Life's rich tapestry...
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 5:55 pm
My year-long refresh of a Z900 is stumbling to an ending. I have never carried out a frame-up rebuild before, so this has been a learning event.
I cannot paint things, weld things, plate things, mill things, turn things or any of the creative skill-hungry things that seasoned restorers seem to have been instinctively doing since they were seven years old. Therefore I have had to use the dedicated suppliers and services we are blessed with and hand over shovelfuls of fivers during the entire year in return for their troubles.
I have also used the dark force that is Ebay.
What then, have I learned?
Ebay has been my friend. Ebay people have been astonishingly helpful. Parts have always arrived quickly and have not mysteriously inflated in price between quote and delivery. With the notable exception of a lovely gentleman in America who sold me a complete and quite likely record-breakingly expensive airbox assembly and then wouldn't accept paypal from England, and further, wouldn't post it to me. Golly, how I laughed at that one!
Z Power have delivered loads of parts, quickly and predictably. They nearly always have the parts in stock. They are helpful and kind to fools that ask stupid questions. Trust me on that one.
Saisei are excellent. They got the order for my Doremi exhausts. Great value and great service.
Z1 Enterprises in Florida are superb. During a job in Virginia last July they were sending stuff to my hotel without any fuss at all.
CC Aquablasting in Little Bentley did my top end to the same impeccable quality that they do for aeroengines, on time, as promised, polite helpful and diligent.
The popular and recommended powder coating house that I used took twice as long as promised and magically inflated the bill. Fortunately I was able to meditate back to calmness whilst trying for days and days to get coating off all the threads they hadn't masked.
Painting a tank, seat and tail should not take eight months from place of order and cost twice as much as your car.
A carburettor bank rebuild will cost the same as your car and take five months.
Anybody that tells you they have a rear spindle in stock is either lying or lives in Tajikistan where the mail goat passes by once every five years.
If you ask a popular recommended supplier to make you one, they will explain that they'd much rather do something else not associated with spindles and blithely mumble about backlogs as if its your fault, but take the money anyway.
Ordering a second spindle from another supplier in addition to the first because its the last key thing to get the bike on the road before the riding weather finally goes bad and you're now desperate to get something this *********** year, will come to nothing because that gallic gonk will wait a week and then tell you its out of stock.
I've now ordered a third spindle in the vain hope that something, anything, turns up before the oil runs out and we go back to living in caves.
I cannot paint things, weld things, plate things, mill things, turn things or any of the creative skill-hungry things that seasoned restorers seem to have been instinctively doing since they were seven years old. Therefore I have had to use the dedicated suppliers and services we are blessed with and hand over shovelfuls of fivers during the entire year in return for their troubles.
I have also used the dark force that is Ebay.
What then, have I learned?
Ebay has been my friend. Ebay people have been astonishingly helpful. Parts have always arrived quickly and have not mysteriously inflated in price between quote and delivery. With the notable exception of a lovely gentleman in America who sold me a complete and quite likely record-breakingly expensive airbox assembly and then wouldn't accept paypal from England, and further, wouldn't post it to me. Golly, how I laughed at that one!
Z Power have delivered loads of parts, quickly and predictably. They nearly always have the parts in stock. They are helpful and kind to fools that ask stupid questions. Trust me on that one.
Saisei are excellent. They got the order for my Doremi exhausts. Great value and great service.
Z1 Enterprises in Florida are superb. During a job in Virginia last July they were sending stuff to my hotel without any fuss at all.
CC Aquablasting in Little Bentley did my top end to the same impeccable quality that they do for aeroengines, on time, as promised, polite helpful and diligent.
The popular and recommended powder coating house that I used took twice as long as promised and magically inflated the bill. Fortunately I was able to meditate back to calmness whilst trying for days and days to get coating off all the threads they hadn't masked.
Painting a tank, seat and tail should not take eight months from place of order and cost twice as much as your car.
A carburettor bank rebuild will cost the same as your car and take five months.
Anybody that tells you they have a rear spindle in stock is either lying or lives in Tajikistan where the mail goat passes by once every five years.
If you ask a popular recommended supplier to make you one, they will explain that they'd much rather do something else not associated with spindles and blithely mumble about backlogs as if its your fault, but take the money anyway.
Ordering a second spindle from another supplier in addition to the first because its the last key thing to get the bike on the road before the riding weather finally goes bad and you're now desperate to get something this *********** year, will come to nothing because that gallic gonk will wait a week and then tell you its out of stock.
I've now ordered a third spindle in the vain hope that something, anything, turns up before the oil runs out and we go back to living in caves.
