Huge milestone - officially "on the road"

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:43 pm

Although I'm a pretty frequent regular here I've not been riding my 1100F and have not considered it to be on the road - until now.

Long story short:

Got the bike in spring/early summer of 2000. I have a pic below in the condition I got it. You name it, it was missing.

It had been crashed. No airbox, stock exhaust disassembled, no rear brake assembly whatsoever, no fairing bracket, no taillight bracket, seat & tail butchered and unusable, no sidecovers, bad tank, etc, etc, etc.

I had a little history on the bike though and it is a low-mileage bike and the engine was/is sound.

It's taken a long time and it's my fault it's taken me this long including out for the summer/fall of 2000 with a collapsed lung & major surgery, new patio & birth of a child (by my wife) in summer of 2001, deployed overseas to Afghanistan in 2002/2003, and so on.

Lot's of ebaying and other scrounging of bodywork & parts. A 900C and 900F parts bike helped too.

I've done everything myself with the help of everyone here. I know this is really just a stock 1100F with the Vance & Hines supersport exhaust but as many of those here can attest - this one is special cause it's mine and I'm the one who literally brought it back from the dead to what you see here.

I finally finished it to the point where I consider it safe and reliable yesterday evening. The last items were chain & sprockets, grips and the mini bikemaster turn signals. I made up the brackets myself and I have both front & rear running off the connections up front. My wiring harness is completely stock and intact but for some reason the signals won't work from the back connections. I still don't like how the sidecovers fit up, but I think they'll be ok.

My plan is to bring this bike and my KZ1000 (also shown) to Daytona in March 2006.

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:53 pm

Sweet! Thanks for saving another one.

What kind of shape is your stock exhaust in? I am looking for a very nice to excellent R/H side to buy

Z looks nice too...

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:57 pm

Aint it sweet at the end?
Very cool job you have done bringing this one back from the brink.
Take the sidestand off the bike and straighten it a bit and then straighten the tongue it hangs on a little bit and your bike will stand a little better.
I just fixed the tongue on my red bike because she was leaning too far on the stand.
Do not sit on or let anyone sit on your bike while it is on the side stand, that is why it is sagging so much.

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:03 pm

stoutblock wrote:

Sweet! Thanks for saving another one.

What kind of shape is your stock exhaust in? I am looking for a very nice to excellent R/H side to buy

Z looks nice too...

Thanks Martin. I sold the exhaust last winter on eBay to a real nice guy in Montana. I told him about the site but I'm not sure if he ever signed up. It was in pretty good condition. I knew I would never use it so I got rid of it to offset some of the $$ (lots of it) I spent on bodywork & other stuff.

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:13 pm

Congrats, Pete! It IS a great feeling to be motoring down the road on a machine that You are responsible for bringing back to life! You went thru a lot, enjoy the ride!!

I see what you mean about the side panels. It is hard to tell from the pix - are the panels themselves out of alignment or is it the pinstriping?

Anyway, great to see another F on the road, where it belongs!!

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:10 pm

You should be damn proud of this rebuild, that's one sweet F Very Happy

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 10:15 pm

warpspeed wrote:

Congrats, Pete! It IS a great feeling to be motoring down the road on a machine that You are responsible for bringing back to life! You went thru a lot, enjoy the ride!!

I see what you mean about the side panels. It is hard to tell from the pix - are the panels themselves out of alignment or is it the pinstriping?

Anyway, great to see another F on the road, where it belongs!!

No the panels are brand new, right out of the box. I posted a week or so ago about having a hard time fitting them up. I played with the tank mounting - using the little bit of adjustment you actually have and got the covers to fit somewhat ok. I still had to flex the cover a little to get the pegs into the tank holes. I'm probably worrying too much but they are brand new covers after all. I'd hate bust a post off right off the bat.

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:22 pm

Pete83 wrote:

warpspeed wrote:

Congrats, Pete! It IS a great feeling to be motoring down the road on a machine that You are responsible for bringing back to life! You went thru a lot, enjoy the ride!!

I see what you mean about the side panels. It is hard to tell from the pix - are the panels themselves out of alignment or is it the pinstriping?

Anyway, great to see another F on the road, where it belongs!!

No the panels are brand new, right out of the box. I posted a week or so ago about having a hard time fitting them up. I played with the tank mounting - using the little bit of adjustment you actually have and got the covers to fit somewhat ok. I still had to flex the cover a little to get the pegs into the tank holes. I'm probably worrying too much but they are brand new covers after all. I'd hate bust a post off right off the bat.

I put two brand new out of the box sidecovers on the red bike to goto the Hoot with and I have to say that the left side bottom pin did not want to go in at first and I had to use WD-40 and a loose tank to line it up for the final push of the pin.
Like you Pete, I did not want to break a brand new sidecover.
Two of the grommets were new so I used a new one in the difficult hole and it worked out shweetly.

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:57 am

Your bike looks great! Considering the obstacles, you made decent time for all the work involved. Cool

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:08 am

Way to go Pete. Your bike looks great. I have only had one problem with sid e covers. I lost one on a ride and backtracked about 90 mile to pick it up on the side of the road over the memorial day weekend. A thousand people drove by it, not knowing that it was worth 50 bucks on ebay.

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:16 pm

Your bike looks great! Glad to see another F returned to the road.
I lost a side cover too....probably worth a couple hundred bucks to me because it's one of a kind, custom painted. It took me 3 or 4 days to find it on the side of the road. Touched it up and put a coat of clear on it....good as new. I replaced all the rubber grommets since.

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:32 pm

Pete - nice work (and hard work too looking at the before photos). I'm sure you'll get even more satisfaction from the bike knowing you saved and resurrected her.

Did you ever get your mini-stalk turn signal problem resolved?

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:18 pm

Andy wrote:

You should be damn proud of this rebuild, that's one sweet F Very Happy

What Andy said!!!!!!!!!!!! beerchug

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:57 pm

im impressed pete! i guess patience is a virtue,as they say

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:54 pm

Wow! It's great to see one make such a nice comeback. The coolest thing about these bikes is that they are ridden!

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:50 am

pontiacstogo wrote:

Pete - nice work (and hard work too looking at the before photos). I'm sure you'll get even more satisfaction from the bike knowing you saved and resurrected her.

Did you ever get your mini-stalk turn signal problem resolved?

I "made it work" without hacking up the stock harness. For some reason, the signals won't work using the 2-wire stock set up at the rear of the bike. So what I did was run 2-pair of wires (4 total) up to the front and used the existing spare connections up front. So what I've got is 2-wire mini's front and back that all get their power from the front connections and everything is working fine.

In a way it is "cobbled", but the harness is intact. The only thing I can think of that is different from when I had all four stock signals working a month ago is that I changed out the left hand handlebar switch and there must be something with wrong with that to cause no power to get to the turn signal connections at the rear. The tail and brake light in back work fine.