bigoltool
Registered
Several months ago, I had the first major "street" motorcycle accident of my adult life; after nearly 50 years of motorcycling. Nothing spectacular really, commuting home in traffic and suddenly the train of cars came to a screeching halt. In trying to avoid the car in front of me, I hit some unseen debris in the road and was instantaneously thrown to the ground and into oncoming traffic. Luckily I had the wherewithal to dive to the ditch and avoided further car related injury. The worst part I could remember from it all was the sound of my bike sliding down the road and into the back of the very car I had tried to avoid.
The damage to my beloved Hayabusa was pretty extensive. Everything from the front fender up was basically destroyed; Nose Fairing, windshield, turn signals, headlight, gauges, wiring harness, fairing stay etc. My Left side Motovation frame slider did its job admirably and gave it’s all, but alas it had ground down enough to allow the stator cover to be ground through and relieved about 3 quarts of Mobil 1 R4T all over the road. It had also sheared off the clutch line at the master cylinder banjo bolt. Later I discovered it had also dinged my flywheel, though the stator windings themselves survived.
My own injuries (6 ribs, wrist, hip, knees etc.) slowed my disassembly/damage assessment by several weeks, but slowly I was able to get everything torn down, cleaned up, and slowly but surely made my list of replacement parts and even some upgrades. Not being made of money I had to make some decisions in order to stay under the budget I had set for myself. Some of those were (to me) a complete success, others quite questionable, requiring an immediate change. In the end I wound up with a combination of OEM, Used, hand fabricated and aftermarket parts.
I decided to document the break down/damage assessment in phases and hopefully progress through the full resurrection. So I will try and do this in installments starting with the damage and ending with my final result.
Part 1- Gauges/Fairing stay
My gauges had been completely destroyed and pushed back into the steering stem along with the Fairing stay, headlight, front turn signals, mirrors, windshield and also the gauge wiring harness. I decided to address the electrical and mechanical issues first and concentrate on the bodywork etc. after I had verified that she was back in running order. I reached out to Goldenchild and after some phone time and several emails, Daniel hooked me up with a set of comparable mileage gauges, and even the necessary pigtail off the main wiring harness to the instruments, along with several other parts.
The OEM fairing stay was a bit pricey, so I wound up ordering an aftermarket stay from Vortex. This proved to be the first mistake of the rebuild. The part I received was broken before it had even been placed in the Amazon box, and was in general not what I would call a “quality piece”. It appeared to be entirely cast aluminum, and not a good quality of it at that. Cannot understate just how substandard this part proved to be! I quickly returned it and ordered a MotoBrackets fairing stay, which was actually less money. I was absolutely thrilled to find what was (in my estimation) an OEM quality replacement. An exact clone of the OEM stay that fit perfectly out of the box! Win some lose some! I was pretty happy with this one since everything on the front of the bike keys off of the Stay. This allowed me to bolt up the Gauges and intake snorkels, and begin wiring/rerouting everything to accommodate some of my upcoming changes.
Next up was splicing in the new wiring Harness and getting the gauges up and running. This is “BB stacking” work if there ever was such a thing! Soldering like 16 wires together and hoping it all works when you’re done is a royal PITA! So after getting everything soldered up and shrink wrapped/taped/spiral wrapped and zip tied in place, I was pretty pleased with my work. I installed the instrument pod and plugged in the gauges and Voila! Everything worked right out of the gate. I was in business. What a relief.
On to the Next phase.
The damage to my beloved Hayabusa was pretty extensive. Everything from the front fender up was basically destroyed; Nose Fairing, windshield, turn signals, headlight, gauges, wiring harness, fairing stay etc. My Left side Motovation frame slider did its job admirably and gave it’s all, but alas it had ground down enough to allow the stator cover to be ground through and relieved about 3 quarts of Mobil 1 R4T all over the road. It had also sheared off the clutch line at the master cylinder banjo bolt. Later I discovered it had also dinged my flywheel, though the stator windings themselves survived.
My own injuries (6 ribs, wrist, hip, knees etc.) slowed my disassembly/damage assessment by several weeks, but slowly I was able to get everything torn down, cleaned up, and slowly but surely made my list of replacement parts and even some upgrades. Not being made of money I had to make some decisions in order to stay under the budget I had set for myself. Some of those were (to me) a complete success, others quite questionable, requiring an immediate change. In the end I wound up with a combination of OEM, Used, hand fabricated and aftermarket parts.
I decided to document the break down/damage assessment in phases and hopefully progress through the full resurrection. So I will try and do this in installments starting with the damage and ending with my final result.
Part 1- Gauges/Fairing stay
My gauges had been completely destroyed and pushed back into the steering stem along with the Fairing stay, headlight, front turn signals, mirrors, windshield and also the gauge wiring harness. I decided to address the electrical and mechanical issues first and concentrate on the bodywork etc. after I had verified that she was back in running order. I reached out to Goldenchild and after some phone time and several emails, Daniel hooked me up with a set of comparable mileage gauges, and even the necessary pigtail off the main wiring harness to the instruments, along with several other parts.
The OEM fairing stay was a bit pricey, so I wound up ordering an aftermarket stay from Vortex. This proved to be the first mistake of the rebuild. The part I received was broken before it had even been placed in the Amazon box, and was in general not what I would call a “quality piece”. It appeared to be entirely cast aluminum, and not a good quality of it at that. Cannot understate just how substandard this part proved to be! I quickly returned it and ordered a MotoBrackets fairing stay, which was actually less money. I was absolutely thrilled to find what was (in my estimation) an OEM quality replacement. An exact clone of the OEM stay that fit perfectly out of the box! Win some lose some! I was pretty happy with this one since everything on the front of the bike keys off of the Stay. This allowed me to bolt up the Gauges and intake snorkels, and begin wiring/rerouting everything to accommodate some of my upcoming changes.
Next up was splicing in the new wiring Harness and getting the gauges up and running. This is “BB stacking” work if there ever was such a thing! Soldering like 16 wires together and hoping it all works when you’re done is a royal PITA! So after getting everything soldered up and shrink wrapped/taped/spiral wrapped and zip tied in place, I was pretty pleased with my work. I installed the instrument pod and plugged in the gauges and Voila! Everything worked right out of the gate. I was in business. What a relief.
On to the Next phase.