Project Thundercat

First topic message reminder :

evening everyone...

i figure this is the right area for a photo heavy project thread?? sorry im new to this forum and im learning as i go!

so i bought yet another thundercat a couple of months ago and it was in a pretty sorry state, so i decided to take if off the road and get it back to its former glory, perhaps dare i say it even a little better!

when i bought it the bike was covered in terrible blue paint and looked like it had spent a few weeks being dragged along the road by a digger, since the weather is shocking this summer i decided to get the bike in pieces straight away and make a start!

anyway, this is how it looked when i got it...:







as you can see, not great... and to make it worse the terrible decals were lacquered in so couldnt just be peeled off! :(

so i set about stripping the bike down and a couple of weeks later the wheels were done, powdercoated in gloss white, put them back in and took the bike to work to make a start on the panels!

much better than the polished rim rubbish they were before!



bike now at work with its wheels in, whoever painted the bike previously also painted the centres of the discs, so i had to repaint those, went for gold and they look smart now



cleaning is currently in progress while its all undressed!

some more goodies arrived today...





gonna get these attached tomorrow and see how they look!

I thought this was a U rated forum.....


Why am I gettin' a chubby?

stretchie_ wrote:I thought this was a U rated forum.....


Why am I gettin' a chubby?

Oh, it's not just me then?!!

gonna bolt these on this morning, time permitting so I'll see how they fit and fuction...

jayster wrote:

gonna bolt these on this morning, time permitting so I'll see how they fit and fuction...

Meh, as long as they look good, brakes are overated

; )

well i got the levers on, look a hundred times better now and feel great!

the clutch was a little tricky as i had to make a couple of spacers to prevent the lever moving, took a little time to get it all working right but nothing too difficult!

looks super smart now!

old vs new:



spacer to make it all fit nice, turns out this was too wide and it needed one on top and one on the bottom but you get the idea!



and on the bike:



also fitted an led sidelight bulb and plugged it in to see how it looks, got to say im very impressed! its white but has a definite 8000k glow! will work well with the HID's ive installed...

jayster wrote:

I think you've gone a bit far with the seat upgrade.

The rest looks brill though . Hopefully get to see it on a Rideout sometime.

Enjoy.
Rosco

its double seat

Comfort is my main goal and if that means patio furniture then so be it!

LIKE IT

well its been a hectic few weeks, the bike is all lined and masked up now, it will be getting its first colour (red) on monday morning all being well...

so in theory it should be in lacquer by the end of the week!!

ive been on a bit of a spending spree lately and have many parts arriving daily!

but in the mean time i added some bling-y bar end weights...



also took the rear sets off and gave them a good clean and machine polished the heel guard, then fitted them back on with some R1 pegs instead of the cumbersome standard issue ones.





then i wasnt happy with the way they looked kinda scruffy still so i took them off and separated all the bits and sent them along with the brake lever and gear selector arm to be powdercoated gloss black, ive masked off the heel guards so they will remain shiny! should look a million times better when they're done!

after riding around on a k8 gixer 1000 i decided my brakes would need improving so theyve been stripped off along with the hoses for a clean and rebuild, hoses will be swapped for some sexy braided numbers and have some new EBC pads on the way.



and finally for now, i managed to get the radiator finished, its not perfect but looks a million times better than the flaky thing i took off a couple of weeks ago!





hopefully next week the radiator will be back on and the brakes will be up and stopping again

Nice work Jayster, keep it up!

...not sure why you are picking the slowest colour for the bike though?!? It has been said on here before that only the oldies own red bikes (not my words)

well its gonna be white red and black.... so i should be able to keep up... plus im hoping the metzeler racetec's i ordered will help a little too!

i found a thunderace wheel lying around at work, anyone know if the swing arm will slide in without too much work???

The Thunderace is 180/55 compared to the cats 160/60 I think you might be pushing it a bit

I know the wheel won't fit in the cats swing arm, I've tried that before! :( but I wondered if anyone knew if the thunderace swing arm would bolt onto the cat without too much work?

I'm guessing some new spacers would be needed for the wheel..?

I very much doubt it would fit tbh.

Well done on picking the fastest colours for the re-build!

Sorry Jayster I mis-read your comment... They don't look all that different but I wouldn't want to say. Hopefully someone will be along shortly. Good luck

Well I'm sure I can make anything fit with enough work... But looking at it I thought it might be a relatively simple upgrade! But if it's going to be too much work I might as well fit an r6 one... Or I could just leave it alone and be happy!! :(

Do like a good restoration project, looking really good so far pal, ignore what everyone is saying about the colour scheme it's personal to you on a project like this, besides it's not gonna be blue so you've overlooked the best colour

Keep up the good work and keep us in pictures, liking it

well the only reason i didnt go for blue was because it was blue when i got it and wanted to be different!!

if im not 'feeling it' when its all back together then i think ill strip it all off again and have it satin black with gloss red decals... we did a 675 daytona like that the other week and it looked kinda awesome!!

im sure ill have more pictures to follow next week when the colours go on the pannels!!

I assume if you are to fit the Thunderace swing arm you would be using the Thunderace wheel? I am sure you have considered this but I think that would seriously mess up the handling?!? (Just a guess)

The R6 is the same size wheel as the ace but the R6 arm is much tastier (in my opinion) so I would probs go for the R6. (but that's me!) ...Do let us know how you get and what you decide to do. I am intrigued

mrfrance wrote:I assume if you are to fit the Thunderace swing arm you would be using the Thunderace wheel? I am sure you have considered this but I think that would seriously mess up the handling?!? (Just a guess)

The R6 is the same size wheel as the ace but the R6 arm is much tastier (in my opinion) so I would probs go for the R6. (but that's me!) ...Do let us know how you get and what you decide to do. I am intrigued

well if i fitted the ace's arm and wheel then provided the spacers were the right size and everything lined up it could only improve the handling as there would be more rubber in contact with the road.... think its probably more trouble than its worth though!!

ive got my eye on a damaged 2007 r6 anyway so i may have the front end from that...

in the mean time, i stripped one caliper down and gave it all a good clean today, they're in unusually good condition! even the seals look new... just going to order a new set of dust seals as i managed to destroy one :(

oooohhhhh..... shiny....

been a busy few days but managed to squeeze some work in on the bike, stripped down the other calliper and found one of the dust seals was all mashed up so ive ordered a whole set of seals, figure i may as well replace them all while im doing it!

also our very gifted sprayer had laced my panels with the red they so desperately wanted! he's going to finished them off with the black in the morning as he tells me hes sick of seeing them! after thats done its time for some decals and such... them some lacquer!!

If it's not being rude can I ask how much for the brake bits. I'm sure I priced up a piston and seal set for mine and it was about £120... maybe, about 80% sure

Which takes the mic because it was about £5 for a set of four pistons, four oils seals and eight dust seals for the Land Rover which is buts if you ask me

wow £120 is rather steep!! :(

i only needed one dust seal so just bought a set of seals and dust seals for one calliper, so ive got 2x27mm seals, 2x27mm dust seals and same again in 30mm... that bundle cost me £13....

i think the pistons themselves were around £5 each but mine are all in great condition so not worth replacing!

so you'd be looking around £60 for the whole seal kit and pistons for both fronts i guess...

oh and i now have a workshop floor covered in brake fluid which im sure will prove fun...

I got my seals for both front callipers from Wemoto at £30.59 Here

Good to see some more progress there Jayster, horrible job doing the callipers, don't recommend it to anyone :(

mrfrance wrote:horrible job doing the callipers, don't recommend it to anyone :(

no me either!! if i wasnt changing the brake lines then i dont think i would have bothered, but seemed like a good time to tackle it while the break lines were off and they were gonna need bleeding anyway...

hopefully the brakes will be worth the effort when its all back together...