Early Beginnings:



My goal for this bike was to toss on some used pre 1994 NSR50 suspension parts, 12" NSR50 Wheels and maybe a Monkey R seat, slap in an 88cc Kit and call it a day.



You will soon find out how my master plan went terribly wrong and continued to get worse over time.



Please keep in mind the longer it takes to complete a bike build, the more expensive they get. Why? Because if you can spread out the pain of the expense side of a project, spending more on parts is easier to justify.



08/2005



Other then riding around for about 3 minutes after I brought it home in 2005, the bike would never be stock or anywhere near stock again. Tmas and Razzo cheered with Joy as their stock bikes just got more valuable!



09/2005



The bike sat for a couple of months without moving until September of 2005 when I got a call from my friend Jon Cook. If you haven't had the opportunity to know Z50R_Blank (Jon), you need to. Not only is he one of the premier mini-builders in the USA and a great fabricator, but one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He had some spare parts he wasn't using and wanted to sell, so in September of 2005, my plans slowly started to derail.



I picked up the attached Takegawa Super-Multi Meter from Jon and figured I'd work this into my near stock ZB with the NSR suspension. I traded him for some other parts he needed for one of his builds.



To be continued later this evening.

 

what would add to this story is where these intertwined parts ended up.

6 degrees of separation mini bike style.

i'm looking forward to this "epic" unveiling.

 

what would add to this story is where these intertwined parts ended up.

6 degrees of separation mini bike style.

i'm looking forward to this "epic" unveiling.

No worries, I'll get to the lineage and others can fill in the blanks who resold the parts I sold off the build.



For those who helped along the way, they will get their Kudos.

 

...



You will soon find out how my master plan went terribly wrong and continued to get worse over time.



...

Sounds familiar (The wallet says autsch )

 

I feel like the first time I read Alice in Wonderland....down the rabbit hole I go...

 

My goal for this bike was to toss on some used pre 1994 NSR50 suspension parts, 12" NSR50 Wheels and maybe a Monkey R seat, slap in an 88cc Kit and call it a day....

always is

 

Aaaahhh...This is gonna be good !!! Summer 09 huh ? Still plenty of time for a few more design changes.

 

The rest of 2005 for the ZB50 was mostly spent collecting dust in the garage while I focused on other projects.



10/05

I bought The last 2 NOS Monkey R seats from Honda of Japan and the last 2 Blue Monkey RT seats. My goal was to keep one of each (RT and R) and sell the extra Monkey R and RT seats. I ended up selling all 4 and didn't use any of 'em. More on the seats when we get into 2008.



I ended up selling 1 of the R seats to a person whom I think sold his NSR suspended ZB to a member in the forums, or kept the seat and sold the rest of the bike. I can't remember. And sold both RT seats since I really didn't have much use for them at the time. I still had one NOS Monkey R seat for the build (at this time).



There is info on the topic of the differences between R and RT seats here when Wilder was a new ZB50 owner in early 2008 and made a post about cowls:



http://www.planetminis.com/f28/hello-looking-rear-cowl-tech-tips-74940.html



11/2005



I also source (but didn't take pictures that I saved) of used pre 1994 NSR50 parts including the stock triples, swingarm, front and rear brakes, used 6 spoke wheels and other parts. I did buy new Fork legs at this time.



I was still on my goal at the time. Keep the project inexpensive but with front and rear disc brakes and the Takegawa Super Multi-Meter with the rest of the bike staying very close to stock.



12/2005 #2 Beginnings of the End...



I decided I didn't want to mess with the heavy OEM NSR swingarm and adapter brackets. Unless you relocate the shock mount on the swingarm, you have to run some adapter brackets so the shock lines up with the ZB50 frame. See 2nd pic below. The brackets also make the rear of the bike sit higher and with certain shocks, makes the bike sit too high in the rear.



Sold the swingarm and adapter to Brad Reynolds who subsequently sold to someone else. (can't remember who) Brad can chime in on that one.



I decided to go with an aftermarket swingarm and while that was in transit, had parts on the way for the wheels and brakes.



Picked up a set of Braking Rotors for the front and rear 6 spoke wheels. I bought rebuild parts for the stock NSR50 front and rear Nissin rotors.



I'd only change the swingarm, but keep the 6 spokes and OEM brakes. I'd have a Monkey R seat and my Takegawa Multi-Meter.

 

what are you hiding in the GCraft box?

 

1/2006



In January of 2006, my G-craft swingarm arrived. This wasn't my first G-craft Swingarm, but it was my first G-craft ZB50/Monkey R swingarm I've ever seen that wasn't in a magazine. I was also the most expensive part I've ever bought for any of my bikes at the time. Remember, this is 3 years ago when only a couple of us where modifying street minis with premium parts as we were only messing with CT70's and Monkeys from the late 1990's to the mid 2000's.



Standard Tubing, +6cm over stock. Bam. I did the happy dance opening the box.



Swingarm was the most expensive.... Until the next week when my (now obsolete) Daytona 5 clutch arrived along with the now obsolete Daytona 5 speed gearbox.



I was lucky enough to get the last of the "Barrell" finish or bright finish clutch cases that Daytona ever made before they discontinued that option. If you compare this to the finish on the Daytona clutch cases that were sold here through Red Baron, it's night and day difference on how silver these were instead of the gray cast. Nice piece! I did another happy dance when I opened up those boxes.



Around this time, Brad and other friend of ours picked up Dry Clutches for their ZB50 projects and are the only 2 (Dry) that I've seen in the USA. I've seen Takegawa Dry setups, but not the Daytona pieces. Daytona has since discontinued these clutches. I went with the wet setup because I didn't want to spend the extra couple hundred for the dry.



My cheap engine plan went out the window and was still up in the air on what I wanted to go with the bore kit. Probably just a 117 Trailbikes to save some $$.



At the time, G-craft used to sell really expensive oil coolers. Upon additional digging, these are just Earl's 7 row coolers with fancy G-craft brackets. So rather then spending north of $500 on a G-craft piece, I spent less then $120 on an earl's cooler and the fittings that I wanted and was going to hang this under the front headlamp and save a boatload of money.



I was set and ready to build and finish the bike! I'd only change the swingarm, but keep the 6 spokes and OEM brakes. I'd have a Monkey R seat and my Takegawa Multi-Meter and a custom fabbed Earl's cooler mounted under the stock headlamp. Life was good.

 

what are you hiding in the GCraft box?

I honestly don't remember that long ago what was in the box. Probably some dress up parts for my 2003 Monkey. The black bar ends and bars were slated for this project at the time as well.

 

3/02/06



Tweaking begins. I absolutely hated the stock battery box and with the aftermarket swingarm, I wanted to hide it. Many of you probably have seen the write-up on the battery box mod.



http://www.planetminis.com/f28/zb50-battery-box-relocation-mod-22950.html



I won't get into detail on that since it's lined out in the above thread.



I also sent the 6 spoke wheels to my friend Jon Cook who was going to have them powdercoated for me. Jon informed me of his valve stem fettish which I found completely ridiculous on spending $20 per anodized valve stem. However, the more I thought about it, the more I really dug trick valve stems! As Michael Buckley states, "I had to have it" With an email to Dahli Racing, they were headed my way.

With the valve stems, my fettish for anodized bits started. You all can thank Jon Cook for getting me started on worthless dress-up bits that cost alot of money and only drain your pocketbook. Thanks Blank, I owe you a kick in the ball sack.



I sent the new fork legs off to Ray Perez and these were the first set of NSR50 forks he'd go through and said "He'll see what he can do"...



We'll pick up the rest of 03/06 when I have some time to sort though and organize pics and apparently I was waiting on more parts.

 

Anybody ever see The Jerk? It's a classic Steve Martin movie and there is a scene where he is storming out of his house after an argument with his wife and he keeps grabbing things on the way out the door saying "That's all I need!" Well he starts out with something like a thermos and then by the time he's out the door he has a lamp, a chair, and all sorts of ridiculous things. Well the point is, the list kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This is all I could think of as Dan keeps posting here:

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges...that's all I need"

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges, and this swingarm...that's all I need"

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges, and this swingarm, and these valve stems...that's all I need.................."



Love it! Thanks for posting this up Dan. It's a great read for sure!

 

03/09/06



I received my fork legs back from RJP and he reworked the valving, respring and added emulators among his other voodoo.



Seeing how I know had decent front suspension for a ZB, I decided to splurge and go with the Ohlins. In 2006, these shocks were considerably cheaper then they are now and Ohlins couldn't give the things away due to zero demand! When we drained their stock, they jacked the price.



Anyone else remember RJP's green fork stickers? I like his newer ones better.



3/22/06



I got the wheels back from Cook with the high-gloss silver powdercoat. Mounted the rotors. Ahh.... The volks valve stems. The coup d’état for the 6 spokers...



Added a Nissin 1/2" master for the stock NSR Nissin 2 pot with a shorter lever then the OEM NSR50 nissin masters.



I have the forks, the shock, the swingarm and wheels and all I need to do is bolt this together. I was on a figurative "Roll" to have this bike done within a couple of months or "so I thought"...

 

Anybody ever see The Jerk? It's a classic Steve Martin movie and there is a scene where he is storming out of his house after an argument with his wife and he keeps grabbing things on the way out the door saying "That's all I need!" Well he starts out with something like a thermos and then by the time he's out the door he has a lamp, a chair, and all sorts of ridiculous things. Well the point is, the list kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This is all I could think of as Dan keeps posting here:

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges...that's all I need"

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges, and this swingarm...that's all I need"

"These NSR forks and Takegawa gauges, and this swingarm, and these valve stems...that's all I need.................."



Love it! Thanks for posting this up Dan. It's a great read for sure!

Welcome to mini madness. I remember the movie well and it's the story of this specific build. Trust me, it gets much, much worse.

 

Those are some serious welds on that G-Craft swinger. It's the kind of quality you can set and forget because a grenade probably wouldn't even disrupt it. Although something tells me you didn't even end up using this particular swinger in your final build. I'm thinking G-Craft triple square...

 

03/25/06



Upon deliberation earlier in the month, I made the decision that I didn't like the NSR50 rearsets and didn't like setups where people bolted on the master to the frame using the stock footpeg assemblies.



There is absolutely nothing wrong with those parts combinations. It's merely not the direction I wanted to go at this point and time.



Since the cork was open on the celebratory bottle of money, what the hey, you only live once! :lol:



I should have seen the red flags and checked into rehab or taken up using drugs as it would have probably been a better life decision.



Enter the G-craft Rearsets and while I'm at it, offset tripleclamps. Heck, toss in the G-craft Resi pod in the box.



I mocked up the swingarm to the wheels and Nissin OEM rear caliper. Looked good to me, or so I thought at the time.



3/26/06



See the last pic. Sorry for the poor quality, but my time machine is broken to go back and fix.



Build side Note: While this isn't a big issue and since nobody was around to bounce ideas off of or had 6 spoke wheels, I was unaware 3 spoke NSR50 and 6 spoke NSR50 wheels take different rear wheel spacers bearings and oil seals. I ordered spacers, bearings and seals from Honda out of the 2004 NSR50mini parts fiche.



3 spokers take one of each of those spacers. The tophat spacer goes on the left, wide spacer on the right.



6 spokers take two of the uniform wide spacers, one on each side. Set me back a week. Chalked it up as a lesson learned and share with others in the future. My extra "top-hat" spacers and bearings were put to use a couple of years later on my CT70 project. The NSF100F fiche weren't available when I needed these parts.



All the parts are here that I needed to start initial mockup besides the engine parts to get this bike on the road....

 

Dan, How did your Volks valve stems overthrow your 6-spokes? HAHA...

 

Those are some serious welds on that G-Craft swinger. It's the kind of quality you can set and forget because a grenade probably wouldn't even disrupt it. Although something tells me you didn't even end up using this particular swinger in your final build. I'm thinking G-Craft triple square...

Future Hint: That was the 2nd swingarm.



NSR50

G-craft Standard



The final build is on #4. But we have 2 years to get to that point. All in due time.

 

Dan, How did your Volks valve stems overthrow your 6-spokes? HAHA...

I see you use Google! Good man. It's important to keep people on their toes.

 

04/02/06 I need to back up a little here as some of my pics I'm finding are out of sorts.



I'm not a fan of the small ZB headlamp and the unobtainium replacement lense/bulb if it goes out so I found a complete, NOS Monkey R headlamp assembly in 02/06 and my goal was to run this piece on the stock mounting brackets on the G-craft forks with the ZB50 headlamp mounting ears with the Takegawa Meter setup. I just needed to make some brackets to fit the meter on the existing brackets and make it look appealing and in place.



Build Side Note: The R buckets are still available, but the NOS lenses are as rare as rocking horse poop unless you find them floating around at auction or the collector community. They are narrower at the mounting points as well, but you can replace the bulbs. The downside is these are plastic lenses, something I was unaware of, and I do not like plastic lenses on headlamps as they tend to scratch. Most of the used ones are beat to heck and I wouldn't want to put them on a bike. See the oxymoron in play here? I'm justifying one part that's difficult to replace with another more expensive difficult to replace part. Isn't life grand?

 

04/03/06



First of Many ~ Parts I bought and did not use.



When I had the OEM NSR Swingarm, I'd sourced an NSR50 Daytona rear hugger fender. With the G-craft swingarm, not so good! I think I gave this to a friend of mine since it looked out of place and would have to be secured with zip ties. I didn't want to mess with welding on brackets on a brand-new G-craft swingarm, and there was some other fitment issue I can't recall.



The Alzheimers FastMC passed onto me must be kicking in today.



04/06/06



Bolted together the master cylinder and new takegawa low bars, turn signals, G-craft turn signal brackets and scrapped the black bar ends in favor of these red bar ends. Remember these Red bar ends as you'll see them later on in a new capacity. I didn't put the forks on the frame yet because I had to do some work on the frame for the rearsets and other parts before I put the parts on.



Parts Procurement~Mockup~Fabrication~Mockup~Teardown~Paint/Finishing~Final Assembly.



I'm currently in the first Mockup stage and getting ready for Fabrication at this point.

 

I see you use Google! Good man. It's important to keep people on their toes.

WIki for moi! HAHA.. Too many viewings of JFK. I'm looking forward to seeing the bike done!, I'm lucky enough to have viewed some of these fine parts in person!

 

Oh man, this is gonna be good. I've been waiting for this one. opcorn: :wavey: :arms: :banana:

 

so how much of a pain is it to run the volk valve stems? who makes the shorty lever for the front brake? I need one for my zx master. ASV levers are over $100 each. :/