FJ1346 from ashes to... Well, we'll see...

[FJmonkey]

Yep, well documented at the WCR in 2011...



I was told that with that color wheel I was never gonna get a date......

[racerrad8]

... well I just can't say what color it is...

Monkey, that sure is reminiscent of your periwinkle, I believe my wife coined it as, rear wheel of a couple years ago...

On the glass for the cabinet, take the old glass down to any glass shop and have them cut you several pieces of safety glass. It is usually cheaper if you have them make you a few while you are having them cut, I keep a couple. Make sure it is safety glass with the plastic between the two panes. If not when it gets broken the pieces falling into the cabinet are like a guillotine.

I never have an issue with the beads fogging the glass (anymore), but they do get broken on occasion and it is nice to have a spare on hand at 10pm when you are working...

To keep the glass from fogging, 12-15 years ago I went to my local auto body supply and bought a roll of clear paint protection plastic. This is the same stuff they make clear car bras out of and will absorb the beads better than the glass. I am getting low after all of these years and only a single piece of glass (other than a couple of broken ones), I would look on eBay and you can find some pretty affordable rolls.

My new machine I bought earlier this year has a built in Mylar plastic roll to protect the glass. It is working well, but when I get the point of buying those rolls, I am going to see which way is cheaper; Mylar or the eBay clear plastic that I can stick on the glass.

Randy - RPM

EDIT: damn...you guys are fast tonight...

[FJmonkey]

I wonder if the anti graphite films we use for our bus windows will add life to your glass. I will grab some scraps and send them off to you both for testing. Tough stuff. Nothing less than 10 mils and its a film that can be replaced.

[X-Ray]

Thats the good thing with these GSXR rims, they are SO close to the FJ pattern, no one would really know. 

Hoo Roo
Ray

[skymasteres]

I wonder if the anti graphite films we use for our bus windows will add life to your glass. I will grab some scraps and send them off to you both for testing. Tough stuff. Nothing less than 10 mils and its a film that can be replaced.

You know, I ended up getting four rolls of a Lexan like material that is designed for protecting the glass in blast cabinets. (4 rolls was their minimum order side. But, at $8 a roll not bad.)
I was told by Larry that the newer industrial cabinets have a frame that holds a piece of this stuff in place, and when you wear it out you just plop a new piece in. I figured if it works for them why not me?
Here is just how badly the glass was frosted over. (The cracks aside from the middle one were caused by me trying to get the dang thing out past the molding strip.)



I figured I could use a piece of the protectant as a temporary window. The take held it in there for a few hours, but it fell in the next day. Seemed to work okay so I got started on building a frame for it that would allow it to sit over the replacement window and gasket.



Here is my quickie solution. Some ¾" square tube scrap cut with 90 degree corners and jigged up.



Welded all together using a window pane latch to hold it in place.  Let me tell you, you don't want to try and MIG zinc. Didn't realize the latch wasn't steel... Man, that stuff kind of explodes when you try to weld it... (Ended up just using some self tapping screws.)



Hinges were trimmed then welded onto the frame.



I had to futz with it for a bit to get it where I wanted it. But after that was done, I got the hinges bolted into place and the latch bracket welded on.



The next step was to get some weather stripping and put that in so that the frame would be able to seal the plastic to the cabinet. This ended up working out better than I expected and made me wonder if I even needed to replace the window at all...



Here is a shot from the outside showing the plastic film in place. (Oh yeah, I reused the first piece of film just to see how it worked. I kind of like the fact that I don't loose so much of the viewing area to the gasket. )



What do you guys think?

[skymasteres]

Getting XJR1250 cylinders onto a FJ1200 upper crankcase isn't just a drop in mod.
//NOTE! THE INTERNAL WEBS THAT RUN FRONT TO BACK NEED TO BE CLEARANCED!!!
This was something I'd wished I known before I did this. Would have saved me from removing about another mm from the outer two cylinder bores that I didn't have to...
Basically all I did was position the cylinders, then scribe the liners outline on the upper case.



I tried using some Prussian blue, but it seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. (Should have used layout dye, but I didn't have any) I can't stress strongly enough what a difference it makes having a good set of tungsten carbide burs for doing this kind of thing. It makes material removal effortless. (To the point that you have to be REALLY careful not to remove too much)



Here is a sequence of pics showing me hogging out the outer cylinder recess. (This was while I was trying to figure out where it was touching and removing material everywhere I could see a mark from contact)





Everything was going so well the inner two liners are almost perfectly matched while the outer two have a little bit of a gap. Here is what I'd wished I'd known...

BEHOLD! The reason the cylinders wouldn't fit!



There was a small amount of material to be removed here and presto. It fits!



The finished product. Now it's ready to get stripped down the rest of the way. (I started blasting it and realized I hadn't make the cylinders fit.)

[SlowOldGuy]

Is that a crack?

DavidR.

[skymasteres]

Is that a crack?

DavidR.

My goodness. I read that and was like "WHAT!!!" Started racing around looking at my high res copies of the images trying to make sure that that isn't a crack. (Don't know how I could have missed that.) I'll double check tonight, but as near as I can tell it's a peice or a brush or something laying on the case. (Fingers crossed)

[FJmonkey]

It has a shadow, not a crack.

[andyb]

Looks like part from a brush to me.

If you really wanted to get fancy, you could port those holes, rounding the edges so that you'd further decrease pumping losses.  Not sure there's any point in an engine below F1 level racing, but there ya go. 


While you're going crazy with the metalworkings in there, are you going to spend any time playing with the shift drum?  Always wanted to try it, but just haven't had the balls....er.. time.



(Obviously not an FJ example.)

[skymasteres]

Okay, yeah. Definitely not a crack.

Andy, what did they do to that shift drum? I mean, what is the point drilling all of those holes? Is it just to lighten it?

[skymasteres]

Okay, now I've reached a bit of a road block. I took my air compressor pump off and apart and discovered that I had the wrong rebuild kit. Can anybody here give me a hand with identifying it?

It has a first stage piston that's 4.75" (well 4.735 according to my caliper) in diameter and a second stage piston that is 2.5" in diameter. There are three wrings on both of the pistons. The interesting thing is the rings have an overlap at the ends which should allow for better sealing and less leaking.

That being said, both the rings and the cylinder bores are like mirror smooth. I got told that once the rings wear to the point that you can no longer see the horizontal machining marks that they need to replaced.

Here is the pump taken off of the tank.


Here is the valve plate and the top of the cylinder bore.



Here are the piston's themselves, look at how much soot (or something like it) there is on the high pressure piston.



Here are a couple shots of the pistons









The rings themselves measure 0.092" thick.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[Havoc]

I had to take this much out for the 1500 OrientExpress block, liking your work man, keep it up.

[skymasteres]

Okay, well I finally got the right rings for the air compressor and it should be going back together tonight. (It was amazing how long it took to get the cylinders honed)

I have a question. Rany mentioned in another thread that there was an update to the started clutch to make it less prone to failure but the link he had is no good anymore.
It's supposed to be a part from an XJR. Any ideas?

[skymasteres]

Okay, so after considerable digging I finally found the information I was looking for. The updated starter part if off of an XJR1300 and uses a full roller sprag vs a three roller spring loaded system. The part number for the set is 4KG-15580-01, and Randy can get them in. See the attached diagrams.

FJ1200 Starter Clutch:


XJR1300 Clutch:


Here is another one for you. Without riding the motorcycle, does anyone know of an objective way to measure the wear on the gear "dogs" to see if you are at risk of having the "2nd gear issue"? The reason I am asking is, I didn't get to ride this motorcycle much due to its suspension being completely shot and with the burnt valve and poor ring seal it was WAY down on power. The point is, riding it to test is out. So now I'm left with measuring it.

Here are some pictures to show what I'm concerned about.


Closer view of one of the dogs: