Up to Date

Next up was the carbs. They had been drained before being stored but were still a bit of a mess. I stripped and cleaned them and ran a wire brush attachment in a dremel over them to clean up the outside.

The carbs were a bit of a pain. Most of the bolts had seized and some required drilling out. A pair of high leverage pliers did well with most of the screws that wouldn't come undone using a screwdriver. All the screws were replaced with some M5x12 button headed s/s ones.


When the bike was mocked up, it turned out that with the new suspension, the side stand was too short. The bike leaned heavily to the side but it's not obvious in the pictures as I stuck a block of wood under it. I found an old fireblade stand in the garage which is about an inch longer  but this was too narrow to go on the GSXR bracket. Out came the grinder and the Dremel and now it fits. It still needs finishing but does the job and seems to hold the bike at a reasonable angle.

And that's about it so far. The oil cooler has been loosely mounted but I need some adapters for the lines. Will update as soon as I have more to add.

Part three

Off came the tank and seat unit again and back to their hanging spaces on the roof joists.

A short while before this I had bought a hydraulic bike ramp off a mate that has already made things a lot easier. It needed a bit of a clean up and a few new bits but it's just the job.

The alternator went in next, then came out again when I realised I couldn't fit the starter, so the starter went in followed by the alternator again.

Next up was a clutch slave cylinder holder/sprocket cover bought cheap off ebay as it had no spacers or bolts. I had previously emailed Pete Stansfield as he had one for sale on ebay and got the measurements of the spacers and then bought a length of 12mm ally tube and cut it to approximate lengths. Not having a lathe, I stuck these lengths in an electric drill clamped in the vice and stuck a file on the end until they were the right lengths. This also squared them up as I can't cut straight with a hacksaw.

Fitted the bits with the new spacers and all is well .... sort of.

The slave cylinder and master cylinder were full of the remnants of the old fluid. This had crystalised in places and turned to goo in others. I stripped down the slave cylinder and cleaned it up but it was quite corroded so I'm expecting to be needing another one.

This is the crystalised fluid in the reservoir.

I won'r repaint the slave cylinder until I find out if it leaks

I cleaned the gooey shite from inside the slave cylinder and  lightly sanded the corrosion down.

I refitted the seal and spring but haven't yet tried it out.

And so it continued

With the engine back together it was time to look at the frame. I didn't want to spend more money on the frame as it may well be replaced. I had suspicions that it had been in an accident some time ago as the subframe appeared to have been replaced with some of the worst welding I have ever seen. This welding was meant to be removed when the lugs were put on but due to a misunderstanding the lugs were welded to it instead. A load of filler over the bad welding meant that powder coating the frame was not an option as the filler can crack at the temps used in the process apparently. The frame is a bit tatty with some corrosion etc so I ended up rubbing it down, cleaning it up a bit and just doing a "that'll do for now" blow over with some engine enamel.

With the frame painted it was time to put the engine back in. The removable RH front frame rail makes this dead easy. I put the frame onto the engine and put the mounts on the LHS before adding the RH frame rail and the rest of the mounts and then tightening the lot up.

Now upon seeing the engine in the frame it started looking a little like a bike again. I got my neighbour to help lift the frame and engine down onto a trolley and the front end went on next. The front end consists of a pair of Aprilia Falco forks and bottom yoke with a Tuono top yoke and risers, a set of Brembos from an RSV and  KTM fat bars. The wheel at the mo is RSV brembo but a Ducati 916 wheel will match the Triumph rear and give me a speedo drive should I want to use one.

Next came the Triumph SSSA bought from Ebay. It had been narrowed but still not sure if everything will line up or not. It came with a linkage that I'm not sure about and no spacers or owt so once fitted and tightened etc I will get my ruler and string out and see what it needs. For now, it is loosely fitted with some large washers doing the spacers job.

The wheels went on next and it was wheeled out of the garage for the first time in around 5 years.

I plopped the seat unit and subframe and fuel tank loosely in place to see how it all lines up. Looks good in my opinion but still a long way to go.

In the beginning ....

A few years ago a mate of mine was selling a GSXR1100K. It was tatty and corroded from a life of trawling salt covered motorways in winter. It had been down the road fairly gently a couple of times resulting in a fairly tatty looking bike but he'd never thrashed it and it had covered less than 50,000 km.

I fancied a streetfighter project and the Slingshot GSXR's were the look that I liked so I exchanged a ridiculously small amount of money for it, stuck it on a mates trailer and bought it home.

Now, the idea was that I do this to as tight a budget as possible while not compromising too much on the finished look and I do as much as possible myself. I had just moved and now had a garage so there was no stopping me. I stripped it down to an engine and frame revealing the full extent of the corrosion and sub-standard repairs.

The wiring was crap, no it was worse than crap the crimped on connectors came off in my hand leaving lots of bits of weathered green wire. The loom will be binned. As some components will require moving (battery, CDi, etc) I will either make a new loom or butcher another one but hopefully with a better standard of butchery.

And that was it. For the next four years the garage was inhabited by bits of GSXR. The engine on a trolley and the frame on a workmate (black and decker not a colleague) while familly, house, work and other matters took up my time.

Four years later, having collected a load of parts I took the frame and the head to Sooty's Customs in Milton Keynes and had lugs put on for an Aprilia RSV '04 subframe, a new steering stem for the Aprilia Falco forks and the cylinder head repaired.


The weather and road salt had taken it's toll elsewhere with one of the exhaust stud holes just crumbling away as I tried to remove the bolt. I hadn't intended to do anything with the engine except tidy it up a bit but the head had to come off to have a new lug welded on.

I cleaned up the rest of the engine and sprayed it with engine enamel and took the clutch out as this hadn't been working when I got the bike. I had another clutch from ebay and swapped a couple of plates over but on the hole it looked ok.  Had to make a couple of tools for holding the clutch, very easy to do and avoids messing about.

I also removed the other covers from the engine and sanded out the multitude of scrathces and gave them a coat of paint. New head gasket and o'rings and the engine went back together.