Project NSR

If you already read  Shiny bits shiny (pt. 1 of 100)  this blog entry won't be full of many twists or turns. Or will there? After the painfully long experience of polishing the left rearset, I finally got round to sorting out the right. Polishing wasn't my only job here though as this side also features the rear brake (as if you didn't know) but on the pluss side there isn't a heel plate, saving my some polishing at least. I had managed to remember to pick up some Autosol this time as well so the polishing process would be allot easier that the usual wet and dry system I had used on the left. I am away from my  main computer and seem to have saved all of the most recent pictures on there. So save this one starting image on the right hand side I have nothing to show for the work I have done. I'll update this in September with all of the images. The starting place is the same as before: Strip down the foot rest hangar, clean it up and work at removing...

 One really big giveaway that your bike is getting a bit old is when the forks start to get a bit flaky. You look at them thinking how naff they look but at the same time knowing how long and much of a pain in the ass it is going to be to restore them. After all its not going to cause a break down is it? Well I didn't buy the tarts handbag NSR for it to have furry forks so its time to get at them fork stanchions. This wasn't going to work well without being able to get the front end off of the ground and without any paddock stands to hand this wasn't going to be straight forward. I stuck some axle stands under the pegs, getting the back end up and leveling the bike off then  stuck a well padded hydraulic jack under the engine and lifted the front up. With her front wheel off the ground I removed the mudguard, brake calipers then the wheel to give me maximum access to the forks. Whilst I was there I checked the headrace bearing play and was pleased to find them notch fr...

I have already mentioned early on in the break down process that the boot/ tool box lid catch was an issue. Well in the seance that it wasn't there that is. I made a quick temporary fix using tie wraps that worked perfectly well but for obvious reasons I wanted something a little better. Still with no original part available I opted to fabricate something out of some old bits of aluminium that I found lying about. It didn't need to be a work of art as it's all a bit out of sight but it needed to be functional. One of the scraps I had was an L bracket with two holes along one edge and a slotted hole in one corner of the other edge. The other piece was a straight piece with a long angle cut out of one corner, it was also base coated green unlike its plain ally, L shaped buddy. Both pieces had rounded corners and the L bracket had two sprung anchor nuts with it that would prove to be useful. The L bracket just so happened to have its two holes drilled exactly where the ...

During the run up I had noticed that I had some rather funky goings on with my indicators. My fronts were permanently on only going out when that sides indicator was selected and the rears were flashing on the wrong sides. that was if they worked at all as they were pretty intermittent. As I was stripping down the bike I took a look at the wiring under the tail unit. All the wiring was connected up correctly yet I was still getting a back to front indication.  I disassembled all the connections A took the time to polish the little brass connectors to reduce resistance in the system and put it all back together again. I tried swapping the wiring round, leaving the common earth as it is and swapping the live wires. Success!  Everything worked as it should but why only when the wiring was plugged in incorrectly?  This was baffling for 10 seconds longer than it aught to be when I realized the indicators had just been installed on the wrong sides by the importer. So ...

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 week off work gave me some time to get into a quick strip down inspection of the NSR to really get a good picture of what I have gotten myself into. But hang on, I have a [purple] smokin' hot 250cc 2T pocket rocket of joy. Lets fire this thing up!!! I put the ignition card in with a click that brought life to the LCD display of the PGM IV unit and simultaneously disengaged the steering lock: something that had stumped the importer initially with no battery connected and a bike that only wanted to be pushed in circles. I wheeled the bike out of the garage, tuned the fuel to reserve and put the choke on. With the ignition briefly off I gave the kick start a couple of slow pokes to prime things then clicking the card back in and gave her a sharp kick making her immediately rasp into life. The tick over rose then slumped into an uneasy stumble quickly, so I disengaged the choke and felt the bike settle down. Hovering my hand about the throttle the bike continued to burble a...

Where did all this come from anyway? Well that is a good question but for the time being at least you are going to be finding out where this project has already been as this blog is a little way behind so I will try not to spoil things. Lets start from the original plan. That being to buy a  2 stroke 250 sports bike to fill that gap that I missed out when I was starting out on bikes. The hope with this machine was to give me a fun bike that I could fettle and tweak whilst my trusty VFR800 RC46 remained my main work horse. It basically came down to a short list of the NSR250 MC18 (late model) and 21. There was also the wild card of a VJ22 RGV250. I have been a bit of a Honda rider of late and the Suzuki was the one that got away when I went GSXR400 instead but my riding history is for another day. This was not an exclusive list however. It was all a matter of what is available now? Many other bikes like the KR1S were getting rare so a bit steep and the the only TZR that really ...

On the 21st of June at 8pm I was stood, on hold to the bank whilst Cal frantically rewired his trailer in a farm courtyard. 2 hours drive from home I was facing the very real prospect of having to unload my as yet unpaid for bike and go home empty handed and defeated. The bike in question is the Honda NSR250 MC28 SE. I came across this bike a month earlier on eBay and had put a low bid in, you know, just in case. Unsurprisingly I was outbid and all was forgotten until a fortnight later when the seller emailed me with tails of wow from a line of crap ebayers and as a result was prepared to take the hit and sell it to me for this low bid. Well the chance to own the much talked about MC28 with its smart card and digital PGM4 ignition for the the price of an MC21 was not going to be missed!  I met my good friend and colleague Cal at work where he had kindly offered to help me, with the use of his trailer, to go pick up this new bike as I had no trailer of my own and the bike was u...