mounting the FZR400 tail

the front corners are shaped for the FZR, and need to be filed down to fit snugly against the FZ tank. i started by drawing lines with a colored pencil that followed the lines of the seat then filed/sanded to shape:

the forward mounting tabs needed to be made, and luckily the subframe already has two holes for the grommets, a typical hardware store item:

i made the tabs from some extra Delrin i had laying around, and epoxied them to the inside of the tail:

i thought about making my own solo cowl, or even making the entire tail myself, but the cost of materials is just too high, especially considering i can get a cowl from Airtech for $50 and a complete solo tail for $160. at least the cowl will allow the occasional passenger...

next: solo cowl, paint, tail light/plate hanger

FZ600S revisited...

the FZ is back on the stand after spending the last year crammed against the wall and covered with the VW's interior carpets. i had pretty much written off this project until last week when i had a burst of inspiration and decided to give it another go.

this is what it started out looking like, five years ago when i bought it. the subframe was butchered, the tires were shot, the tank/petcock leaked, the forks leaked, the rear shock was junk, the seat was 90% gaffer tape, etc. i rode it for a couple months until things got really bad and decided to tear it down and update the chassis with either late-model FZR or early-model R6 parts.

inspiration:

for now i'll probably have to settle for FZR wheels/brakes/forks, but eventually i'd like to use first-generation R6 running gear, especially the front end. the swingarm would need to be carefully machined in order to accept the larger axle of the R6 wheel, and its probably too narrow to fit the right rubber, anyway.

i'm also fitting an FZR400 tail instead of the standard plastics, which i always thought were too slab-sided and ugly. Airtech makes a nice FZR400 one-piece for race bikes that i think would look good, or maybe something for a TZ...

stock FZ vs. FZR400:

Airtech FZR400, TZ250:

behold the swarf monkey

I finally made it out onto the shop floor, running some machines. below are a few samples of the most recent chip-breaking agenda:

this is a practice piece for the radial arm drill press, just a series if holes, the largest of which was 1.375", an enormous bit. thats a quarter to the right for scale. The pilot hole for a bit of this size is still only around 0.25", as the web is no thicker than that across the point. If i remember right, the spindle speed was less than 200 RPM and a feed of around 0.008"/rev. When the cutting face hit the work a shitstorm of smoke and chips curled out from the flutes and the floor shook. pure horsepower, it was impressive. here's one of the chips, a nice copper-red color from the heat:

as a cutting tool is fed into a workpiece, under the right conditions (good rigidity and cutting tool geometry, proper spindle speed and feed rate, etc.) a uniform chip is produced by the shearing forces as the crystalline structure of the metal is continually compressed and sheared, forming peaks, over and over again. under power feed, those peaks can be seen on the chip form as serrations, resulting in a coil like this:

next: bigger chips, heavier cuts, and tapers...