snrusnak mod thread

[snrusnak]

lol, yeah I think all my neighbors were wondering WTF I was cooking in my garage, seeing as the drill bit was smoking the whole time lol. If the kickstand wasn't heat treated from the factory, it is now...

I have little experience with this type of work, but quickly found out you should not use a high speed to drill metal...

If I would have just went and bought a new bit, I probably would have gone right through it, but being lazy and cheap, I stuck it out. I actually went to smaller bits at a slow speed with wd40 and they cut it nearly like butter(comparatively, anyway), but even with most of the material drilled out, that burned up 1/2" bit still was a bitch to finish it off.

[snrusnak]

mate... its a nice thing to bring a buell back to the glory it should be.

my mate had the same. bought a neglected 03 that was blue. by the time he finished everything looked better than new and it now even sports the lightning tail and black plastics. (that image i sent you).

looking forward to seeing that nice frame set off wiht the plastics.

Thanks buddy! I love that picture you sent me, and that's pretty much what I'm going for. I do think I'll leave the firebolt tail as is though, I happen to like it. It's kind of funny, I always liked the lightning better, but once seeing one in person I actually liked the firebolt better. Weird...

[konarider94]

I have little experience with this type of work, but quickly found out you should not use a high speed to drill metal...

for future reference use the formula RPM=(CS*4)/diameter in inches

for steel the cutting speed is roughly 50-100 for high carbon and low carbon steel respectively. that is low carbon steel so you should have been at about 800 rpm or less for a .5" drill bit.

for softer metals like aluminum and brass use a CS of 200. these are not exact but a good approximation.

[snrusnak]

^thanks for the info. You're teaching me all sorts of things tonight lol.

What is CS measured in?

I think the lowest speed on my press is 1100. It seemed to cut fairly well at that speed with wd40 and light pressure(that was with the smaller bits though, working up to 1/2").

[konarider94]

cutting speed is in surface feet per minute.

[cgo]

Nice work. it didn't look too neglected from the first pictures, but it may have looked worse in person.

[twoguns]

understand mate... i am actually enjoying my 07 white on black bolt more too now that i have the hybrid as well. tehy both look good.

although i did go back to 03 short stub mirrors on the bolt fairing. i like them better as i think they suit the overall size of the bike more.

[snrusnak]

Nice work. it didn't look too neglected from the first pictures, but it may have looked worse in person.

Thanks. It looked good from 10 ft but there was a lot of corrosion in the triple trees, wheels, engine area, etc. on the powder coating/paint. It looked like it had never been wiped down. The good thing is I have a good base(good running bike that is straight and has a good frame).

[snrusnak]

For example, you can see how corroded the wheel is here:



And here's what all the hardware looked like on the front end:



Then I cleaned it up:

[Oldgit]

I'm keeping an eye on this thread snr ;)

I'm in the process of restoring my XB12R, so I'm looking for ways to clean/refinish various parts of the bike. Have you any cleaning tips, or seen any decent threads on detailed stripdown cleans?