So I started reassembly today- otherwise known as turning lumps of metal into motorbike. This will be a long process and I will be breaking it up into a few entries. Today was about getting the engine and gearbox back into the frame. There was a fair bit of trial and error and a lot of referring back to old photos from the tear down phase.
Centre stand and Kick stand
I started reassembly with the frame upside down. I reinstalled the centre stand and the kick stand with new springs as shown. There is a gap between the frame and the centre stand even when the bolt is fully torqued down. This confused me at first as it seems as if it should sit snug however after asking around it seems that this is normal. Despite my millions of photographs during the tear down phase I was not able to find a photo of this!
Engine into Frame
GFP motorrad is essentially a one-man show but for this I enlisted the help of Mrs GFP…intially… I had actually installed the gearbox onto the engine out of the frame (including the airbox with it’s fiddly little hex head bolts) and then tried to install the lot into the frame. This was a mistake. It turns out it’s basically impossible to get it into the frame like this and resulted in a few scratches to the freshly painted frame (which then needed to be touched up). Eventually I gave up and removed the airbox and gearbox and then was able to lift the engine into the frame myself while Mrs GFP pushed the engine mounting studs through with their spacers inboard of the frame.
Gearbox and Airbox
Installing the gearbox to the engine requires the airbox to be installed too as the top two bolts go through the airbox. There were quite a few little tricks and considerations for this process. There are 4 bolts which connect the GB to the engine- the top two are hex head bolts which go through the airbox and the bottom right is a long bolt with a nut on the engine side. The lower left bolt also receives and earth from the wiring harness so I didn’t torque this one down straight up.
First the splines of the GB input shaft were cleaned with a toothbrush and then smeared with Moly Paste (Honda M77). The gearbox then carefully lifted into place and slid home. The case should line up perfectly with the engine case. The two top bolts go through the airbox so this needs to be put into place now. They are round head allen bolts and very fiddly to tighten given the lack of space in the airbox. Snowbum suggests swapping them for normal bolts which would make this easier. Whilst getting this done I think I removed and replaced the gearbox 4 times and I was definitely getting better at torquing these bolts by the end! I also torqued down the right lower bolt and tightened the left lower finger tight as I will need to put an earth from the wiring harness there later. There is a bolt in the floor of the airbox going straight down into the gearbox. It is apparently important to put a little bit of sealant onto the threads as there have been rare cases of the airbox sucking in oil from the airbox.
At this stage I also tided up my airbox- the previous owner had made a horrible silicone job to seal a non factory hose from the crankcase ventilation to the airbox. Luckily I was able to clean off the silicone and replace the hose for a perfect fit. I also replaced the rubber drainage valve in the bottom of the airbox.
Clutch actuator
Finally I replaced my rebuild clutch actuator mechanism into the back of the gearbox. I applied a light smear of moly paste onto the tip of the rod and the new piston. Otherwise installation was essentially a reversal of removal.
Still to come….. rear swingarm and brake shoe…. Front forks….wheels….resealing the cylinders… handlebars and switchgear… subframe… electrical!
