Sunday, 19 August 2012

Rgv250 Vj21a Illusive

After Owning a Rgv250 Vj21a for the last 2 years I've decided to give it a thorough strip down.
South Africa-Western Cape-Kleinmond
Reasons.(many)
  1. Bike is filthy 
  2. Metal fatigue 
  3. Rust (chain,bolts,sub-frame back and front,tank)
  4. Heavy fuel consumption
  5. Fork seals leaking
  6. Fairing and paint job not original
  7. Back shock saggy
I probably was able to ride the bike for about a year, bike started to cut out intermittently.Little did I know this was a small filter in the fuel inlet mouth of the carburetors that was blocked.I have no mechanical background what so ever ,but decided 'hay couldn't be so difficult to fix it right'?....A year later and its lying in bits in the back yard.

I will shortly explain the above mentioned reasons for where I am today.

1.Filth-The bike had freshly sprayed fairings on the first time I went to see her.It was love at first sight.
...frame is chipped in various places, engine looks like a speckled egg baked on dirt on barrels, head ,carbs and that stuff dosn't come off.(Leave the oven de-greaser for ovens i bathed my carbs in them big no no).

2.Metal fatigue-bolts stripped extremely quickly left me sawing them into flat screw heads.Stay away from the clutch cover if there's nothing wrong!I however had the lets explore feeling and did this.
 
Not very easy to see ,just focus on the place the kick start shaft goes (bottom left hole) if you put the shaft in and not line the clutch cover and gearbox plate perfectly your shaft will destroy your gearbox plate.pieces go into your crank case and that can be disastrous,but i did a pretty nice patch job that never really worked i was 2mm not flush and therefor pushed the clutch cover which caused a oil leak and the kick start not to recoil automatically.

3.Rust-chain badly rusted ,lots of rust inside tank(clogging those carb filters)bolts rusted,exhausts rusted.I live at the sea what can I say.Used ns4(rust converter) to paint the pipes , all came off one day after hitting 180km/h came off like a snake shedding and made a terrible smell. 

4.Heavy fuel consumption-Broken emulsion tube clanking inside a carb.Although not sure whether that the cause or me blitzing from corner to corner 10 000 rpm at a time... 5 km/l.Bought replacement parts will see where that gets me.

 5.Fork seals-Seals were leaky bought some cheap generic ones ,didn't work oil was pissing out when bike was stationary.Still a good idea was almost no oil in the forks and the one spring assembly was badly rusted.

6.Paint job-Tank has a ding, rims are gray. I would like to return to a original paint scheme and this would be the reason for staring this blog.I got no clue what my bike originally looked like.

7.Rear shock-Took the rear shock out drained the oil , got to the part where I need to compress the spring so that i can take it all apart.(My vice is to small FFs)