RRN Fighter Project

I've owned my old RRN fighter for a number of years now, probably about 7 or 8 I'm not too sure to be honest, but it's been sadly neglected for far too long. It was originally built by a mate of mine then got a bit of restyling by me and looked very smart for a while before being ridden-lots!!! Work, family and most of all financial constraints meant that a couple of years back when it came to tax and mot time it also needed a new battery and chain, none of which I could afford so it just got covered up in the back garden. I did have a go at getting it back on the road last year but then hit what turned out to be a huge problem-the carbs needed a good clean out but they just wouldn't come off They're finally off now so I've decided it's going to get a proper rebuild and go back on the road I'm going to document the rebuild on here but I'm still hampered by financial constraints and still have to work and devote time to the family and it's got to be built out in the garden so don't expect it to get done any time soon or be some show-winning fighter. It's gonna be cheap, cheerful, and most of all a bike that I can ride without worrying about it getting wet or dirty

Anyway this is what I'm staring with:

Its a good place to start, the carbon mudguard and hugger looks good

Cheers, I was doing alot of overtime when I bought them although my missus reckoned it would have been cheaper and more effective if I'd just gone on a diet rather than spend alot of money on carbon fibre goodies!

Maybe, but it wouldn't have looked as good

R1 or 6 or even Aprillia RSV4 tail section me thinks

Haggler ®™ wrote:R1 or 6 or even Aprillia RSV4 tail section me thinks

That would be nice but unless I get some overtime it's either going to be repairing the old Ducati biposto seat or delving into the "metal that might come in handy" pile in my shed and making something myself!!!

Carb removal tale of woe!

In all my years of messing with bikes getting the carbs off this one has been one of the worst jobs I've ever encountered First off I found that all of the clamps had rusted up and the only way I could figure to cut them off was to get in there with a dremel and given the access problems this meant learning to use a dremel with my head upside down and watching what I was doing in a mirror balanced on top of the gearbox!!! After cutting through all the clamps, which took about a day and used a helluva lot of cutting discs I thought I was home and dry but no such luck-those carbs still weren't shifting! I tried all the usual tricks like WD40 and heating them with a hair dryer but to no avail so I figured the only option was to cut through them. As you all probably know this was going to be pretty tricky with the engine still in the frame and doing everything by watching in the mirror but I went ahead with Plan A which was just to slice though them with a stanley knife-what could possibly go wrong? I soon found out what could go wrong, for starters that rubber was damn tough and the knife would slip, and each time it slipped I took more and more skin off my knuckles as they collided with the carbs I still persisted though but after cutting my fingers a few times as well I thought I'd best give up on this plan before I ended up at the hospital! So I came up with Plan B-carve the rubber away using a rotary burr in the dremel. This did work ok for a while but the deeper I got into the rubbers the more difficult it became to control the dremel so in the interest of not grinding the carbs or my fingers this plan got abandoned too. Plan C came about after rooting through various toolboxes and finding a set of wood chisels that I'd been given as a present years ago but never used. This time I did manage to cut through all the rubbers by slowly paring little bits away but still they wouldn't shift-I was starting to think they'd been glued on Next I went at them with a small screwdriver and eventually managed to peel them away from the head and SUCCESS-the carbs finally came away I now had a set of carbs in my hands and with luck the scars on my hands will heal in time

I did figure what had caused the problem too, the ally on the inlet stubs had corroded and stuck to the rubbers as the pic below shows!

Next job is to strip and clean these bad boys that have taken me 3 bloody days to get off the bike!!!!!!!

Glad it worked out in the end mate.

I've now got the carbs stripped ready for cleaning. At first I thought that I'd have real grief with these as looking at alot of the screws they weren't looking too healthy, one of the carb tops even had an odd countersunk allen screw and a rusty nut holding it on but they all came off without too much grief and the slides came out easy

The float bowls were a bit of a different story though, the first one came off ok but the rest weren't having any of it and to make it worse all the screws looked pretty chewed up! I really didn't want to get in a position where I was trying to drill screws out so a bit of patience was the order of the day. First off I got hold of some diesel and a suitable container and left the carbs soaking in that for 48 hours as our maintenance boys in work swear by this as a releasing agent Then I didn't even bother with trying a normal screwdeiver but went straight in with the impact driver. A little tip I've picked up along the way is to set the impact driver to tighten the screw then give each screw one smart tap, after this set the impact driver to undo and use it the normal way-doing this cracks the corrosion loose and does give you a much better chance of getting the screws out. Another tip but one to be used with caution around petrol is to heat up whatever your trying to undo but I didn't need to resort to that today

One little problem I do have is that the butterflys on the 2 outer carbs appear to be siezed so I've got the carbs soaking in diesel again hoping that these will free off.

Looks like a great project! 3 days to remove the carbs what a nightmare, hope the cleaning goes better

The soaking in diesel did the trick and the butterflies are now free There was some pain involved in this though as I was also using some aerosol carb cleaner and the second tin I picked up sprayed the stuff out with rather more force than normal and I got an eyefull of it when it splashed back!!!!

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning more of the bits up and hopefully manage to get a pic or two worth posting up

That will be a cool bike ! I like a streetfighter I think I will build a streetfighter next , an it will help to keep the speed down .

The carbs may be a mess mate, but the rest of the bike looks ok and has survived it's time outside pretty well. Pity you couldn't keep it on the road back when it needed a few bits but you're on the case now. Hope the carbs clean up ok.

Mick

Mick-it looks alot better in the pics than it does in real life! In all honesty though given that it did get ridden alot and rarely got more than a quick wash down before spending a fair time sat under a cover it's not too bad for it's age. Other than the faded paint and stone chips on the front end it'd probably just polish up

Right then carbs all clean and back together I know you all know what carbs look like but since I took some pics while reassembling them-and it's got dark outside so I've had to stop working on the bike-I'll post some anyway!



There we have one bank of carb bodies with the contents of one carb laid out in front.





The underside of an empty carb.





Jets and float refitted.





The bits that have to go in the top.





And finally the carbs all back together-and they went together a whole lot easier than they came apart

From the pics there was no indication you removed and cleaned the pilot air screws. This is crucial to get a smooth tick over, if you havent be very careful with those cross heads if stubborn just rock the screw left and right with WD40 with minimum of pressure.

masterblader wrote:From the pics there was no indication you removed and cleaned the pilot air screws. This is crucial to get a smooth tick over, if you havent be very careful with those cross heads if stubborn just rock the screw left and right with WD40 with minimum of pressure.

You're right there I'd missed out on those-just gave it a try and the first one has sheared a lump of the screw off as soon as I tried to turn it

Saying nowt. Sending you a PM Dave

I had a little break from the carbs today and drove up to Norfolk, I now have about 3/4 of the seat I intend to use

Sounds interesting.... Pics pics pics

I'll sort some pics out over the next few weeks. It's not mega original though just a Ducati Biposto seat and all standard other than some integral indicators that came from a Ford!!

We've still got snow out here which is really holding things up I've got the carbs all ready to go on but there's no way I'm attempting something that fiddly in sub zero temperatures out in the garden so I've been occupying myself with some of the little bits that need doing. The seat is coming along nicely, hopefully that'll be finished today, and I've been messing about with some headlight brackets. I made these a few years back out of some offcuts of ally I found in a scrap bin so all they cost me was around £1.30 for the screws and an awful lot of time spent cutting, drilling, filing and swearing in my shed! Still got more polishing to do on them but here's a pic anyway:-

The seat unit is now all restored and ready to go back on, it did look very tatty and faded before but after giving it a good polish with sainsburys basics toothpaste-a trick that works quite well on coloured plastic- it looks pretty good now! A going over with Meguairs polish and wax finished it off a treat I did have to buy a replacement rear seat pad though as the old one was beyond any salvation but e-bay came to the rescue here!



The seat base all polished



And here it is with all the bits fitted!

Ooohhh that looks nice Dave.

Cheers mate It's also got some scrounged indicators too that originally lived on a ford, a focus or fiesta or something

yep the seat does look very nice indeed

I've not had much spare time the last few weeks but I've got a bit more done now. I've actually had the old girl running, still not right so the carbs will have to come off again but it certainly felt good to get her fired up I've also changed the bars and gone for a bit of traditional cafe racer and fitted a set of 1960's style clubmans ace bars!!! I'm thinking now about going for some fork gaiters and some shrouds up between the yokes, I've got some stainless tube to hopefully make the shrouds from but haven't found any gaiters to fit yet so I might have to look for some off a car CV joint that'll do the job.

Anyway here's how she looks at the moment:-

Boy O Boy those Ace bars brought back some memories EBD.

Bikes looking good shame you still have that carb problem. Check your PM.

I've not been on for a while and the reason is I've not had the opportunity to make much progress Too much work and not enough spare time are to blame here, add in some health issues that may mean I wouldn't be able to ride the bike if I did finish it so I'm I'm seriously considering selling it as is