So I bought my 06 12R last summer from a buddy who had it sitting in his garage (didn't ride it after he got an R1). It was my first bike ever, so naturally a week later I slid on some gravel on a back road and laid it down...
Not too bad for going somewhere between 30-40, my shoulder didn't come out so well though.
2 months and a few hundred dollars later, I was back on the bike.
I eventually got tired of all the silver on the bike. I had some extra money, and the engine needed to be dropped down to replace the rocker gasket, so I decided to rebuild the whole thing.
In 9 hours, we turned the thing into a big pile of parts. Took the swing arm (had a scratch from the accident), forks w/ upper and lower mounts, fairing stay, rear sproket, and the belt tensioner arm all to get powder coated.
Engine apart to change gaskets. Cleaned all that black build-up off the top of the cylinders too.
Painted the whole bottom half of the motor.
Got the exhaust looking good.
Going back together. Notice there's no kick-stand on here... I found out about 30 minutes after this picture that you have to put that on before the muffler, otherwise there's no way to get the bolts in.[mad]
NEVER RUSH A PAINT JOB! I didn't get all the metal stripper off of it before I painted the headers, so as soon as I fired it up, that stuff boiled underneath the paint.
Sanded the paint off, and it looked like crap.
Picked up some titanium header wrap, and the black silicon spray paint to fix the problem without taking the headers back off. Here it is all done!
Also in this rebuild, I got a new front fairing, chin fairing, battery, axle sliders and ASV levers from 50dro, and a few other little things.
Even got a pair of red and black Oakley's to match the bike.
Sadly though, I had the oil pump die about 2 weeks later, and then a month after that, I had to rotate the engine down again to replace one of the push rod o-rings that got pinched.
I've owned the bike for a year now, and put about 6K miles on it. I'm hooked, I love this Buell! Thanks for taking time to read my post.
Not too bad for going somewhere between 30-40, my shoulder didn't come out so well though.
2 months and a few hundred dollars later, I was back on the bike.
I eventually got tired of all the silver on the bike. I had some extra money, and the engine needed to be dropped down to replace the rocker gasket, so I decided to rebuild the whole thing.
In 9 hours, we turned the thing into a big pile of parts. Took the swing arm (had a scratch from the accident), forks w/ upper and lower mounts, fairing stay, rear sproket, and the belt tensioner arm all to get powder coated.
Engine apart to change gaskets. Cleaned all that black build-up off the top of the cylinders too.
Painted the whole bottom half of the motor.
Got the exhaust looking good.
Going back together. Notice there's no kick-stand on here... I found out about 30 minutes after this picture that you have to put that on before the muffler, otherwise there's no way to get the bolts in.[mad]
NEVER RUSH A PAINT JOB! I didn't get all the metal stripper off of it before I painted the headers, so as soon as I fired it up, that stuff boiled underneath the paint.
Sanded the paint off, and it looked like crap.
Picked up some titanium header wrap, and the black silicon spray paint to fix the problem without taking the headers back off. Here it is all done!
Also in this rebuild, I got a new front fairing, chin fairing, battery, axle sliders and ASV levers from 50dro, and a few other little things.
Even got a pair of red and black Oakley's to match the bike.
Sadly though, I had the oil pump die about 2 weeks later, and then a month after that, I had to rotate the engine down again to replace one of the push rod o-rings that got pinched.
I've owned the bike for a year now, and put about 6K miles on it. I'm hooked, I love this Buell! Thanks for taking time to read my post.
