Mk3 Refresh

[xstian81]

I started taking my mk3 apart yesterday to give it a bit of a freshen up. I had thought about doing this in the past but had worried that if it looked too good, I might be afraid to use it. But with a combination my a mate taking his bike off the road for work and the lack of a bike project, I thought now's a good as time as any.

Here's the bike in question.

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I've owned this bike since 2008. In that time I've been through the whole bike. I've rebuilt the engine, new rims and spokes, shock rebuilt, forks rebuilt a number of time and most bearing have been replaced. In fact I think the only bearings I haven't replaced are in the head stock.

In this refresh I'm looking at getting the frame powder coated. I might get the swing arm powder coated as well because it looks quite tatty, some mounting lugs have been cut off and the paint is heavily stone chipped. The tank was painted black by a previous owner, which I prefer to the original purple, but the paint job is a bit poor. If I can get new decals I'll probably paint the tank as well.

Here's the bike after a couple of hours in the garage.

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[xstian81]

A couple more hours and its all apart.


I'll take it to the powdercoater's on Monday. I'm thinking about getting the swing arm powdercoated silver at the same time. Has anyone done this? Does it hold up ok?

The head stocked bearings looked pretty bad too. There was no play in them but it must have only been a mater to time. Are all the head bearings the same size on all MK's?

[knackeredMk1]

All head bearings are the same.

I've had my swing arm powder coated silver and the linkages. Is great but you need to a good job of cleaning out all the bearing faces.

[xstian81]

I've been looking into replacement rear shocks. As stated in FAQ's Wilbers do a shock for a supermoto AR.

https://www.wilbers-shop.de/en/Motorcyc ... &year=1997

I contacted the UK supplier about it suitability for off road use and got no reply. Contacted Wilbers in Germany and they got back to me in a hour and a half. Here's what they had to say about it.

Hello mr. Williams,

thank you for your inquiry.

For pure off-road use we cannot recommend the shock absorber type 640, but only the type 642, where you have a separate pressure compensation tank so that sufficient damping is always guaranteed. The shock absorber is very stressed by the off-road use and has to work a lot, which causes the shock absorber to get hot and the shock absorber oil can mix with the gas if you don't have a pressure compensation tank. If this happens you will not have sufficient damping for off-road use.

Furthermore we tune the shock absorber to your driver data, so that you have an individually tuned suspension. You don't have that with the original shock absorber.

If you have any further questions, we are at your disposal.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Ihr Wilbers Team

Wilbers Products GmbH
Frieslandstraße 6-10
48527 Nordhorn
Telefon:+49 (0) 5921 72717-0
Fax:+49 (0) 5921-72717-77
www.wilbers.de
info@wilbers.de

Sounds like reasonable advice. Not sure I'm willing to stretch to £788 for the 642 though, although the shock was as listed at £876 yesterday, so maybe they are trying to tempt me.

I've had the shock rebuilt, but that was 6 years ago, so probably due another service. I don't know if there are any options for fitting another spring more suitable for my weight?

[xstian81]

Got the frame back from the painters. The engine is back in and new bearings fitted in the swing arm, pro-link and head stock. Waiting for some parts to arrive from CMS, it looks like it'll be the end of next week before they get here.


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[xstian81]

The parts I was waiting for came in from cms this week, so been able to make a bit of progress again.







I've ordered the paint for the tank, so will start that soon.

I've had to stop myself from getting carried away on the finish. I want to use the bike, so a lot of parts have gone back on with out painting, gearbox cover for instance. I've got to tackle the brakes next, not sure if I should bother with rebuilding the calipers or not. They worked perfectly fine before and I'm starting to think "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I've also been thinking about converting to fat bars, but the conversion kits look pretty ugly has anyone had any experience with them?

[xstian81]

Its been a while since I updated this. This is how the bike is looking at the moment.



It's coming along nicely, if a little slower than planned. My Aprilia broke down, so I got distracted with that for a while and I always think I'm going to have more free time over Christmas than I actually do. I've also been out of work since the beginning of the year, so been trying to rein my spending in a bit.

I ended up rebuilding the calipers and master cylinders in the end. Although they had been working fine, on closer inspection the dust seal on the front caliper had turned gooey, so thought I would just do the lot and replace the hoses as well for good measure.



I did manage to find time over Christmas to spray the tank and I put the new stickers on today.



I decided against fitting fat bars in the end. I found some bark buster hand guards that I had fitted to my old KTM 640 Adventure, so thought I would stick them on. It could do with a new head light surround, the old one has a few scrapes and a crack, but have decided to fit the old one for now, reasoning I will probably crash it first time out if I fit too many new bits.

So what's left to do? Not a great deal really. Put some fuel in it and get it started. I fitted new power valve cables, so they need adjusting. Now the tank is done I can get the other panels and seat fitted. I thought the rear wheel bearing needed replacing when I dismantled it, but now I have fitted the wheel back on it seems fine and it needs a new chain (maybe) and I think the MOT has run out.

I'm back to work at the end of the month, so it would be good to get it finished before then.

[xstian81]

I filled the bike up with fluids today. Fired on the 3rd or 4th kick. I bled the 2T pump and adjusted the power valve.

I'm making some new screw, which attach the side panels to the tank. The old ones are a bit rusty and the heads have been damaged in the past. I'm going to make them with bigger heads, so they fit in the panel a little more snug. I'm making them out of aluminium, so not sure if that's really going to be strong enough. I see you can still get them from CMS but we now have to pay import tax and an admin charge, which makes them over £10 a bolt. I haven't checked with any UK suppliers.

[Gammakeith]

Try putting the part number from the CMS site into the David Silver parts site (or even ebay) if you are not happy with what you make. You may find the screw is shared with other models and not hard to find.

Keith

[xstian81]

The bike is more or less finished now. I haven't rebuilt it to factory finish, I want to still use it off road. I bought some new hand grips for it, but the old ones haven't worn out, so I would only be fitting for cosmetic reasons. I hope it will be another 25 years before it needs another overhaul. It feels hard to imagine I have owned the bike for half it life, it seemed a relatively newish bike when I brought it.

I'm hoping to go down to the west country this year and ride a loop of the TET (https://transeurotrail.org/). It looks like a 3 day ride, so was hoping to kit the bike out with a few bit's so I camp. A small 3 litre reserve fuel tank and a Kreiga OS base to fit a couple of bags to. If the weather is good, it would be cool wild camp with a bivy.

[xstian81]

Fist ride out on Sunday.

[Gammakeith]

Excellent! That's looking great. I rebuilt mine a couple of years back and its picked up some "patina" since. It will cost some money to get the bikes rebuilt again in the future but still cheaper than buying new and way more satisfying and cooler

Keith

[xstian81]

After my ride out on Sunday, I've realised what Ive always known, the rear shock is woefully under sprung for my weight. So in a rash decision this afternoon, I've ordered the Wilbers rear shock. Its a lot of money, but I really want to keep this bike and not get seduced by a newer model. Its got a 7 week lead time because of something called "Brexit?", not sure what that's all about. I figured if I don't take the plunge now, it will probably become nla before too long. Lets hope it brings the bike upto modern standards. I'll keep this updated.

[knackeredMk1]

PM

[xstian81]

The new shock turned up on Tuesday. It looks nicely made. Its been set up at the factory with the setting I asked for and the settings are written in the manual so it gives you a good base line to go back to once I start to fine tune it (mess it up)




I managed to get it fitted on Thursday. A fairly simple job, although I dismantled more of the bike than I needed to, trying to get the shock out from underneath, before I realised it can just be pulled out from the top. Here a photo of the new and the old shock side by side. They look different lengths in the photo, but they are both the same.



Fitted it all back in, with all the original bolts and no problems until I came to fitting the exhaust back on. It was just touching the bottom of the shock canister. I never paid attention to how close it sat to the old shock.



I have a FMF exhaust fitted to my bike, so not sure how different that is to the original and I would imagine the build tolerances are pretty low, so it might just fit straight onto another bike. Anyway I messed about and altered the exhaust mount and now have about 5mm of clearance. Got it all back together and got it off the stand. First impressions, the rear of the bike is solid and very little sag when sat on the bike. I managed to get a ride in on Friday and my god what a difference. Before the rear would just wallow and didn't have a lot of control once you got onto a series of jumps. With the new shock it doesn't feel over worked and brings the back under control straight away. There is also more feel in the rear wheel and is much easier to tell when its spinning up around bends.

I think it'll need some fine tuning. At the moment it wants to get air off every small hump, which is good fun, but not as fast. It's sold as a supermoto shock, so I wonder if it would be set up much stiffer for road use, although when I ordered it, they did ask if it was for road or off road. I haven't made any adjustment yet, once I can get out for a proper days ride I'll mess about with it to see what feels good.