Time to strip down the bike this time

Brew in hand I opened the dirty work garage, tripped the alarm off and plonked the cup on the side. Walking over to the other garage (yer I have two, I don't like to brag..) I rolled the NSR out and over to the the second garage where all of my tools were kept. Bumping her up onto the wooden platform that served as floor insulation in this garage, I sat her on the side stand, cursing my lack of forethought in not buying a suitable paddock stand.

I grabbed up my allen key bits and went about removing fasteners. This ended abruptly when I was confronted with m10 bolts on the side fairings. Note new fasteners needed!

The right side dzus fasteners were okay however, so with this small pannel off it allowed me to take off the lower and left side panels off with a socket wrench. The front filler had a large crack threw it that the importer had plastic welded back together and seeing as the lower clips had cracked on the left and right lower fairings I left this all as one piece. A few tie raps made this all a bit more secure to tide this fairing over till I got some better plastics ordered in.

Another plastic issue was the tail fairings tool box door. Yesterdays run up had highlighted that there was no receptacle for the lock to locate into. I was surprised to find little information on this but a look at some exploded diagrams showed a sub fairing was missing. I couldn't find one of these online so I knew I had to make something to tide me over settling on a few tie wraps between either side of the tail fairing that gave something for the lock catch to butt up against and also hold the fairing a little more firmly together.

With the seat already removed I only had one bolt to remove to get the tank off. The fuel tap had a drip of fuel hanging off of it that I hoped had something to do with the lack of clamp on the fuel hose. Pulling this off I placed the tank on the ground and took my first look 'under the hood' so to speak. Things looked pretty good with a welcome lack of wildlife and everything looking pretty clean and dry.

Next up I popped the lid off the air box and removed the filter element. It was a little dusty but otherwise fairly clean (compared to how I found the VFR's filter that you might get to see another day) so I put that to one side for a freshen up for reuse.

Looking inside the airbox I could see plenty of oily residue holding dirt and grime along the inlet track. The sliders on the carb were discolored a little and opening the throttle graced me with a filthy brown needle. "Hmm that carb clean really was a good idea" I thought. 

With the majority of the bike exposed with no new problems presenting themselves I was happy with the plan and able to start work.