(Re:) Build

[heagachongoose]

Let's skip the bullshit and move right to the meat and mashed potatoes. Long story short, I lowsided the 1125 off the side of a mountain.

Luckily (I still have no idea how), I emerged relatively unscathed and with very little damage to the bike considering. Through this I have been EXTREMELY impressed at the overall durability of the bike and the foresight and ingenuity of the engineering team that designed this motorcycle. The bike was not only designed to go fast and do it well, but it was also well engineered to wreck well. For the most part. lol.

Came around a sub-90 degree right turn at a pretty good, but comfortable pace. The turn felt great, just like it had the 10/12 times I had gone through it earlier, but suddenly I was sliding. I’m still not sure what caused it. Hard contact on the right side, slid across the other lane just past the apex, luckily no oncoming traffic. I’m still on the bike at this time. Then we slid off the side of the road, over the shoulder and off the side of the mountain over the ravine. The drop off from the road was very steep; you could hardly climb up it. Myself (still on the bike) and the bike were now upright swan diving off the side of the road straight into a fallen tree, the front tire hit and the bike flipped forward throwing me off and forward, I landed further down the hill and slid into a tree with the bike right behind me. Luckily I was not smashed. Eventually we both came to a rest about 20-30ft vertically down from the roadway. I’m honestly completely surprised I even survived let alone walked away with minor injuries. I was wearing full gear. Luckily.

Here are some pictures of the damage. They don’t quite do it justice but you get the idea.

Snapped front forks and steering stem.

Boogered up the lower steering head bearing. Luckily the steering head and frame is all still straight!

Broken left upper subframe mount

Fairing stay and front end destroyed.

Clutch cover needing some love.

Broken left side K bracket’Radiator mount. From the break on through the frame and engine mounts the bracket is sound.

Mangled oil cooler

Exhaust. I'm pretty sure that the exhaust saved the engine from being thrashed by the front wheel being rammed into it. Kind of neat how everything worked out to protect the engine and frame.

My front wheel was completely broke in multiple locations and the rotor is bent to hell. It will make a nice clock on the garage wall


Anyways, I'll be updating this thread with the work I have completed to date and as I work on her in the future. I am looking to be complete within the next 2-3 weeks. Then I can get it back on the track [up] I'll be as detailed as I can be on my rebuild process and try to keep everything documented on here as I go. I am using this opportunity to rebuild the bike into what I believe the bike should have been from the factory. It will be a new bike when I am done.


Ride safe guys, and for the love of god people, wear your gear.

 

[mrlogix]

I've got a clutch cover if you need one. Glad you made it through it okay.

 

[chief_of_smoke]

Damn. Glad you are OK. If I had parts I would gladly donate to you.

 

[s0dhi]

Glad to hear you're okay.

 

[GregoXB]

That should buff right out.

 

[stamen]

wow scary. Glad your ok, was this at hocking hills?

 

[hntnfsh]

Holy shit, man! Really glad you're ok. Seeing that bike just makes me sick...

 

[lawdog]

Where was this? Its pretty flat over on the west side. Was it Hocking Hills?

 

[heagachongoose]

No, this was in the Tennessee smokies. The good thing was that it was a hell of a lot easier to load into the truck at that condition LOL. Didn't have to worry about scratching the plastics

Thanks for the kind words all, I'll get an update or two in tonight.

 

[neomac3444]

Glad your still good and glad your bike is going to get fixed! I have a set of forks that have bad seals and the chrome on the bottom is pitted and small amounts off rust. PM me if you want them.

 

[heagachongoose]

Thanks for the offer neomac but I had already had a set shipped out to me a week or two ago. I actually almost switched to a Showa BPF or Ohlins setup from the modern liter bikes but the upfront cost was too much for me to front. However Retaining the oem setup will be more expensive in the long run. Assuming things with EBR don't work out.

Alright so, as she sits now:

New wheels! Woo!

The old front wheel,

Spent most of my time working on the front end today. Working out the brackets to mount the R6 fairing stay I will be using. I will (hopefully) still be using the oem cluster. Assuming it is still functional. That would be nice if it was, I really like the 1125 cluster. Fun fact, did you know the 1125 clusters have built in lap timers?

Anyways, I will test my cluster's functionality as soon as I get my wiring straightened out up front. When the oem fairing stay was ripped off it luckily did not damage the cluster plug but it did split a smaller plug. Looks like I'll be digging out the electrical manual tonight.

Fixable externally, nost sure what's going on inside of there though.. I'll find out soon enough.

The busted plug

rear view

Re shaped the upper fairing a bit. You can hardly tell from the picture but the new fairing will not have the same contour as the oem. It will be much rounder as opposed to the "hammerhead" look of the original. Overall shape is similar to he RX/RS but a tad larger. I will be going with a dual vertical projector headlight setup unless I can find any other interesting setups I can do for cheap.

Pulled the subframe, started looking into what I would have to do to fit the 848 tubular sub frame I have laying around. The 1125's offset subframe mounts are bitchy to work with. The 848 frame is not workable in oem form. I'll have to do some serious chopping and reshaping to get it to work. Along with that the thing is heavy as shit. It literally weighs every bit of 10lbs. I believe my 1125 subframe is slightly bent, but fixable. I was never a huge fan of the relaxed position of the 1125, you sit IN the bike rather than ON the bike like I am used to. Depending on which setup I end up deciding on, the seating position will be slightly higher. Not so much to disrupt geometry but enough to make me feel a bit more at home. Either through 4 point brackets on the oem frame or through the modified 848. Not sure which one will be easier..... Decisions decisions...

 

[heagachongoose]

Had a bit of time to work on things. Finally cracked open my cluster and it looks like it will still be functional. The only major deficiencies I spotted were an outer casing crack (easy fix), small polycarbonate fracture (another easy fix), and one of the buttons have been pulled off of the board (a not so easy fix). My hands aren't steady enough to handle that kind of precision so I will be visiting an electronics guru friend of mine to have the button re-soldered onto the board. After that it should button right up and work like a charm!

Note: The cluster disassembly is infinitely infuriating. remove all fragile objects and small children within the vicinity before attempting disassembly. Also my gasket between the two main outer shell pieces is a solid 1-2cm too large for the housing. Not sure how it got that stretched out....?

Link to disassembly walkthrough

Working on deciphering the buell wiring diagrams to figure out which wire plugs to which wire from the "left hand controls" connector plugs.

Ordered an R1 throttle tube and assembly, should be a plug and play swap for the whole thing buuuut we'll see..

Levers and grips arrived! Woo! I'll be running these until 50dro gets some more ASV's in stock. First impression seems good, much better quality than any other "cheap" levers I have encountered. These are US made.


Other than that, not much progress since last time> Just not enough hours in a day :upset:

Sorry for the blurry pictures. About time for a new phone I think. Mine has been through a lot. lol

 

[noone1569]

Glad to see it starting to get put back together. Hopefully ready for Road America with us on Aug 21 right!!

 

[lowkey]

Those levers are identical to the last two pair I bought off ebay from china, down to the same color combo and stainless hardware used. Just saying...

Good luck with getting the bike back on the road!:up:

 

[heagachongoose]

Glad to see it starting to get put back together. Hopefully ready for Road America with us on Aug 21 right!!

That's the plan!

Those levers are identical to the last two pair I bought off ebay from china

Under a certain price range they are almost all the same thing. For the most part. I just get some kind of silly satisfaction from knowing they were made statesdie. Not that that means much anymore.... Did you know more toyotas are made in the states than Chevrolets? Pitiful huh?

 

[heagachongoose]

Fixed the upper left subframe mount. Drilled 2 spot holes in either side of the fissure equidistant from the threads and outer diameter, turned down a thin rod to allow plenty of room for the solvent to fit into the drilled holes along with the rod. Bent the rod in an arc to match the curvature of the mount. Cleaned break surface with rubbing alcohol, the break surface was plenty rough enough for adheration so I didn't have to roughen up the surface any. Firmly applied JB Weld Steel putty shaped, pressed, and set. This stuff is great.

View attachment 218
So the footpegs I ordered were junk. They didn't even fit. Had to take down the OD a bit to get the radius to flow smoothly when the pegs bend back. The threads were not even correct for the supplied bolt. Instead of paying for the return shipping I drilled out the threads, bored out the inside of the adapter housing enough to press a nut into, epoxied it in place and sourced a new bolt from my garage collection. Vioala, Le footpeg de fit.
View attachment 219

So here is a wiring schematic for the Left Hand controls, the diag manual doesn't directly show this. It only shows the connection housing in bits and pieces at a time spread throughout the manual, Kind of frustrating but I had to skim the entire manual to find all wires affiliated with connection 24A & B. Thank god for the search function in Adobe or I'd probably still be out in the garage with the manual and a beer lol



This whole Image attachment thing is a little aggravating sometimes. The attachments were supposed to be up in the text like the wiring diagram??? Oh well.

 

[heagachongoose]

Decided to just re-use the oem subframe for now. I'll get it on the road first and then do the extensive stuff later. But now I just need to ride. Mounted up the sibframe and turns out mine is twisted about 1/8in clockwise. Not a problem though.

To fix it I welded 3 mounting points, sans the off point, identical to the frame points onto a large metal plate, attached the subframe, ran a long pipe through the end of the tail, twisted counter clockwise just past the return point, release, and repeat as necessary. It fits now.

I originally jb welded my k bracket back together but I pulled it back apart and am going to have it TIG'd. With all the vibration going on there and the leverage that point will have against it, the jb would probably release in a month or two. I'll have to take it to a friend as I don't have an AC TIG setup at home. Not a problem though.

Got all the wiring together and the power back to the bike. Turned on the ignition and got a theft error.... Not sure what is causing it. My guess is my cluster is fucked beyond the visual and it is sensing it has been tampered with. Not what I was hoping to see. Eventually the theft eror readout disapears and it goes to the normal readout except instead of 0 for the speed i get three dash's (---) ). Not sure what that means either. Maybe something with my speed sensor is not correct? Not sure. I haven't checked it yet.

I snagged a new 09 cluster for a good price. We'll see if that helps anything.

I'll get some pictures in later.

 

[mrlogix]

the three dashes means that it is not communicating with the speed sensor( value out of range) Theft error means that the ECU and cluster have comm fault or it does not recognize the ECU. Probably the cluster. The theft error can also occur if the ECU and the cluster are mismatched. Replied to a thread on the BwB site about the theft error.

http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/290431/762947.html?1432672396

 

[mrlogix]

It will be much rounder as opposed to the "hammerhead" look of the original. Overall shape is similar to he RX/RS but a tad larger. I will be going with a dual vertical projector headlight setup unless I can find any other interesting setups I can do for cheap.

Really interested in seeing what you came up with. Been wanting to do something similar. Been searching images on the web for ideas. The twin vertical headlights would look cool.

 

[mrlogix]

Found a picture of a RX with twin verticals