Aprilia RS250 - Money Pit

[Hosewa]

In position, it's a real bastard to try to capture in pics.

[Hosewa]

Had a week off from work this week and finally got the main chassis wiring sorted.

I've not done the heatshrink yet as I want to wait until it is all up and running before I do that and I would like to double check the location of the tie points and make sure the relocated regulator is nor getting too hot on the inside of the frame. I need to sort the front mounting for the ECU/CID/switches and instruments, but that wiring will be fairly straight forward so another two days should see it done.

The only things left to do that I need to outsource is some TIG welding for some brackets and painting of body work once I get that sorted. I know a guy through work who is a whip metalworker, so I might hire him and his workshop for a day, take the bike up to him and get all those little things sorted in one go. I can draw up items as he makes them so I have a record and I can leave him the drawings so he can make some crash spares of some of the brackets.

I've wired up a connector for the second lot of air valves though I'm not intending on using them, but I figured I'd keep the wiring just in case. The connector for that ans the regulator are hard mounted so I can disconnect them and not worry about connectors flapping around. If I go for a total loss system I can ditch the regulator.

The little connector behind the battery is a charge port for the battery via an Optimate and the thing under it is an aircraft push-to-reset circuit breaker I am using instead of a fuse.

[Hosewa]

More wiring pics.

[Hosewa]

So, this it how it all looks as of now.

It has gone together quite well and all painted up I'm pretty happy with the results. It rolls around OK and it was nice to get it out into the sunshine for the first time in a long time when I took these pics a while back! Still a stack of work to do though, and a few dependencies that need sorting. The only things left to do that I need to outsource is some TIG welding for some brackets and painting of body work once I get that sorted. I know a guy through work who is a whip metalworker, so I might hire him and his workshop for a day, take the bike up to him and get all those little things sorted in one go. I can draw up items as he makes them so I have a record and I can leave him the drawings so he can make some crash spares of some of the brackets.

I've not done anything on this bike in 2009 really. I've had some distractions (I bought an RGV and half an MC28 with a guy from work), moved workshops, holidays, have been super busy at work and actually got out to do some road riding for the first time in about 8 years!

I'm planning to dismantle the bike once it's at the point it is ready to run, which sounds a little insane, even to me! It's been so long since it started I need to check all the torques, I need to align the swingarm in the frame, do a wheel alignment, touch-up some of the paint on the frame, put together a fastener order list and a bunch of other little things so that when it finally runs again it good to go. The final thing once I am sure everything is working OK is to heatshrink the wiring loom. I want to make sure all the connections are good before I do that as it would be a pain in the to have to pull it apart to swap any errors I make, even though I've been over the wiring diagram a million times.

Lets hope that by this time next year, I have a running track weapon that still finished (as finished as a project gets), has been used in anger and made it back I one piece!

Cheers

[davidj]

Looks great!! Yes, I too would go over every nut and bolt. The time it takes is well worth the peace of mind, specially at triple digit speeds.

Dave