Z1100ST Resto +

[nanno]

These are the floating calipers and are not exactly an upgrade from the Z brakes...

Cheers,
Greg

[RALPHARAMA]

From what I understand of the Z brakes on this model, pretty much anything is an upgrade. I decided against these as they were a bit too modern and probably a bit wide - they were being used with a gixer front wheel. I have it in mind to try to fit a set of brembos from a K series Beemer - they were from the right period and a very well made with ceramic pistons. I have a scrapper being sent to me so I can assess the suitability. They're twin opposed, so have to be better than the single sliders the bike came with. Watch this space

[Mr Puffin]

Ralph i had a read through here and then went to look in the garage, my 1100GS has the Brembo calipers, a quick approximate disk to rear of caliper measure and they look as if they will clear the spokes. looks like 36mm with near new pads in place
GSXR/Bandit calipers are 40mm d/rc and hit the spokes

[kiwi kdx]

hey mate, i have just had a read through your thread and must say the bike is looking great! sepecially considering the thrashing that engine must have had in its previous life!

[RALPHARAMA]

As per, the sod has been fighting me all the way - I had made a new loom for the clocks for which I used after market pilot light holders from a wholesaler I use. They're not expensive and fit perfectly. As changing bulbs on these things is such a right royal pain in the arse I have chosen to use LEDs. This of course throws up another problem, because the lamp holders are the wedge type as opposed to bayonet and so it is only by suck it and see method that one can fit them the correct way round. I also managed to drop a bollock when I wired up the high beam and neutral indicators - one switches ground and one live, so sods law dictates that I would get them the wrong way around and not notice until I had fitted it all on the bike - it took me ages with a multi-meter and wiring diagram to figure out what I had done wrong



Eventually I figured it out and most of the stuff I can test works. I had a bit of a fight on my hands with the indicators as well, where the original loom has a ground going to the flasher relay, but on and English bike if you fit a three pin flasher it takes out the fuse . I eventually figured that out and altered the wiring so that won't happen again



I gave up trying to source a proper headlamp and bought a nasty chinese job from one of the wholesalers, but the be fair it looks OKish



Another bit of my own bodgery was on the front wheel. When I fitted the front tyre I fitted a triumph angled tyre valve, which seals against a spot faced section on the cast wheel with an 'o' ring.



The 'land' around the valve hole on the zed wheel obviously wasn't anywhere near flat, and so like the tosser I can be I just bedded the sucker in with rtv. Well, it wouldn't tighten up properly and never did seal properly

So I had to take the wheel out, tyre off again and do the job properly. Luckily for me when I was an apprentice at British Aerospace I was a thieving bastard, so I have a reverse spot facing tool



It was not very easy to use given it wasn't quite the right size ...



... but it did the job well enough for for the valve to tighten down properly and seal perfectly without recourse to sillycoon



I have rebuilt the rear brake system now and fitted it in place. I have also finished installing the battery box etc with all the solid platinum parts gleened from Fowlers trade counter



The brakes are still doing my head in

I got a Brembo caliper from Motorworx which is in pretty good shape for a ten pound scraper Unfortunately it's rather fatter than I hoped it would be. One option that's been suggested is spacing out the discs, and there is plenty of room to do that .... except that it will affect the speedo drive on the left.





I'm going to take a look at Jak's Café racer this arvo, as I know he fitted APs to that and had to space the discs. He did say that he fited them on a cast wheel without moving them. I'll let you know what I find

[Baldylocks]

Hi VDUK,
I've installed a set of Brembo Twin pot Calipers on my Shed1R, originally had them on my Z650, came as a kit back in the early '80's damn fine brakes, when I installed mine on the Shed I had to replace one of the Calipers Pistons as for some reason it had steel pistons, now they both have Hard anodised Ali pistons, and the Caliper bodies are Hard anodised much better than the Japanese stuff. Here's a couple of pics!


Image013 by Baldylocks2012, on Flickr


Image012 by Baldylocks2012, on Flickr

[KWACKERZ1]

I have a set of these brakes i want to install, i don't suppose you have or could produce a template for the mounting brackets as tha could save me a load of work.

[RALPHARAMA]

Oh Bugger

Thanks for the pix Baldylocks. They have explained why Jak was able to put 'fat' calipers on his Zed and I can't seem to find the room on mine. The it would seem that the earlier wheels with discs that bolted on with four bolts had much more clearance than the later ones with the big fat diameter hubs and seven bolts. Perhaps I should start looking for an earlier wheel and discs for my bike I wonder if the spindle is the same size

[Baldylocks]

KwackerZ1 , yeah could take some measurements but won't be for a while, cos it means taking the adaptors off the bike the re-lock wiring them maybe next month if you can wait?

vduk, the spokes and Axle appear to be the same size just the disc spacing is smaller, could measure it if you want, cos the fork spacing appears the same, when I got the Kit, I had to get a mate to machine the adaptors as the Calipers didn't slip on... should have bought the Brembo discs too I guess but couldn't afford them, if you need any measurements let me know, you could always try the F05 Calipers which are smaller rather than the F08's..as they will probably work better than the Kawasaki Calipers.

[HARRY4448]

You are posh.



A toilet ....................and a handbasin in your man-cave.



I do hope that you don't have your bed in there as well.



Excellent thread by the way.

[Ginger Bear]

You are posh.



A toilet ....................and a handbasin in your man-cave.



I do hope that you don't have your bed in there as well.



Excellent thread by the way.

I bet he'll still be in 'trouble' with Marion, for leaving the seat 'up'!

[RALPHARAMA]

You are posh.



A toilet ....................and a handbasin in your man-cave.



I do hope that you don't have your bed in there as well.



Excellent thread by the way.

I bet he'll still be in 'trouble' with Marion, for leaving the seat 'up'!

It's funny you should say that CB was horrified I would 'publish' a photo of the loo with seat up!

As far as I'm concern it's a workshop bog so the default seat position is UP

[nanno]

Oh Bugger

Thanks for the pix Baldylocks. They have explained why Jak was able to put 'fat' calipers on his Zed and I can't seem to find the room on mine. The it would seem that the earlier wheels with discs that bolted on with four bolts had much more clearance than the later ones with the big fat diameter hubs and seven bolts. Perhaps I should start looking for an earlier wheel and discs for my bike I wonder if the spindle is the same size

Spindle is the same size and yes, you have a lot more space. My idea was to use bigger disks (there's some VN1500 disks that are 305mm in diameter) and the spokes are getting thinner the more you get closer to the edge of the rim. (and it should still be possible to take off the caliper off the wheel, w.o. unbolting the disks - I had that on a sidecar once, where I fitted a 15" car-wheel to the front, it was horrible...)

Cheers,
Greg

[RALPHARAMA]

The airbox to carb rubbers were as hard as a tax inspector's heart and I simply couldn’t force them onto the carb intakes.



I had to dig deep and pass more of my hard earned to the Fowlers trade counter, but it has to be said that you’d be hard pushed to believe they were the same parts



The saga of the front brakes continues – I still can’t understand why the fuckers won’t function, but I’ve given up trying to figure it out now. I grabbed myself a couple of Brembos from FleaBay which look pretty neat. Taffus thinks he has a Z650 wheel and possibly discs which have a greater disc offset than the J series wheels. I know I will have to piss about making sleeves, changing bearings, making brackets, but at the end of it I will have a tidy set of period stoppers, and for me it’s important that customisation is done with stuff that was available when the bike was in it’s youth.



I gave the back brake pedal to Mikey and asked him to work his magic and in virtually no time he produced this The pic doesn’t really do it justice – It is serious bling



Another contribution to my poverty arrived early in the week



On all the Harris systems I’ve had before, they have always come with a built in collet and clamp – this one didn’t. It does look pretty good though, but another visit was required to Fowlers trade counter for a set of collets – I suppose I should be grateful they’re still available.



The clamps are pretty doggy to say the least, and some arsehole deemed it a good idea to carve a chunk out of one. They’re all pretty bent as well.



I found another set from a 'J' I had ‘in stock’ which are marginally better, but still bent I could get a new set from Fowlers, but at around fifty quid I think I’ll try and manage with what I’ve got.

[RALPHARAMA]

I haven't done much to the shafter for a while as I have been concentrating on fettling other folk's bikes for mortgage/beer tokens and CBs' for lust

Before I could even think about fitting the new 'arris I had to make some new zorst studs. Being the tight wad I am am, I used some Screwfix bolts as donors...



... after cutting the heads off, I slipped them in the 3 jaw chuck of the lathe and using my home made die stock I bumped some threads on ...





... and fitted them in the head with some Bondlock B270 Stud lock and seal.



The next job was to straighten up those bent scabby zorst clamps. This was somewhat easier than I expected. Initially I had planned to clock them in on either the four jaw chuck or face plate on the lathe or in the four jaw on the rotary table on the mill. As luck would have it I was able to get them to grip using the jaw backs on the 3 jaw chuck on the lathe. I then faced them flat and re-cut the recess for the collets.



I then cleaned up the outside faces using the belt sander and then polished them up using the traditional method - leaving me looking like the majority of Londoners (black - according to the news)



The Harris was then put together, but unfortunately doesn't fit

I rang the supplier and suggested that they should send me a pipe in kit form and I'll weld it up so that it fits, and then send it back to them for plating. At least then I will know that it fits and the welding should be of a higher standard They agreed in principle, but didn't get back to me before the festival of greed kicked in. This is a bit of a pisser as it holds me back in a number of directions.

With little else I can do, I decided to do something about the holes in the ends of the bars. The wholesaler who sold me a shed load of 'Supergrips' had promised that they would come with bar end blanking bits, but they have not materialised, so I though I may as well make some.



CB's Zephyr was owned by someone who apparently thought these looked good He also didn't change the oil all the time her owned the bike, but did spend a big bag o money ditching the standard air box in favour of pod filters ... whilst everyone else has realised this ain't good and are desperately trying to source standard air boxes



Clearly a woman of taste (just look at her choice of husband ) , decided to skip them in favour of some more tasteful bar ends Being physically incapable of throwing any bike related things out, they were under the bench, and I bumped into them whilst trying to find something else. After a brief survey I realised that they could be useful. I grabbed a lump of three one six from the stainless bin and spun it up into a more Zed like bar end.



Come the end the only bit of the original I used was the rubber; the bolt was stainless, but was a bit poxy, so I selected a better pair of bolts and machined them I miked up the bars and machined the new bar ends accurately for a perfect fit - they're handed as one side had a hole two thou bigger than the other I thought I may as well go to town of them as I'm held up on all the other jobs. I left a machined finish as CB thought it looked better, but if I get lost for something to do they might end up with a mirror polish



Am a bit stuck at the moment - bloody exhaust has stopped play in that department, can't finish the paint as the spray booth I borrow won't be available until the new year and I suspect it's probably too damp currently anyway.

The front end continues to frustrate me. I bought a set of four hole discs, but they seem not to fit a standard 650/900/1000 front wheel. I have a wheel on loan from TLC, but the discs, whilst looking the same actually have a larger hole in the middle - no idea what bike they're from - ST? I either need to find another wheel to fit the discs or another wheel AND discs In desperation I tried to space out the left hand disc on the original wheel by 8mm - this MIGHT have been enough clearance to get the brembos to grip enough disc to work, though not the full pad width, but even at 8mm the speedo cable fouled the disc. If I had a lathe big enough to take the wheel, it might be possible to machine the spokes back a bit to clear the caliper - but this could well have a detrimental effect on the wheel strength.

I have to say this has been the most frustrating build of my life, and had it not soaked up so much money I can't afford, I may well have given up by now