My '89 3CV spruce-up

[Millietant]

After over 20 years of service, in early 2010 I decided it was time to give my FJ1200 a spruce up and to replace/upgrade a few bits (it had done close to 70k miles, but was running perfectly).

Now, since I'd bought an Aprilia RSV Mille as my main "fun" and track-day bike in 2003, this FJ had seen little use other than touring over the period 2005-2009. What compounded things was that my wife had a Fazer 1000/FZ1 which I also rode and we had trail/enduro bikes which we rode - at one point there were 11 bikes in the garage. On top of this, I got promoted at work in 2004, then we moved 200 miles in 2006 and work got even more heavy, so less and less of my time got devoted to the FJ.

In 2009, we decided to take our youngest son a touring holiday, so the FJ saw some use in 2009 and early 2010, but just then I took ill (quite seriously with a lung disorder) and after medical attention, my recovery plan from the doctor was exercise, exercise and more exercise - so I became a very regular cyclist which ate up even more of my spare time

Just when things began to settle down and we got into a routine, around 2011, instead of using my extra free time to concentrate on picking up the FJ project, I decided to get my helicopter pilot's licence (and then bought a helicopter ) and for the next 5 years, my life was devoted to other things than the FJ !! To top all of this off, we had health issues with my wife's parents in the USA and my mother in the UK, so between caring and travelling, we had almost no time to ourselves.

Anyway, this year saw my second attempt at retirement and an improvement in the care situation for our parents, so at the end of July 2018, I decided to actually start on the FJ project.

The "Spruce up" consisted of the following steps.

Strip the bike to rub down, de-rust, re paint & lacquer the frame. Add additional protection pads where the loom rubbed the frame for better loom protection.
Clean, check and refresh covering on the loom where necessary. Replace all bulbs (and ultimately replace front brake light switch)
Clean and re paint the engine, strip, clean, polish and paint engine covers, grab handles, yokes, footrest hangers etc, etc, etc.....
Clean the (original) body panels and repair all of the mounting tab brackets and the small number of cracks that had appeared since 1989. Add foam pads to dampen vibration at all fixing points.
Remove and give to a friend, my entire front end - install the FZR 1000 RU (acquired in 2007) front end, and add aftermarket discs, R1 calipers, FZ1 bar risers and handlebars, FZS 600 brake master cylinder, braided stainless lines and new steering head bearings. Home made lock stop to ensure steering lock remained in use and retained front brake splitter (I have a set of individual brake lines but will only use them if I feel they are "necessary").
Remove and give to the same friend, my rear wheel, disc etc and replace with the 17" wheel and disc from a YZF 600 Thundercat. Modify caliper carrier, new pads and add stainless braided line.
Repaint both wheels to approx match to original silver/grey colour (used Ford Nimbus Grey as recommended by UK FJOC).
Replace all seals/pistons in brake and clutch master cylinders and slave cylinder. Clean check and re-install all brake caliper pistons (all good !).
Replace shock with Hagon unit. Clean and regrease or replace suspension linkage bearings.
Remove, strip, clean and refurbish (with new diaphragms) the carbs - ended up doing the remove and clean 3 times before I was happy.
Clean, polish and re-lacquer the exhaust (period Remus stainless with alloy can shroud).
I was going to replace the oil cooler with a high performance unit, but am awaiting delivery, so I removed, stripped and repainted the original cooler and lines before re-fitting for use until the new one arrives.
Tyres chosen were Bridgestone BT023's in 120/70x17 and 170/60x17 sizes.

And.... generally refresh each part before I put it back on the bike and replaced almost all original (except for "visible" bodywork screws) nuts/bolts/washers and screws with same dimension stainless steel items.

I'm sure there was a lot more that i did just in terms of tarting up and refurb'ing bits, and I also did the basics of changing all fluids, filters etc and made sure everything was "correct" as it went back on.

I've ridden the bike today for the first time since 2010, on a little shake-down ride (on non-adopted roads) to make sure its all OK before I take it for it's MOT test early next week - and everything feels great !!

There are still a couple of very minor cosmetic things to complete, but these aside, its complete and "finished".

I've added a couple of pictures below and hope you'll all agree that the effort was worthwhile - wherever possible, I've tried to keep the bike looking close to standard or "period-modified" standard (yes, even down to a few red anodised bolts for the fuel cap and screen  ). I wanted it to look "standard" to anyone who doesn't know FJ's.

Any questions, please feel free to ask.

[Pat Conlon]

Beautiful Dean, just beautiful.... You should be proud!

I am a fan of USD fork conversions for our FJ's. USD forks gets the chicks!
In the gallery are picts of my '84 with the 1992 FZR1000 front end conversion.
I've found that the FZR USD conversion is (by far) the easiest USD swap of all. The only issue I had with FZR forks is getting the Race Tech shim stacks set correctly for the (much needed) heavier fork springs. (.77kg/mm stock changed to .95kg/mm) Took me 2 tries but I nailed it.
If interested, I can send you my shim stack settings.

I now have the externally adjustable (compression/rebound) YZF750 USD forks on my FJ. External adjusters are the bomb.

I especially noticed the USD difference in quick side to side left-right-left- transitions when my bike was fully loaded with touring gear.  

You did good laddie!

[Millietant]

Thanks Pat, that means a lot coming from a revered FJ expert such as yourself   (you're known to users over on the Aprilia Forum, as some of them are also FJ fans and have ridden with you in the past - one in particular who mentioned you to me :-) ).

I'm now running it with .95 fork springs and 10W oil, but otherwise standard, and won't really think about anything else until I've put some miles on it - but when I have, I'll keep you in mind !!

I hope to be putting quite a few miles on it over the coming weeks, touring with my wife and son on their Fazer's (a 600 and a 1000). Hopefully one of my favourite family photo's can be re-created with the FJ replacing the Mille in this pic.

[Pat Conlon]

Thanks for the kind words Dean. Say hello to Gazza (Gary Mastro) for me. I miss that galoot.

[Millietant]

Will do Pat 

[Tuned forks]

Man that's a clean 3CV.  Your work really shows to someone that owns the same model and knows where the dirt and rust hide.

What brand is your luggage rack?

Joe

[aviationfred]

What brand is your luggage rack?

Joe

The rack looks to be a Krauser rack. This was the Yamaha Original Accessories Hard luggage option. I don't know if it was ever offered in the United States as optional equipment, but I know it was offered in Europe and Australia.

The first photo is the color match set, and the second photo I believe is a Krauser set that is actually badged 'YAMAHA'


Fred

[Millietant]

Yes Joe, it's a Krauser K2 rack. As Fred said, it was a European "official Yamaha factory" option on the early 3CV's.

I didn't get the factory fit option, but bought mine about a year after I bought the bike. At the time it was considered asmega expensive, but 28 years later, they're waterproof and were worth it (I've used the luggage itself on other bikes over the last 10 years).

They're a great fit on the FJ and really go "with" the bike, leaving plenty of passenger footpeg space. I went for the smaller capacity "slim-line" panniers as I don't like the extra width that the large capacity panniers (especially the Givi ones) put on the bike and to be honest, never been short of luggage space.

Thanks for the compliments Joe, but taking everything off to get it cleaned is the main reason it looks so good - and that's not a 2 minute job   - I've just finished my spring-clean/spruce up !

[Millietant]

Here's a photo from yesterday with the top box in place (but not the panniers) - i took the bike for its mandatory roadworthiness inspection yesterday, which it passed with flying colours  

The K2's fit nicely close to the bodywork and IMHO have the "sleekest" of fittings, such that it looks like the bike was designed for them. I think the second photo shows how neat it looks with the panniers off the bike - you can see how close the rack sits above the tailpiece (it's never made contact) and the side rails don't have a visible mounting frame.

I'd recommend the K2 system to anyone - but it would have to be bought second hand (they are around, I bought a second set not too long ago for my wife's bike).

[Tuned forks]

Learn sumptin' new about FJ luggage all the time on this forum.

Joe

[Millietant]

Not quote a replication of the earlier "family" pic with the Aprilia, but getting closer !

Ready to set off on our Northern Ireland trip (about 1200 miles over 5 days).

[Millietant]

OK guys, I need a bit of help here getting the last bits of my FJ to my liking.

The front "fender"/mudguard, is a silver colour, that passes to the casual observer, as close to the original FJ colour, but not to me. I'm pretty sure it's not the "marble silver" that has been also quoted as that used on the later silver with blue and white 3CV.

I'd like to order the right colour of paint (likely from someone like RS paints) and would hope someone here could confirm either the exact name, or a colour code so that I get the right one.

Separately to this, I'm very close to a vehicle graphics supplier (with digital printing technology) and would like to get spare graphics for my belly-pan/chin fairing and a colour code would help them to let me know if they can do it or not (they can do metallic finishes).

If they can do it, I'll give them a try and let you guys here know if it's any good and if so, will give their contact details.