With the Pirate Ship CX build in the books, ol Jenny Craig in the corner started whispering my name. Something along the lines of “do something with me, or just put me out of this misery already”
I keep telling myself this is going to be a drawn out build - targeting fall of 2025 (usually cools back off to great riding weather around October)
I debated doing anything, but my stubborn inability to just trash a “perfectly good” bike sometimes stretches my intents - so in for a penny, in for a pound. Aided by my son immediately saying “what’s next” after this mini rehab…
We move on to “what’s next”. Meet Jenny Craig - messy, hefty, and high mileage, she’s something all right.
Yes. That’s nearly 60,000 miles on the clock, with zero idea of what the maintenance history was, other than knowing it sat untouched in a shed for at least 2018-2024, this should be quick and easy - I say should because I should be dragging this thing to a scrap yard as a mercy killing.
We’ve got a passenger peg bolted in on the left side - since the geometry was wrong, a simple bend of the gear shift lever solved that:
I have a feeling that this “repair” was likely done at the same time, based on rust carbon dating
Yes. That’s baling wire as an exhaust bracket.
But it was obviously an “all gas, no brakes” kind of thing - side note, I had no idea zip ties could corrode.
On the bright side? Two headers somehow free of road rash and rust.
In the famous words of Carl Spackler “so I got that going for me”
On to the plan:
There is no plan
I’ve got a front end from a 2002 Fireblade, a sketchy idea of what I’m going for and a $2000 budget (for real this time). So, Jenny Craig now becomes the bride of Frankenstein.
The determination of where I head in this is going to come down to whether or not I’m dropping $400 or so on new carbs, so step one is to see what these crusty VB29A’s need to come back to life. Thankfully, design-wise they’re really close to the VB21’s and 22’s and there’s some great resources on here for those, I’d give them a decent shot at survival.
The blue sealant/caulking is a nice touch, particularly where it was slopped on over the ring clamps. Unfortunately these intakes insulators are basically NLA so they’ll be getting a rebuild as well - there’s a couple of hefty cracks visible and no telling what’s under the globs of what I think is blue Permatex.
Obviously, having sat for the better part of a decade, there’s some gummed up, absolutely rancid, fuel in the bowls and what appeared to be pig snot in the fuel line. Orings are basically powder but everything still rotates - it’s just really hard to be in the same vicinity at the moment. That smell is seeping into everything.
Once we get these cleaned up, ideas should start forming and then it’s on to the mechanical full body scan. With summer in full force now (day 2 of what’s supposed to be 11 straight over 100 degree days with humidity making it feel worse) progress will be slow out of the gate.
So we’ll check back in later to see what’s left on the budget.
I promise. Last one for a while.
I keep telling myself this is going to be a drawn out build - targeting fall of 2025 (usually cools back off to great riding weather around October)
I debated doing anything, but my stubborn inability to just trash a “perfectly good” bike sometimes stretches my intents - so in for a penny, in for a pound. Aided by my son immediately saying “what’s next” after this mini rehab…
We move on to “what’s next”. Meet Jenny Craig - messy, hefty, and high mileage, she’s something all right.
Yes. That’s nearly 60,000 miles on the clock, with zero idea of what the maintenance history was, other than knowing it sat untouched in a shed for at least 2018-2024, this should be quick and easy - I say should because I should be dragging this thing to a scrap yard as a mercy killing.
We’ve got a passenger peg bolted in on the left side - since the geometry was wrong, a simple bend of the gear shift lever solved that:
I have a feeling that this “repair” was likely done at the same time, based on rust carbon dating
Yes. That’s baling wire as an exhaust bracket.
But it was obviously an “all gas, no brakes” kind of thing - side note, I had no idea zip ties could corrode.
On the bright side? Two headers somehow free of road rash and rust.
In the famous words of Carl Spackler “so I got that going for me”
On to the plan:
There is no plan
I’ve got a front end from a 2002 Fireblade, a sketchy idea of what I’m going for and a $2000 budget (for real this time). So, Jenny Craig now becomes the bride of Frankenstein.
The determination of where I head in this is going to come down to whether or not I’m dropping $400 or so on new carbs, so step one is to see what these crusty VB29A’s need to come back to life. Thankfully, design-wise they’re really close to the VB21’s and 22’s and there’s some great resources on here for those, I’d give them a decent shot at survival.
The blue sealant/caulking is a nice touch, particularly where it was slopped on over the ring clamps. Unfortunately these intakes insulators are basically NLA so they’ll be getting a rebuild as well - there’s a couple of hefty cracks visible and no telling what’s under the globs of what I think is blue Permatex.
Obviously, having sat for the better part of a decade, there’s some gummed up, absolutely rancid, fuel in the bowls and what appeared to be pig snot in the fuel line. Orings are basically powder but everything still rotates - it’s just really hard to be in the same vicinity at the moment. That smell is seeping into everything.
Once we get these cleaned up, ideas should start forming and then it’s on to the mechanical full body scan. With summer in full force now (day 2 of what’s supposed to be 11 straight over 100 degree days with humidity making it feel worse) progress will be slow out of the gate.
So we’ll check back in later to see what’s left on the budget.
I promise. Last one for a while.
