Bandit 1200S - Brake Lines, Cooling, Grips

The weather changed for the better (for one day), which allowed me a few hours in the garage today. Finally making some progress:

First thing - I finished making brackets for the AN hoses to the cooler. Started off with 1/2 inch aluminum plate, and took it from there.

Blank plate

Drilled holes slightly larger than the hose's diameter

Cut off at mark, then drilled for a 6mm tap

Cut the brackets in half, and tapped the holes in the back pieces for 6mm bolts. Enlarged front pieces holes to 1/4 inch, and threaded bolts in to join the two halves. Also, drilled the back pieces in center for a bolt to attach to frame. 

 Installed on the bike with a long stainless steel bolt and aluminum spacers to achieve desired offset:

Hose mounted in place, and secured by the front half of the bracket. This way, the hose clears the header pipes and does not move:

Next, I installed Bikemaster heated grips (still have to be wired). I like the grips, and the quality appears to be good. They are of a slightly larger diameter than the stock grips, and feel good in the hand.

My Spiegler braided stainless steel lines finally arrived, and I was able to install the front and rear brake lines, plus the clutch line. The quality of these lines appears to be really good, and Spiegler stands behind their product with a lifetime warranty.

http://www.spieglerusa.com/

I opted for a translucent red with blue fittings, to match my AN plumbing hose ends. For the front, I got a two line setup, while the rest follows OEM lines.

Front:

On the front, I ended up reusing the stock rubber bushings and brackets, squeezing the brackets shut a bit more to accommodate the smaller line diameter.

Clutch line was easy to install. Again, I reused stock rubber and brackets. The flexible hose was far easier to route.

Rear brake:

Bandit 1200S, plumbing the oil cooler

After a lengthy interruption, courtesy of back-to-back snowstorms, I finally got to do the oil cooler plumbing.

I started by making a little bracket to offset the cooler from its stock location by about 1/2 of an inch. This gave me a little bit more clearance between the AN fittings and the header pipes. The bracket is made of a piece of U-channel aluminum.

Mounted at the bottom of the radiator. Now, instead of the radiator tabs, the U-channel engages the frame slots.

Next, I installed the AN-6 to 16mm adapters where the banjo bolts used to be. New copper crush washers, and torqued to specs.

Then I made a couple of hoses, with 90-degree fittings at the bottom, and 45-degree fittings at the top. Ideally, I would have turned the cooler upside down and had the fittings on top, then use a 180-degree fitting to direct the hoses down. But, I wasn't sure whether it would actually clear the fairing, so I decided to go with 45s instead, and run the hose away from the headers (unlike the stock setup where it runs between the headers).

Right and left sides.

Now I just have to make some brackets to keep the hose where I'm pressing it with my fingers.

Bandit 1200S, moving along

Once I got the engine back in the frame, things should be easy, right? :)

I serviced the forks (new oil, kept the seals), greased the stem bearings, and popped the front end back in.

Then I started working on filling up the empty space above the valve cover (although I wish I could keep it empty - it would make valve adjustments much easier). First, I needed to install the breather. Since it was powdercoated, I needed to remove the PC from the matting surfaces. There is a fine way to clog files.

Once that was done, I leveled it nicely with a 600 grit wet sandpaper, and installed the cover.

Next, I played with the wiring harness. Trying to figure out how it was assembled in the first place was interesting. There appears to be no logical explanation for the harness to start at the right rear, snake over to the left, and continue on the right only to split into two way up front. But, with the harness in place, I was able to install the coils and plug wires.

Getting a little crowded in there.

Next item on the list was to install the clean carbs and the throttle cables. It took me many tries to get the cables in the right position so there would be no drag. Should be simple, really, but it wasn't. Finally I routed them this way.

And the carbs are back in.

Lastly, the PAIR valve went back in. I thought about eliminating it, and just making some blanking plates for the front, but the system had not given me any issues (yet), so I kept it in place.

The PAIR pipes went in next:

I opted to have the pipes powdercoated to match the frame. After removing the PC from matting surfaces, I installed new gaskets and bolted the pipes in place.

And, finally, the exhaust header.

The old gaskets did not look good, so I ordered some new ones. Suzuki really gets you on these small parts. $$$ spend everywhere.

And the header pipes bolted in place:

It is starting to look like a bike :)

Bandit 1200S Project - engine is back in

The engine is back in its frame . . . hooray.

Enough said.


PS - what a pain in the ass to get it back in. I don't want to have to do it again any time soon.

Progress on the Bandit

While waiting for some custom-made washers, I started putting things back together. First order of business today was the swingarm. After cleaning it, I took all the bushings out, cleaned the old grease off, and repacked all the needlebearings with blue Maxima waterproof grease.

Once it was all back in place, I installed the rear shock, the swingarm, and linkage, and torqued everything to spec.

It was then that I got the call I was waiting for - my washers were ready!

I've been waiting for these washers ever since I drilled and tapped the stock brass oil lines fittings to accept AN fittings. Initially, my idea was to have the AN fittings welded into the stock pieces, but once I discovered there were brass, that plan went out the window. So I drilled and tapped the brass pieces for AN6 to 12mm adapters, and tried putting it together. Unfortunately, some of the fittings were not deep enough to screw in the adapters, so I went to my local friendly machine shop to have some washers made. We decided on aluminum, made to size.
Here is what I'm working with:

I cleaned the brass pieces with lacquer thinner to remove any oil residue. While this was drying, I annealed the aluminum washers with a torch. The idea was for them to be softer than the AN adapters, so there would be a crush seal.

Once they were nice and hit (white, surface changes texture slightly), I let them slowly cool off.
Then it was time to try the assembly.

And it worked as intended. Just to be sure, I used a bit of Permatex hi temp thread sealant.

With all the fittings made, I replaced the o-ring on the stock fitting and bolted it in place.

Unlike the hard lines running between carb boots, the AN hose has to be routed without sharp angles. Here are two setups I was playing with.

Ideally, the hose would run the same way the stock hardlines did, but I did not care for the hose rubbing against the rubber boots, so I decided to go with the second option, running a 90 degree elbow.

After three different attempts to cut the hose -
Metal blade - too much fraying
Metal cutoff blade on a chopsaw - braided jacket separation from core
I settled on a thin cutoff wheel on the Dremmel. It worked wonderfully. Wrapped the hose with tape, cut it off, and it was time to try my first hose assembly. It had worked much easier than I anticipated. No bleeding fingers, no pushed out hose, no broken pieces. This is perhaps because I used the Russell Performance brand hose and fittings, as I had read those were the easiest to put together.

And my first AN hose in place. Only three more to go :)

Okay, only two more to go :)