Thread: life with the RVT

I have a few write ups that have been a long time coming. Life with the RVT has become a never ending workbench write up. Here is episode 1. As some of you may remember Skidmark and I took a run out to covelo a while back. It was a great road and was alot of fun. I had lead the way on the way there so after a little rest stop at the Black butte store we decided that skids would go first on the way out. Everything was going great untill I felt something hit my boot. I hadn't seen anything on the road. I looked down at my foot but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then about another 100 yards down the road the bike just died. I coasted off the road and got off the bike. To my horror I saw that the whole undertail was dragging on the rear tire. Alot of it was ground and melted away. My power comander was all ground off and all the wires were ground up and twisted together like it had hit the tire a few times and twisted in circles.My first thought was I'M SCREWED!!!! There was no way I was gonna make it home with this bike. My next thought was my new AAA towing card. At this point I realized that some of my tools and my brand new never been used CO2 tire inflater and plug kit was gone. Skids took off up the road to see if he could find any of the missing equipment. As I stood there pondering the situation I was getting less and less excited about strapping my baby onto the back of a tow truck so I decided not to give up and try to fix the problem. I had a whole roll of black tape and skids had some bailing wire and some fuses. First I seperated all the bare wires on the power comander and taped them all up. Then with everything hanging there I tried to start the bike. It wouldn't start so I checked the fuses and found that the main 30 amp fuse was smoked. Skids had a 20 amp so I stuck that in and the bike fired right up. I couldn't believe that the whole electrical system wasnt fried. Now that the bike actually ran i started useing the bailing wire to hold up the remaining portion of undertail. I found my CO2 inflator wedged and melted in between the shock and exaust. That was fun to get out and the inflator was ruined. I put as much of the tools as possible in my jacket pockets to minimize nthe weight on the undertail. Everything else went back in and after closing up the lid I went around the whole rear cowl about 10 times with the tape. I actually rode it all the way home to ukiah. The next day I rode it down to the shop and began fixing it more permanant. I found that the previous owner had used medium sized zip ties to fasten on the undertail. I ordered up a new undertail that I liked better than what was on it but I knew it wouldn't be here in time for the next ride so I got some clamps and used nuts and bolts to fasten on the old undertail. I also pulled off the sloppy tape job from the side of the road and retaped it taking my time and doing a nice job.

Episode 2 is about saving money after a crash. Of course its cheaper to just NOT CRASH but poop happens. As some of you may know I had a little squid-cident a couple weekends ago. After not riding for 2 weekends I was very excited to get out and join my friends for a days riding. Since they were all coming up north I opted to not get up at 5 am to meet in Santa rosa and just figured I would warm up riding across 253 and be waiting for them at the corner of 128/253. Well I miss judged how long it would take them to get there and ended up meeting them about half way across 253. I turned around and statrted chasing the group. My mind was going a hundred different directions and I was pretty much not even thinking about riding. Everything from next weeks jobs to what I was going to have for lunch were running through my mind. I got caught up in the moment and ended up double downshifting into a turn. I was making all my moves so fast that the clutch was already out before my brain registered that I had double clicked the shifter. Long story short I ended up sliding backwards into the gaurd rail. This impact broke apart my rear cowl and trunk lid, bent my subframe, and crushed in my carbon fiber exaust can. Luckily my new undertail still hadn't showed up. I didnt want to bring any bad attention to the group so after a short stop to say hi at the end of 253 I opted to call it a day and go check the bike over. I spent the whole next week (my back was sore from slamming into the gaurd rail at an estimated 25 mph) looking over craigslist and e-bay to try and find a economical way of getting back on the road. All the damage was to the rear cowl area. there was a little rash on the right side panel but my boot and knee slider took most of the rash cuz I never let go of the bike. I started out thinking new subframe and a complete faring kit from china. The faring kit was about $500 after shipping vs the oem rear cowl that was $383 plus shipping. Busted up rear cowls on e-bay were about $145 and would still need repairs and paint. The new sub frame was $405. I called yoshimura to see if I could get the right side of my exaust kit but they said I would have to buy replacement parts. $344 plus shipping just for the parts to fix my old right side can. The repair bill was getting into the thousands!! I started thinking my riding for the year was over. Then I decided to get gangster with it!! I would shorten the exaust cans. First I cut the damaged one leaving it as long as possible. Then I had to drill out the rivits and cut the inside peferated pipe.I used a small air powered belt sander to grind away the inside pipe where it was welded to the endcap. Then i slipped the endcap back on the canuntil the rivet holes on the end cap wer even with the edge of the carbon fiber. This allowed me to eyeball where to drill the holes for the new rivits. After drilling the holes I slid the cap the rest of the way on and put in all the rivits before poping them Some of them were a tight fit and I used a 6mm deep socket to tap them in all the way. Once they were all in i squeezed them down tight. Make sure when they pop that you throw the little spikes in the trash as they easily can cause a flat tire. Once the broken side was done I matched up the good side. Next was the subframe. I studied the bend keeping in mind how the bike had impacted the gaurdrail. I imagined the angle and came up with the plan to reverse the damage. A 6 foot piece of pipe was introduced to the subframe and after some tweeking and prying the subframe was pretty much back to where it needed to be. Now for the cowl. I went over this over and over in my head until I came up with the only economically sound plan. I would drive out booneville road and pick up my pieces from the side of the road and fix my cowl. I stopped at mendocino hobbies and picked up some ca glue wich is a two part super glue. You put on the super glue then hold the other piece of plastic where it needs to go and spay this other crap on it and the glue dries instantly. Once I had all the pieces glued together out came the bondo. after some sanding it was time for spraypaint and clear coat. The end result is not perfect but its good enough to get me by till winter and the other day when I was sitting at starbucks I was still getting compliments on how sweet the bike is

Originally Posted by FXCLM5

whoa forrest, sorry to hear about your mishap, that is sad the previous owner zip-tied the tail onto the bike....

whatever you do dont get the chinese fairings off ebay. It took me awhile to determine if i could piece OEM parts or buy the chinese fairings off ebay, i got impatient and went and bought the ebay plastics, i chose auctmarts plastics, they have the highest amount of + feedback and i have seen their presence on the gsxr.com and gixxer.com forums. Both forums regarded them as decent oem replacements. And yes they are just that decent OEM replacements. The plastic is just as thick, however they really screwed the pooch when they painted through all the mounting holes and tabs. It probably took me over 16hours of just manipulating and sanding and grinding and drilling the plastics so they would even bolt up to the bike or bolt together. Too much of a pita for me if i were ever to do it again. I would probably look into a sharkskin or armour bodies oem replacement sets, then you would just have to paint it yourself, however at least the plastics will bolt up and you dont have seams and gaps where 2x pieces meet.

One of the main reasons That I skipped out on the china farings was because there was not a firm price on them. It was like 225 for the plastics and 220 for the shipping but then they said there could be customs and import tax that I would have to check into. Me being lazy about paperwork made that a deal killer. Did you have this issue with the taxes?

Originally Posted by 23109(c)

I'm all about doing things cheeply and yourself... thats why i started learning how to do body work and paint myself.. i couldn't afford to have it done somewhere or just order OEM shit from ducati. i love shortened cans and hope to see it on the road soon!!

Its on the road. Finished it up last week. Been riding to work everyday. Everything seems good on it. Wanna go for a ride?

we will ride 10/10 forest at thill. Maybe we can switch bikes for a session :)

No...I mean its finished.