Hayabusa Resurrection!

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.

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Part 2 – Stator

This part scared me the worst. But in the end it worked out alright. After removing the cover and cleaning everything up I discovered the flywheel had taken a few dings in it that put me off enough to warrant replacing it. I bought an OEM Stator Cover and gasket and bought a low mile flywheel that was literally like new. I had to acquire a couple of specialty tools here to pull the flywheel. First was a ½” drive 1 ¼” (effectively a 32mm Metric equivalent) Crowfoot and second was a simple M20-1.50 Metric Automotive Drain plug. The Crowfoot is used to hold the flywheel while you break the retaining bolt loose and the Drain plug threads perfectly into the flywheel afterwards to “press” it off the crank. Both worked perfectly, and I am a firm believer in never having too many tools!

Before bolting it all back together, I cleaned everything religiously with Maxima Contact Cleaner (my fave!) and looked it over with my little Cell phone powered endoscope to make sure I had not missed any metal shavings, gravel etc. I drained the remaining oil that had not drained out all over the road in the wreck and further examined it for any shavings. I refilled it with More Mobil 1 Racing 4T and crossed my fingers! All my worrying was for naught as she fired right up and ran beautifully even through her now ravaged left muffler. Double checked that she was charging and moved on to the Controls and Cosmetics.

I originally wanted to add a Woodcraft Stator Cover to the rebuild but alas it was pulled from the list due to cost overruns elsewhere in the build. Still want to do this just might have to wait a little while.

*SIDE NOTE- All the posts about watching your fingers when removing/installing the stator cover are well founded! I could see how you could damage your fingertips doing this without prior knowledge of what lies beneath that cover! I highly recommend the use of a non-metallic prying object if you should resort to one. I found a set of Pedro’s Milk Levers (recycled plastic MTB tire levers) to be very helpful here!

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Part 3 – Controls

The wreck had sheared off my clutch line at the reservoir, lunched my grip heater on that side, hit the clutch reservoir lid just enough to bend the screws that hold the cover on etc. Luckily my CRG Clutch lever and the MC itself survived (relatively) unscathed. My Shifter had been snapped off in the resulting slide but my Buell peg survived, go figure.

Just after I bought my bike 11 years ago, I had installed Helibars, and a tall Genmar Riser. The improvement was marked but I had always wanted to change the sweep of this setup and after reading all the glowing reviews of the Speigler Tubular bar kits I had always wanted to try this. But I really wanted a 1 1/8” Fatbar. Suzuki had just come out with the GSX-S1000 with the Factory Fatbar setup and that was it, I went looking. I came across a company in the UK (CNC Topyokes) that made a Topyoke kit to do exactly this. The kit is offered with or without provision for the factory ignition switch. Despite reading some mixed reviews online I reluctantly decided to pull the trigger. It took a little while longer than advertised to get them, and the communication with them was at times trying… but once I got the parts I was absolutely impressed with the quality! These things are beautiful, functional and really cleaned things up in this department.

I paired this setup with a new Renthal Roadfighter bend Fatbar, and a complete set of 4” over length (fronts and clutch only) brake/clutch & rear brake lines from Venhill, New Throttle tube from Motion Pro, new Grip heater kit from Symtec and Since my trusty old Brass Bar ends seemed like overkill with this setup I made new Bar ends from some 1” Black HDPE I had lying around. I took the opportunity to move my Grip heater switch to the clutch side after years of dealing with it on the throttle side, which never really worked out that well.

I have been riding with this new setup now for several months now as I write this and I really like it so far! Much better leverage, way less vibration, and I can truly appreciate the enhanced ergo’s on my right wrist! And I would estimate that it conservatively (!) took 5 pounds off the weight of my old setup! I also like the fact that if I want to swap to a different rise or bend, a new bar is less than $75 away! The only real fly in the ointment with this setup is that I had to reroute the Throttle cables outside the fork tube to allow full range of motion without binding. I originally tried making a sort of guide out of “Grande sized” zip ties but this didn’t fly, so I am still looking at options here… Open to recommendations!

I replaced the broken stock shifter with an aftermarket Cycle Pirates Folding shifter. While I was replacing the stock rear brake line, I painted the stock Brake Pedal Black to match the shifter and lastly flushed and re-bled everything with ATE Typ. 200 DOT 4 (another of my faves!) Brake fluid.

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Part 4 – Bodywork

While the Nose was the only part of the bodywork that was truly destroyed, both the left and right side fairing panels sustained minor damage in the accident as well. I had entertained just buying a new OEM nose and just living with the cosmetic damage to the other parts. In the end I decided to buy a complete body kit from Extreme Fairings for not much more than the OEM nose piece. I was once again highly skeptical but after reading many reviews I reluctantly placed my order. I provided them with a Stock photo of my 40th AE Busa and called out all of the factory stickers and locations. I fully understood and accepted that a color match to the factory Burning Copper Paint was not in the cards. The only way to get there would be OEM parts or custom paint, either of which would have blown my budget. So it was a little bit of a leap of faith.

After about 3 weeks I got a photo of my finished parts and was pretty happy I have to say! The color was a bit more Orange/Red than the stock paint but I actually liked it a lot. The parts were on my doorstep less than a week later. I began pulling parts out of the tons of foam wrapping and was very pleased overall with the paint quality! Sure there were a few runs and flaws here and there, but overall I was very pleased. There were a few issues to deal with however. They had sent me an unpainted belly wing and the new nose had some clear-coat chipping off of it and they had not sent me the insulation that was supposed to be included. I emailed them and they immediately replied and told me they would fix it. I got antsy and went forward with fitting up all of the other bodywork while I waited for the new parts to arrive. I bought and installed some Aluminized Thermotec Cool-it Insulation to the lowers and installed new screens everywhere.

There were a few fastener holes that I had to do some minor clean up with a step drill, but overall practically every part fit just like the OEM parts they were replacing. In fact the hardest part to get installed was the tail light! The only misalignments I had to deal with were at the inner trim panel joints right next to the tank. I have maybe a 2mm gap there and where the Lower fairing parts meet at the chin I have maybe a 1mm displacement. I honestly think the OEM parts had nearly that! Anyway I got the replacement nose and Belly wing (now painted to match!) in less than 2 weeks. They still hadn’t sent me the insulation and when I mentioned it they credited me back $30 which pretty much covered the Thermo-Tec Insulation I had bought. Overall I am pretty happy with this fairing kit for the money!

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Part -5 Bits and pieces.

After 11 years my bike had picked up a lot of stone chips, scrapes and scuffs in key areas. I decided to go out of my way since I was installing all new bodywork, and bought some 3M Scotchgard Paint Protection Film to address these areas. In particular I wanted to protect the tank cover, lower fairings, front fender, belly wing, hump and the tail section where the driver’s seat and the hump meet it. I made lots of patterns of all of these areas and in fact posted up some of the other patterns I had made for the tank etc. a few months back. I have a few more areas (fairing Nose in particular) I want to address but I am pretty happy thus far.

The Bodywork kit included a nearly opaque black double bubble style windshield which I decided to try since my old ZG Touring shield bit it in the wreck. I had to trim it pretty comprehensively to clear the master cylinders with the new Handlebar position. I attempted to flame polish the edges of it after but wasn’t satisfied with the end result. I bought some adhesive edging material from the Auto parts store, which worked so well I used it in a few key areas on the new bodywork to cover up a few cosmetic issues. Its pretty subtle and I don’t mind the look personally. I will see how it lasts.

The stock mirrors both got scuffed up a bit in the wreck. At first I was going to buy new ones but after looking over the damage I opted to wet sand out the damaged areas and rattle can them with some Krylon Fusion paint, which worked extremely well actually. They look almost factory and saved me a few bucks in the process.

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That turned out incredibly good! That colour, wow! Really pops in the sun. Must have been the glow in the sky I saw yesterday when I looked out of my south-east facing windows! :thumbsup:
 
Wow! Great work - she looks fantastic.
 
I really enjoyed reading this well documented thread. Bike looks great as well!!! Hope you can get many more years of fun out of her.!!
 
Great job, great write up! This is the knid of podt that's really helpful and that makes this a great site.
 
The only thing I wasn't able to put back to reasonable shape was the Left side Devil Muffler. It is still functional, but looks a little worse for wear. If anybody has a line on a left side Devil Trophy CF bolt on I may be interested. Devil themselves would not return my emails and they no longer make them for the Gen 1. :(
 
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