what would u do?...... ideas for a 900 rebuild

[pitbull]

After 100,000 km's it's time for a rebuild of the 2001 cromo 900.

 Over the years the engine's taken quite a beating with the mounts breaking after hitting a huge pot hole in Michigan and more recently, 6th gear goin on me. I've got quite a few oil leaks and it's just flat out tired. While I'm fairly mechanically retarded, I did rebuild a crashed monster for my gf just over a year ago, but I'm not sure I have the smarts to rebuild an engine. To that end, I picked up a nice, good running, low mileage, used 2001 900 engine for a good price and much cheaper than it would have cost me to pay someone to rebuild mine.

I also have a set of sbk forks I will put in.

other than that, I'm open to suggestions.

one thing I should mention is that I'm cheap..................like dirty, red headed, scotsman cheap.

[pitbull]

here's a pic of how it looks now.......................or at least how it looked a couple days ago before I stripped it down. She's almost completely in pieces now.

[Some Dude]

First thing you have to do is get rid of that hideous tank...
I'll give you $50 for it

Other than that Rearsets would make the bike look cleaner.  Even a set of stock S*R rearsets if yowant to do it on the cheap.  Nice lookin bike

[He Man]

-give that carbon some new life with some clear.
-use the HM moooootard oil line
-rerun the starter cable
-new rearsets
-anodized forks
-paint engine
-DP Aluminum seat cowl.
-944 kit, hicomp maybe.
-jizz

[xcaptainxbloodx]

I would throw the new engine in and send the old one out for engine work. I would do a mild overbore and/or high comp pistons with proper cams and valve work. talk to the guys at Feracci and see what they would do.  there is some trick stuff you can do with coating on various internal bits to get it that extra bit of badass too.  if your building for power chopping your airbox lid w/ a K&N will net you more power than pods at roughly the same price.

certainty not necessary all at once but id be looking at some flatside carbs, a slipper clutch and lightening your flywheel as well.  With the upping in power you should also address your suspension, are you getting the forks set up for you? what about the rear?   the price of axial 4 pad brembo calipers is surprisingly cheap if you find that lacking and a set of 1098 master cylinders is in the sub 400$ range now too. forged rims?

Aesthetically I would  absolutely ditch the stock footpegs. if it hasn't sold already I would pick up that m750 road racing exhaust in the classifieds and use your current headers to make it work.  ceramic coat it black so that it hides better.  If you are alright with losing a bit of comfort I would drop the bars  for clip ons and lose the windscreen too.  a bit of paint and powdercoat and you will have a whole new machine.

[pitbull]

Great suggestions so far...............thank you very much.


keep in mind..........I said I was cheap........ like 'if it's free it's for me' cheap.


not in the picture is an ohlins rear shock I picked up last year..... should have mentioned that.


I've been thinking of rearsets for awhile and it sounds like many think that might make one of the biggest visual differences.

I'm not sure I'm all that interested in engine performance mods. I've always been really happy with the modest performance of the stock engine. It makes lots of torque and goes as fast as I ever need to go. If I had lots of $$$ I'd certainly do something performance wise, but with a limited budget, it's not a big need for me.

[pitbull]

-give that carbon some new life with some clear.
-use the HM moooootard oil line
-rerun the starter cable
-new rearsets
-anodized forks
-paint engine
-DP Aluminum seat cowl.
-944 kit, hicomp maybe.
-jizz

thanks for the good suggestions, I like the idea of painting the engine and anodizing or maybe powdercoating forks. The rearsets also sound like a good idea.

what is HM oil line............I mean...how is it different than the monster one?

[xcaptainxbloodx]

on the cheap;

cut down the exhaust and hit the pipe with a few coats of high temp BBQ paint (put the can in warm water first to thin the paint out and up the pressure. warm water, not boiling water). ceramic coat if you can afford to, wrap if you have to. wrapping will destroy the pipe over time.

rearsets. ST footpegs may work and would be cheaper than any other option. 

PC'ing the engine covers is a nightmare if you dont have anyone to show you how to take apart/put back the internals, as is anodizing the forks. vinyl wrap the forks and PC the triples (you should replace the  steering head bearings, I recommend stock over speedymoto). PC the U bracket and headlight ears when that happens ( rearsets too regardless of whether theyre the stock ones or not, it wil be cheap enough and look way better.)

I would also think about painting portions of the tank so its not quite so blingy. Roc city customs sells an aluminum front fender (with no mounting brackets) for under 100$ that would complement the chromo tank well without the bike looking to over the top.

get that ohlins sprung for your weight and use an eibach spring (red)

[He Man]

HM oil line runs both to thru the left side of the bike, instead one on each. I like exposing the belts as much as possible. You can also get a custom line for about $100 bucks i think (for a pair, so u could sell the other for $50).


to be 100% honest with you, i think the chromos look fugly with a black frame. Silver frame + blacked out engine and polished side covers = the boom boom boom.

Allow me to demonstrate. this is actually a road racing tank. but silver frame. BLACK OUT wheels, blacked engine case with polished side covers to compliment.  or do a silver engine with the cylinder head black, but silver head, and black the valve covers.




anodizing the fork tubes is easy work. it requires no tools other then a circlip remover, some sockets, some lube and a ziplock bag. Actually you need a spring compressor which u can build for about $3 in home depot materials.

while you are there, why not cut off the grab bars and weld the tail chop to the frame like on the Black S4 Foggy that i think stu or motocreations did (i think one was the bike the other was the engine)

do not paint the tank by any means, you bought the bike because of the chromo tank. tis like painting it on the LE desmo lightening paint job. why? just get another tank and do a paint job on that and save the tank.

Road racing did use to do several polished aluminum tank with paint jobs and it did look SUPER sick. But i wouldnt do it to this one.

[csorin]

here's a pic of how it looks now.......................or at least how it looked a couple days ago before I stripped it down. She's almost completely in pieces now.

What kind of seat are you rockin here?

[Raux]

Keep the CHromo tank and go after every piece of RoadRacing polished Al you can find.

Frame: Red
WHeels: Red spokes with polished rim

[pitbull]

some great cheap mod ideas, which I much appreciate.

random thoughts:

I'm fairly certain, I will be keeping the cromo tank as is.

The st or S*r rearsets look like a good, cheap option.

I have seen a picture of a red frame with the cromo tank somwhere and thought it looked sharp.

I'm not sure I like the silver frame...... I think I would prefer to go with black or red. Either way, I need to get it done as the paint is chipped in a number of places.

the front bikini fairing has been gone for about a year.

I like the look of clip-ons, but I tour quite a bit on it and don't think it would be practical for me. Although I'd like to find a set of bars not quite as high as mine.

the seat is a sargent.......... which I much prefer over the corbin I had.


I like the idea of cutting the grab rails


I'm not sure I would want to add more Aluminum or chrome parts. I'm not a big bling guy and I like the idea of just the tank being shiny and everything else blacked out or dark, but I'm open to other ideas. Certainly the al tail secton with the al tank looks sharp in the picture He Man posted.


I  still don't know what I want to do with the sbk forks I have. I might leave them as is and sand and powdercoat triples black.

the ohlins I have is set for my weight and has been a fantastic upgrade. My gf's 2000 900 still has the stock rear shock and riding the bikes back to back really shows me how much of an imporvement the ohlins is.

[pitbull]

oh.......... and I will do steering head bearing. I'm guessing after 100,000 km's I should probably replace wheel bearings as well?

[corey]

First thing you have to do is get rid of that hideous tank...
I'll give you $50 for it

Other than that Rearsets would make the bike look cleaner.  Even a set of stock S*R rearsets if yowant to do it on the cheap.  Nice lookin bike

S*R Rearsets wouldn't bolt up...

[dropstharockalot]

The st or S*r rearsets look like a good, cheap option.

+1 to corey's post about S*R rearsets not working, and I seem to recall reading that ST rearsets won't be a good fit either... dunno, maybe I'm nuts, but I coulda sworn it was on here somewhere.

My fav cheapo mod from this site is the guy that Dremmel'd his beltcovers and glued in a couple pieces of left-over Gutter Guard, then rattle-canned the whole works black.  It worked out to be like a $10 mod, and in the pics he posted it looked like a million bucks. 

There's another post floating around where another guy hacked his stock footpegs/hangers to lose a bunch of the extra stuff up top where the exhaust brackets bolt up... it really cleaned up the stock pegs.  Perfect solution if you're as cheap as you say (which is about as cheap as me, so it's all love over here).

Run a couple searches, maybe those mods will pop up.  They may not be exactly what you do, but they may get the thought process going.