KAS Bodywork - Preparation Week Three

I have had a good time visiting KAS Racepaint over the last few weeks and really appreciate how much Paul has done for me. This weekend I saw my parts along-side Gary's move into the booth for the last time. And I also managed to catch a glimpse of what they looked like in their gloss black - terrific.

In a rather tight turnaround and we also squeezed in the trip up to the BSSO AGM in Walsall. This was my first time at the event and I found it really interesting. The discussions were thought-provoking and it was great to imagine that I will be a prospective racer in the coming 2012 season, something I have been looking forward to for a long time. Chalkie also gave me some useful updates regarding my engine. 

This weekend also saw us gain possession of our race transport - a Mazda Bongo. These little beauties are well known in surfing fraternities and we hope that ours will serve us as well as the recommendations suggest.

I have also partially painted my temporary Legshields over the weekend so expect a more complete update on these soon. Hopefully, the final majority of the professional paintwork will be collected during the week. Next weekend is lining up to be an exciting one!

 

KAS Bodywork - Preparation Week Two

Things are really starting to come together now. I have been down to KAS Racepaint and finished off the preparation of my parts.

This involved wet sanding them with 320 grit paper and scotchbriting the difficult edges. However, all my parts have now been prepared and the residue cleaned. They sit in their box, awaiting the final coats. I managed to snap a few photos of the parts along my way and am finding my excitement brimming.

Gary took me along again which was great as all his stuff is at the same position as mine now, although I at least have had some of my parts back, hence the rolling chassis.

In other good news, I received my BSSO membership card this week, retaining my unused number, 79, from last year. This was a bit of a relief as I have already stuck on the numbers on some unseen parts! I have also got my Legsheilds back from Replay Scooters where they have been repaired. Looking forward to prepping these up for the temporary paint job. This will keep me busy...

Next week is going to be even more busy! After what is becoming the traditional Saturday morning KAS visit with Gary, I will be heading over to the BSSO AGM with my Dad and Chalkie. With lots of paintwork still to be sorted, I'd imagine that Sunday won't be much quieter.

Here are the progressed photos from the Racepaint visit.

KAS Bodywork - Preparation Week One

As mentioned in the previous posts, I have already received a lot of items back from KAS Racepaint. However, there were a few parts that I still needed. As I have been exceptionally busy over the past few years, in the few opportunities I have had to help with the paintwork, time was always against me.

The great news is that today, after a morning of etch priming the panel-work is awaiting the last few steps to give it the professional finish as seen on the rest of my parts. The parts pre-paint have achieved their state by hours worth of work by myself, and the generosity of Paul at KAS Racepaint. They have seen welding, fiber-glassing and sanding over the course of a fair few weekends at the workshop. The legshields have been transformed from cast offs and the floorboards have been strengthened by Replay Scooters.

A big thankyou therefore to Paul and a special shout-out to Gary who did the spraying today. I'm looking forward to the sanding next week! In the meantime, here are some pictures of the prepped parts and the etch priming.

Rolling Chassis

The next obstacle to overcome was to find a way to work on the frame easily without having to store it on valuable bench space all the time. The idea was to turn the frame into a rolling chassis. Hopefully, this would involve attaching a headset, front hub and wheel and rear hub and wheel on an engine block. Unfortunately, things are never as simple as they should be...

The Headset was assembled and the KOSO rev counter fitted where the speedometer would have originally been.

The external front disc hub from ex racer 81 was stripped, prepped and painted. This then had to be sorted to centre the wheel per Stickys manual. As you can see in the photos, the front wheel was noticeably off-centre. Adding the Serveta dampers seemed simple after sorting the front hub out.

The rear hub had to be drilled out and still needs tapping with an M7 x 1.0 tap to repair the threads. One of the wheel studs was loose so that needed sorting. To make the engine block, a layshaft, endplate and cone were added to support the rear wheel. By the way the engine block has been cleaned in this photo. You should have seen it before! The easy stuff was mounting the rear light, mudguard and panel clips

And here we have a rolling chassis

The wheels are just temporary as I haven't considered my options yet but I think yellow and black would look good. After sourcing a picture and messing around with it in a photo editing suite, we have a concept of what my race scooter might look like.

For the unedited photo, visit Draw 4 U and click Scooter Racing. Many thanks for Lee Hollick who took the picture and provided me with it.

While I wait for the paintwork to be done, I am going to prep, paint and assemble a temporary set of bodywork for use on practice/track days and they will always be good as a set of spares.

Assembly Starts

The Serveta frame I purchased for this project initially was shot blasted and welded by Replay Scooters prior to being taken to KAS for paint. When I received these bits back, I did as much as I could to get things done. This included building the forks and sorting out the seat and cabling. The eagle eyed among you will notice that the polished links are drum links but in some photos I have disc links. This was due to initially having the intention of fitting an inboard disc hub.

The links came up really well!

And the forks went in a treat.

As did the race seat.

Cabling and Electrics were routed along the frame.

Strip!

In the two years that I haven't updated the project, there has actually been quite a few things that have been learnt. Not only have the parts changed around but some have even been rebuilt. However, I genuinely do believe that this has been a good use of my time. We all make mistakes and the more I make and learn from now, the safer I will be when I have to inevitably make a change at a race meeting.

With one scooter to strip and one to build, it almost seemed stupid to take parts from one and put them on another but my opinion soon changed. With ex-race 81 outside in the fresh air, I set out on the task of dismantling. Many items just came off but it wasn't long before I came across a problem in that of a brimming fuel tank! An unexpected bonus to find. It was a well kitted out machine despite being in need of a little TLC. There is not much at all on it that won't be used or at least kept for spares. One item that I knew would need work straight away was the front disc hub as I planned on using it.

Photos of the strip are below. Many thanks to Daz of DKS Team Replay for giving me the opportunity of purchasing the scooter. Really looking forward to racing next year.

Two Year UPDATE !

Wow, just found this blog and it really doesn't seem two years since my last post. However, one advantage is that I have a lot more content to add over the coming weeks.

A lot of items have been taken to KAS Racepaint and I have recieved a substantial amount of these back. However, certain items have been replaced/re-sourced. For example the Forks are now the serveta type along with the dampers. The front hub has also been swapped for an outboard style alternative.

Upon visiting Chalkie at Replay Scooters I was presented with a built race scooter at a good price. Cut a long story short, the bike was delivered to me last week and I have been dismantling it for parts/spares. The purchase has really moved things on for me because I now have an engine which Chalkie is taking care of for me.

In past news, a year ago the team secured sponsorship from Ambivent Mechanical Services which gave a well needed boost to the team morale. It's great that a local company can get behind our cause.

All in all there is so much that has happened over the past two years. The team raced in the last race of 2011 and we had a shakedown of ideas and parts. It all looks positive for a two man team in 2012. Watch this space.