that filled it nicely


I had to drop the back wheel out & sand it down & respray it, I also fitted a new sprocket carrier as the one fitted was corroded & a bit of a mess & I replaced the standard disc with a nice wavy one & also replaced the rear brake calliper with a new one.



I bought some carbon fibre frame covers, petrol tank, radiator & exhaust system & then for some strange reason I decided it would be good to swap over the complete front end with a 954 front end & also slip in a 954 rear wheel too to give me a wider tyre, I know the standard blade is fine with it’s 16” front wheel & 180 rear tyre but I fancied beefing it all up a little as I like the look of a big rear end



The front end is near complete apart from when I fitted some clipons I found it to uncomfortable & I’m now trying to save up to fit a bar riser top yoke & bars etc as I have to many aches & pains to be so far down on the bars which I’m a bit peed about as I wanted to stay with the original race look

I took off one of the rearsets the other day & cleaned them up & sprayed it black to match the new carbon fibre heel guards I got for them & I’ve now got to do the other side too



I also bought some carbon fibre printed vinyl to experiment with but I’m unsure if I like the finish yet, what do you think?


Thanks for lookin & I'll add some more as I make more progress

Thats a great job mate.

How easy was it to swap to a 954 front end?
What parts did you have to source?

Sorry for all the questions, my rrv is going to be a 17" front soon, with the lack of tyre choice, it seams the way to go.

Griz, looking good so far.

In my honest and unqualified opinion carbon fibre is hard to replicate so it is the real thing or nothing at all.

Keep on updating us as you get along so we can see how you are getting along.

Lookin good mate. Would look really good with a stainless radiator cover and a nice beefy swingarm! Only kiddin, I like that front end. cheers, Alan.

shadow wrote:Thats a great job mate.

How easy was it to swap to a 954 front end?
What parts did you have to source?

Sorry for all the questions, my rrv is going to be a 17" front soon, with the lack of tyre choice, it seams the way to go.

Really no problem with the questions shadow I didn't know how to go about myself until I asked around

It was really easy to swap the front end over, all I did was take all the parts needed from either a 929 or 954 as in forks, mudguard, brake disc's & upper & lower yoke & away you go, the brake calipers on the 98-99 are the same as used on the 929 & 954 so I didn't need to change them but I will upgrade the master cylinder to either a 929/954 or if I can afford it I'll use a cbr1000rr but they are a bit pricey.

After selling off all the old parts & spending a fair bit of time sourcing the new parts I guess I paid out another £200 or so for the new parts.

I guess if all you want is to run a 17" front wheel then it's cheaper to use a CBR600 or VFR750 or I think a SP1 might work too but exactly how you go about that I'm not sure but I know it's been covered on here quite a few times.

Rick wrote:Griz, looking good so far.

In my honest and unqualified opinion carbon fibre is hard to replicate so it is the real thing or nothing at all.

Keep on updating us as you get along so we can see how you are getting along.

Cheer's Rick, I do agree & with that in mind I have just bought myself a load of carbon fibre material & resin etc & I'm gonna have a go at making some parts god help me

I'll keep updating this thread as I progress

megawatt wrote:Lookin good mate. Would look really good with a stainless radiator cover and a nice beefy swingarm! Only kiddin, I like that front end. cheers, Alan.

Cheer's Alan

I'd love that swingarm but it's not what I want to do with this one, I'm thinking of either getting mine to a fabricator & getting plated up & then powder coating it or if I can master the art of carbon fibre part making I might make a trick looking carbon fibre cover for the swingarm

Now that would look tasty. If I don't sell my arm I might copy that meself. Keep posting mate. Whadya reckon on a radiator cover?

megawatt wrote:Now that would look tasty. If I don't sell my arm I might copy that meself. Keep posting mate. Whadya reckon on a radiator cover?

It would look tasty wouldn't it

I was going to streetfighter it but I've got a load of fairing panels for it kickin around so I'm gonna put a fairing back on it & see how I get on so I won't need a radiator cover for now but the covers do look cool!

Just a little update today, I've had a load of parts that I ordered from David Silver arrive today, bearings for the wheels, yokes & rear shock assembly & also the metal clutch cover with ruber spacer & screws

I also won a small victory sorting out the top yoke as the standard top yoke on the 929 & 954 doesn't accomidate bar raiser's very well because of the shape & I didn't want/ couldn't afford to spend £150 on a billet top yoke from ABM so in it's place I managed to find a SP1 top yoke.



It arrived in top condition for £30 off of ebay, it fits like a glove & is nice & flat & gives me plenty of space to fit some adjustable raiser's I 've found for £50 like these below.



I'll order the riser's next

any updates ???

slingshot wrote:any updates ???

Work has been halted due to having to move but I'll be back at it asap, thanks for asking though

Well I've managed to get out on it for 5 mins this afternoon & had another play with things & I'm a bit peed off right now as when I bought the bike from the previous owner nearly 2 years ago he told me it had been in a jig & had been tested to see if it's all straight which he assured me it was & the engineer at the time said he could either cut out the damaged part of the frame & weld in a new bit of alloy in it's place or the other option would be to fill it as the main of the damage was superficial but now I'm thinking it's worse than he made out!

I've been in the process of trying to fit a 954 rear wheel with 190 tyre, lots say it can't be done but I've heard of few people doing it & seen another rrw with one fitted, so I went with it & thought I'd give it a bash as I've already swapped out the front end for a 954 front end & thought it would be nice to have the same in the rear.

Anyway, some time last week at long last I got the rear wheel in with the 190 tyre fitted! then the problems began, I got the chain & sprockets straight & got the brake disc to centre up nicely in the rear brake bracket & only to find that the wheel was sitting at a angle in the swingarm & quite a fair angle at that & upon closer inspection it looks like the whole swingarm has been bashed over to the left hand side & I also noticed a visible gap between the right hand side of the swingarm against the inner wall of the frame but no real gap to the left of the swingarm, so I jacked up one side of the bike & detached the shock to see if there was free movement of the swingarm to find that it had a sticking point half way through the movement of the swingarm further confirming that the swingarm/frame may not be straight, when I fitted the exhaust system I had to really push the exhaust to the side of the bike to fix it to the lower fixing point on the frame & noticed that the fixing point was a bit bent, alarm bells should have gone off then really but I choose to ignore it.

So now I need to get the frame straightened & a new swingarm which I just can't afford on top of everything else left to do.

So I'm now thinking I'm gonna strip it all down & sale it all off & get myself a cheapish 2nd hand blade as I just can't afford to keep spending on this bike & I'm getting really peed that I can't just go out for a ride.

So people I will be listing up for sale some very nice rrw & 954/929 parts soon.

Here it is with the 954 rear wheel & 190 tyre, it’s jacked up on it’s side so you can’t really see that it’s out of line in this pic


Here’s a couple of pics of the gap on the right hand side of the swingarm. Does anyone else’s look like this?

Don't wanna be a circling vulture mate, but I'd be very interested in that 954 front end and 17" front wheel. I know there's a frame straightning firm in Maidstone, I could price up, but not much use to you mate. Keep in touch, Alan.

megawatt wrote:Don't wanna be a circling vulture mate, but I'd be very interested in that 954 front end and 17" front wheel. I know there's a frame straightning firm in Maidstone, I could price up, but not much use to you mate. Keep in touch, Alan.

Vulture! why don't you just pour salt in my wounds

The forks need new fork seals but I've got new oil & dust seals for them.
I think I'm going to break it all down & sale it all off, I ordered a couple of sockets to remove the swingarm & engine so I can get a crack on. I can't afford to get it straightened & it's kind of the last straw so I sale it all & hope to find a nice second hand blade after

Absolutely gutted for you

Rick wrote:Absolutely gutted for you

Rick, I don't feel so bad about it all now as I buy a bike that needs nothing doing to it & be sorted for a ride but it will be sad to break it all down, nevermind.

woa nelly! i think youve done a great job so far but i would wait or some technical feed back and second opions before you feed those vultures, coz im not sure that gap means the frame is bent matey, there is a threaded collar that you screw in to meet the side of the swinger before you tighten up the the spindle. get all the info before you chuck the towel .
keep up the good work mate.