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NC23 (re)build thread

Bad news, this project (other than the engine rebuild) is on hold while I tend to my daily ride. A car turned into me yesterday in the city (though it was a shared-fault accident), and this was the result:

svcrash130513.jpg


I'm really sore, but otherwise fine. Boots saved my leg, jacket worked as advertised, and helmet never hit the ground.
 
Ahh man sorry to hear about that. Glad your OK though and at least you don't have to get a new lid.
 
that sucks. planed to watch the progress. I may have a part or two to throw your way. calipers? I think these are the same as the NC35 and I have a spare set that work.
 
That sucks. Sounds like you are OK though.

Watching the fun will have to wait. No biggie.

I am sure it won't be long. I just have a feeling you need this. :teeth
 
Sucks. Especially since you have the painted full fairing deal.

If you end up not getting insurance to cover the bike (insurance would total that one) just put a gsxr front end or used SV650 stock front end and put a re-pop naked headlight (delkevic makes one about $70) on there. Finding those S parts and then painting them would cost way too much (I've been in that situation before). Unfortunately someone in monterey had all those parts pretty cheap but he just sold em (I tried to buy em for my SV) hah.
 
Spent last night taking broken parts off the SV.

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The impact of the crash was so hard, even the lightbulbs in the headlight housing broke. No wonder my shoulder hurts.

376904_10101589908751944_1028446746_n.jpg


ircsmith said:
that sucks. planed to watch the progress. I may have a part or two to throw your way. calipers? I think these are the same as the NC35 and I have a spare set that work.
Click to expand...

Calipers might wind up coming in handy! I'll check in again later; I've been trying to focus on one system at a time when working on the NC23, and so far that's been engine (which is ongoing) and electrics.

aram said:
Sucks. Especially since you have the painted full fairing deal.

If you end up not getting insurance to cover the bike (insurance would total that one) just put a gsxr front end or used SV650 stock front end and put a re-pop naked headlight (delkevic makes one about $70) on there. Finding those S parts and then painting them would cost way too much (I've been in that situation before). Unfortunately someone in monterey had all those parts pretty cheap but he just sold em (I tried to buy em for my SV) hah.
Click to expand...

Insurance isn't covering it; I asked my wife to add collision a few months ago and it never happened.

The forks already have GSX-R internals in them so I'm either going to have GP Frame straighten the stanchions or ask Robert to machine a new set from some cores I picked up yesterday. A friend of mine alerted me to the CL post in Monterey (which I never got a response from), but he also found another in San Diego who seems to have (most of?) the parts I want, which changes the problem from availability to shipping. That leaves the lowers, shifter, and other minor crap.

The SV is my daily rider and is heavily modified, but my rule for it is to retain as much stock look and feel as possible. It's been the bike that's started on the first crank every morning before work for the last 50k miles, so I'm taking it back to stock condition. It's worth it to me to have the stock fit and finish of all the parts, because I have a habit of doing dumb things with it, and it's never let me down. It's important for all the parts to fit together as if they were designed for each other :)

Besides, there's some irony in talking about the cost of fixing a crashed SV in a thread about a project NC23, especially since I just got a quote from Graeme for some needed parts :rolleyes
 
With a little help from the internet, the SV is fixed up enough to ride. Sure, the upper is orange and pre-crashed, but it's in one piece.

In the meantime, work on the NC23 didn't stop, but there was a bit less of it, and it was focused on getting the engine apart, which itself was a journey full of surprises starting with the stator cover(s):



So each of these covers is different in some way. The leftmost came off the spare engine and is missing the stator, the middle came off the main engine and—other than the cut stator wiring—is complete, but the rightmost cover… it's in the best shape of the three and I figured I'd use it on the final engine build but note the number of stator bolts. And the size of the stator. And the casting marks. It's from a different bike!

Here's my engine rebuild buddy, Stephen, removing the head from the main engine:



Inside the engine were some more surprises. Sorry for the backwards ordering, but here's cylinders 2 and 1:



Look at those coolant channels! Gross. I'm guessing this wasn't from just sitting around. The cylinder walls are pretty carbon-rich as well, but that's nothing compared to what showed up on top of the piston in cylinder 3 (still taking pictures RTL, sorry):



I didn't take a picture of the bottom of the head (though Stephen did flip it over to take a look at it, spilling buckets all over the workbench), but it doesn't look *too* bad. A visit to the machine shop should have it happy again with a hopefully minimal number of new parts shipped from international sources—if memory serves, the NC23 shares head parts with the CB-1.

After all that, disassembling the water pump didn't reveal anything too surprising:



It's gross, but nothing the parts cleaner can't fix.

I was back in the shop last week to do some final disassembly, but apparently I didn't take any pictures—I was really sore and coming down with a cold—but the cases are mostly bare now, only the driven transmission shift assembly remains in the lower crankcase, and the shift forks and their related bits in the top half. This week we'll be measuring all the tiny wear parts and ordering whatever prohibitively expensive replacement parts it needs (if they can't be scavenged from the spare engine?), and dropping the head off at Evolution since Rob showed an interest in the project and he's been good to my stupid projects in the past.

Oh right, one last picture. The money shot, if you will:



In an engine that hasn't run for who knows how long, that's been drained of oil for three weeks, these gears spin effortlessly. None of the gear assemblies, from this geartrain to the transmission internals, show any sign of meaningful wear or tear. Hooray! :thumbup

Left to sort out before the bike can be started is: headers for the exhaust (I'm told maybe A&A Racing might do the custom bits of the job?), carbs (just yesterday LiteTek added a kit for the NC23!), radiator and possibly coolant hoses.
 
I've got a couple of bags of hex-drive cap screws to go in your carbs now, so fuck yeah shiny! Also maybe you want my old master cylinder? Let me know when you're planning on being there and I'll lend a hand.
 
i almost bought this bike - now that i'm seeing the insides - i'm glad i didnt! :laughing


you got some work (ahem, i mean $$$$) ahead of you, but i assure you it will all be worth it when its done! we just got Violet's CBR400RR NC29 running about a month ago - such a cool bike :cool

best of luck w/ this project! Subscribed!



and btw: i have a full NC29 OEM front end if you are interested. forks,tripples, master cylinder, lines, caliper, wheel, rotors, even the damn clutch lever and perch!
 
Assuming my NC23 forks are good, I'll keep them stock, but I need a front wheel (see previous photos) and I'm definitely interested in the other stuff, especially if you have bearings/races (more pictures for another post).
 
Was working today next to this bike. Such a fun project. The engine casings are fucking beautiful. One reason to buy aftermarket covers and save the OEMs for 30 years down thee road.
 
It's funny that you mention the engine casings, because on Thursday Stephen was cleaning up the cases in the parts cleaner and discovered that they aren't quite perfect:



Here's the part that's missing, it detached pretty easily with a rubber mallet:



No problem, we'll use the engine cases from the spare engine! Nope. That engine has actual JB weld (instead of epoxy without enough hardener) holding it together. Frown.

Since I had the spare engine half-apart by that point, I scavenged a few fasteners that I needed for the build, like a case bolt that Haynes had the wrong torque specced for. Frown. Good news: the shop has the service manual for the CBR600F3 and a lot of the information is expected to be the same between the two bikes (like torque specs) so this shouldn't happen too much more.

Last week, MotorToad was in the shop working on the Big Bearings and gave the swingarm a clean bill of health. If you were at the shop at the time, it probably looked more like an accident site than a work in progress:

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Don't worry, the frame was just taking a nap.

The steering bearings don't look so good.

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The rollers are also in Not Amazing shape, so those should get replaced as well. The spare triples/steering stem use ball bearings instead of needles, but this sort of thing isn't really surprising anymore. I bet SpeedyCorky is feeling pretty smart right now.

Thursday I measured all the simple bearings in the bottom end and am happy to report that they're all in spec so for all the abuse this thing has soaked up it hasn't affected the fastest moving parts. The Plastigauge doesn't lie!



The cylinders and pistons in the spare engine are closer to spec than the main, so we're going to use those in the build.

Over the weekend, there was a lot of time spent with the parts cleaner and a bit of work was done on the carbs. Milami was in town and helped with the cleaning; she set up this fondue fountain with the water pump.



I have a more or less complete shopping list now, so it's time to make an order from the UK; and SpeedyCorky I'm definitely interested in a bunch of the parts you have on hand and will be sending you a PM soon!
 
I would think a good aluminum welder would be able to fix that first case up for you. A little careful work with a finishing file, and Bob's your uncle. ;)
 
yea i for sure woulda been in way over my head with this project :laughing
all do-able stuff, but time time time! :loco


i got some spare CBR400rr NC29 engine cases too, but i dont think they'd fit yer NC23.

and you are soo right about the sexy OEM side case covers - shame all the ones i have are a bit rashed up, or VERY rashed up haha
 
I always wondered how project threads could go through months of inactivity. Did these people stop working on their bikes? Can't they stick to a project?

Hi. My name is Scott, and I'm part of the problem.

I have been working on the NC in the meantime, but the montage would be pretty boring—dropping off the head at Kibbelwhite, making an inventory of needed parts, figuring out which ones are available domestically, ordering them all and narrowly avoiding bankrupting myself on shipping from the UK by combining my order with an NC35 order, and finishing building the carbs.

I got a call from Kibbelwhite in the meantime to let me know that the main head wasn't really usable—the valves and guides were worn past spec. While there is another bike that was sold domestically that shared top end components with the NC23, parts still can't be bought because they can't be found—it's been a while since 1988. Fingers crossed, I brought in the second head and had a nice chat with Mike, who tore it down and cleaned it up.





The case has been welded and Mike wanted to drill and helicoil the mount, just to make sure that everything lined up right. Gotta love the spirit of getting things done Right.



The valves had been pulled apart, cleaned, measured, and inventoried in their little bags. At the end of the day, it turned out we will be able to build one good head out of the two donors. Great news.



Mike shared something neat with me: the springs in the NC23 aren't round in cross-section—they're trapezoidal! Presumably this is because metallurgy in the 80s wasn't enough to hit a reliable 14.5krpm (16k with an HRC CDI), and the different cross section affected the spring's behaviour enough to make up the difference.



Back in the shop, my parts arrived from both local and remote sources and I figured I'd take an hour or two to change out the bearings and triples. If you look close, the rear wheel is also new (and 17 inches rim size!). Free wheelie photo:



Got all the moving bits out.



And the new ones are SHINY.



The bike looks odd without an engine, but it looks absolutely preposterous sans engine *and* forks.



And a lack of pictures because everything started going wrong. I neglected to check the length of the steering tube on the spare triples. Had I done that, I would have saved myself destroying my only lower steering bearing seal after installing the races because it was too short. Time to order another one.

Then the top triple turned out to also be special—on the left side the pinch bolt's threads are entirely stripped, and the right side pinch bolt's threads are full of crap. On the bright side, I have a speedometer now.



Next time I'm in the shop I'm installing Helicoils into the top triple because I'd still prefer stock over the aftermarket triple that was on there. Probably also rebuild the brakes. Until then, may your projects be unsurprising and straightforward!
 
My NC35 project has been going on for almost a year but now that I'm making some money again, hopefully I can start back up soon.
 
Yay for updates!

Also, your bike looks derpy as hell with no front suspension nor engine. Just sayin'.
 
Teaser update from Kibbelwhite, before shot:



After:



:burnout
 
kibblewhite is an amazing local resource - they did my airhead's heads back when.

--S
 
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