Now I bought a Japanese 600!

Malt_Vinegar · 23 May 2019 at 10:38

In my continued quest to be proper motorised cycle riderist, I scoured the internet to see if I could find myself something similar to the bike I learned and passed my tests on!

Turns out, the Hornet is basically exactly the same, and as such seemed a nice enough beginner bike. I managed to find one in London with 26k, 2002(3) S model (with the extra fairings) and a "slipping 6th gear" going for £800. Being the kind of person who likes to buy broken things, I went to see it in Woodford Green after work yesterday and test rode it and confirmed the 6th gear sort of worked at low speed, but was clearly broken.

I haggled the poor chap down on price, to £650, and did my best Mike Brewer once he agreed, and he kindly offered to ride to the nearest petrol station with me so I did not get lost trying to find it in the North east greater London's maze of roadways.

Now full of the good stuff, the little task of riding it home (90 miles or so) around the M25 with no 6th gear was looming

Turns out it was not actually that hard, with the bike happily doing 70 and overtaking to 80 in 5th gear and still quite low down the rev range. I did try 6th gear, but it slips and jumps too much, so just left it alone. Something to deal with later.

Here she is:

Looking a bit dirty, but overall quite well looked after, with only a few little marks and dings to be concerned about.

My impression of riding it?

FAAASSSSSSSTTTT - Ok, so I am a noob, and never really let my wrist open up too much when riding about on-test and with instructors, so I did have a little play on some country lanes as i got near to my house, and WOW. Its a de-tuned CBR engine, so I am sure its really quite tame in the bike world, but as a new rider, its something else! I dont think I actually even got near the top of the revs before I thought better of it!!

InvaderGIR · 23 May 2019 at 10:46

Enough about the bike, more pics of the dog please!

Looks like you have picked up a potential bargain, probably best to get 6th sorted sooner rather than later. If it lunches a gear fully you'll have metal swirling around the engine too!

Malt_Vinegar · 23 May 2019 at 11:07

As per my usual MO, here are the photos of it in detail, after it arrived:

Malt_Vinegar · 23 May 2019 at 11:11

Then, because it is mine, and it is wrong to not change something straight away, I tested a side panel with some matt effect carbon wrap

Not sure, and worried the exhaust shield might give it issues, but will see how it lasts!

Dup · 23 May 2019 at 12:20

Love this. I don't have a bike, nor a licence but I come in here to mooch at your threads and others like it

Any major plans for it, or just a full OEM+ style resto? They do look nicer without the fairings and a single round headlight mind you.

AhhBisto · 23 May 2019 at 12:40

Nice buy reminds me of my first 600 the bandit always wanted a hornet though.

I would suggest not messing with too much, do not replace the indicators unless you are really going to do a good job of it. So many bikes I've bought that I've had to rewire the led indicators because they've been fitted without connectors, cheap e bay repeater and then they fail in rain.

If you want to give it a good clean (looks like it's still got some road film from winter riding) I love s100 as a general purpose and then a good dashing of acf-50 (for the smoke effect of course).

Diddums · 23 May 2019 at 14:17

Fantastic, love it

Congrats dude, what a lovely bike to start on.

quad · 23 May 2019 at 15:34

good deal. Lets see the gearbox

Lopéz · 24 May 2019 at 06:50

Good stuff! Deep clean first?

MowyTone · 24 May 2019 at 08:37

Those downpipes could benefit from some Harpic X10 treatment. Ignoring the 6th gear issue you did well. The bike looks like it's in good condition

Malt_Vinegar · 24 May 2019 at 08:55

InvaderGIR said:
Enough about the bike, more pics of the dog please!

No problem! Jessie says hi

She is a rescue Cockerpoo we got a few years ago from a friend. She makes a great garage companion when she is not being a trip-hazard!

Whipped the clocks out to put in a digital clock/new dash bulbs. The clock is ignition fed, and has a small lithium batter on the back. It also cycles through a temperature sensor, date and Voltage if you so wish! Changed bulbs to a more blue hue to match the clock.

I hate not having a clock on a bike, it seems like such an oversight on most older bikes

Quick sidelight colour temp change to move away from yellow.

Wrapped the other side, when the exhaust side didnt melt straight away.

I also took the bike down to a local bike tuning garage, where they had a BSB bike on the Dyno for running in/tuning before Donnington this weekend. Had a quick chat with the guys there, who helped me understand the process for fixing the box, and have agreed to do it for me on the cheap if I source the new gearbox parts, and bring them down just the engine

I may still have a go by myself once I get the engine out. General consensus from the race mechanics there is that, as it is the 6th gear, and how the box is constructed, there is no danger in riding it. The wear on this gear would be on the dog seats, and the dogs are not engaged/in contact in any other gear. I specifically asked if I should park it up, and he said, "naaah, just don't use 6th!". Then he showed me a 6 gear from a CBR (same gearbox) with the same issue that he happened to have lying about.

Lopéz said:
Good stuff! Deep clean first?

So, yup, now we just need to do some cleaning, and checking over of everything.

General clean
Check brakes for wear - Replace anything dodgy
Re-paint the corroded mirror mounts - Hammerite black to the rescue!
I may see if I can wrap the mirrors themselves, as they look a little tired
Replace headlight with something less yellow.
Fairing bolts need a clean up, or replacement
Buy Gearbox internals from ebay
I also think I will need paddock stands so I can get it upright and drop the wheels/motor out when needed.

Then Fix the gearbox!

MowyTone said:
Those downpipes could benefit from some Harpic X10 treatment. Ignoring the 6th gear issue you did well. The bike looks like it's in good condition

Thanks, I will look into it!! I was trying to work out the best way to tidy them up. Was looking at a wrap, or polishing/cleaning

LEUVEN · 24 May 2019 at 10:38

I'm just going to ignore everything else and point out that you could have at least swept the floor before you put the bike in it's new home. :mad:

Especially as you've got a brand new brush.

Malt_Vinegar · 24 May 2019 at 11:09

LEUVEN said:
I'm just going to ignore everything else and point out that you could have at least swept the floor before you put the bike in it's new home.
Especially as you've got a brand new brush.

Haha, mid-kitchen renovation. Been cutting/sanding skirting boards in there

Malt_Vinegar · 25 May 2019 at 07:36

Had a look into the harpic x10 product, and it's not a good idea on exhausts!!
It may look good, but it will eat the chrome, and your pipes will never look shiny again. Even using it once is enough to eat the chrome. They may look cleaner, but they will not look shiny after a while, as the hydrochloric acid will have destroyed the shine.

I am going to try some normal cleaning products, and then polish with a metal polish, and see how hard it will be. I think a wrap might be a better solution going forward.

Dogbreath · 25 May 2019 at 08:36

The 6th gear problem is quite common and caused by worn dogs on the gears, which by this point will also have worn or even bent the selector fork. You need to remove the engine and split the crank cases to access the gearbox and replace the worn parts.

The headers are not chrome plated, if they were they wouldn't be in that condition. The only side effect of chemicals to remove corrosion os making them look better.

Malt_Vinegar · 25 May 2019 at 13:05

Stainless steel contains Chromium though right? That's what makes it corrosion resistant.

So using HCL on stainless steel will remove chromium from the top layers and allow corrosion to come back much faster and more easily.

Am I getting this wrong?

https://www.chemicalprocessing.com/experts/corrosion/show/550

Apparently not? It's terrible for 300 series stainless steels, and will seriously damage it..

Dogbreath · 26 May 2019 at 17:29

Your link refers to stainless vessels/pipes for handling hydrochloric acid in chemical processes i.e. continuous immersion, and this is known to cause rapid pitting and stress cracks especially with strong acid solutions at elevated temperatures. Infrequent, brief exposure from dilute hydochloric acid at ambient temperature for cleaning headers will not cause any problems.

Malt_Vinegar · 26 May 2019 at 19:53

Understood, I tend to over research some of these things...

Malt_Vinegar · 31 May 2019 at 23:04

Been riding around a bit, and managed to get a replacement gearbox for the bike for £70. I had it inspected by my local bike place, and they are happy its in far better nick than my 6th gear will be! So will need to drop the engine at some point, and swap it over. Not that inclined to do it at the moment, enjoying it as it is, and never using 6th gear at the moment anyway

So I am already itching to get on the case, and make some changes!

I have ordered new clear lenses for the indicators, and also some silver (orange flash) bulbs to de-tango the bike. I just feel with the silver look of the bike, it will fit in quite nicely. Will get some pics when they arrive.

I was then toying with the idea of buying a hornet branded grill for the bike, but they seemed rather expensive for what they were, and the pressed options out there leave some BIG gaps in protection. Whilst they do look very cool, I am not going to be happy with a stone flicking through the rad and leaving me with a busted bike. So, I hatched a plan.

This was the original grill:

So, I attacked it with a Dremel:

Cut some alu pressed sheet to size, trimmed back the edges of the plastic to make it sit flat:

Dabbed some Epoxy to hold it in place, and refitted it to the bike to check it still holds shape, and fits:

Looking a little nicer, and matching the colour of the bike overall a bit more nicely! Rode it about a bit to make sure it didn't fall off at the first bump. SUCCESS!

Then I decided to see if I could make it look a little more customised

I knocked up a template in card with a scalpel and some card:

That was actually my second template made of card for my final spray, but you get the idea.

Test spray with paper template produced this:

it was a little too small, so I enlarged it a bit, and tried again, but it worked quite well, and proved the concept. So i went for it with the larger template, and produced this:

Its a bit dark now, so no pics yet of it on the bike, but I think it looks pretty cool!

Malt_Vinegar · 2 Jun 2019 at 08:48

De-Tango time!

Bulbs and lenses arrived, and I think they look pretty good:

Front - with the new rad guard back in place:

Got the mirror mounts off, and they were looking a bit worse for wear:

Wire brushed them down, and got out the old faithfull Hammerite:

Got to get the heatgun on this to remove it:

Fairing back on Mirrors were still drying:

Mirrors took a long time to dry for some reason, but went back on just after they stopping being tacky:

I also stuck in a new headlight bulb to bring the colour temp up from the original 3200k up to about 4500, just to take the yellow tinge out a bit.

I also spent some time cleaning up under the fearing whilst it was off the bike: