Post by thatsawkward on May 19, 2012 17:05:22 GMT 1
I thought I would put up a few more pictures and words on the latest Twin Disc development. Quite a long thread, but hopefully there may be some helpful bits for anyone thinking of either doing a twin disc conversion or fitting a Powerbronze fairing.
This was the bike as I bought it from Outlaw. It already had a twin disc setup, using CBR600F2 front forks and brakes, coupled to a Deauville wheel brake master cylinder to power both calipers, and an NTV mudguard which had modified brackets to fit the CBR forks.
You may also notice that Outlaw had fitted the “sawn off” Deauville hangers to get lower footpegs. I wasn’t sure if I would stick with the Deauville hangers, so I got a pair of non-sawn-off hangers from eBay anyway, just in case.
There was nothing wrong with the bike, but I wanted to try something different. I had my mind set on a later Deauville front end (with a cleaner fitting Deauville mudguard) with the addition of a Powerbronze Colt fairing, similar to that fitted to my white Revere. I also wanted to fit higher bars, which meant swapping the standard Revere clipons to the later NTV top yoke.
So, step one was to strip the bike down and ensure I had plenty of room to work. So I removed the obvious things (tank, panels, hangers and forks) to see where I was starting from. The front brakes were left attached for some time as I wanted to make sure everything was compatible (and reversible if I needed to).
Importantly, I removed the metal bracket/frame that is behind the headlight – this is attached to both the top and bottom yoke and is also what the horns attach to. This MUST be removed to fit the fairing.
I must confess that this was the first time I had ever removed forks from a bike, but the process was straightforward. Very important note: make sure the bike is jacked up and/or up on blocks first!
I had bought a pair of NT650 forks from eBay which were pretty good condition, but I sent them to pittedforks.co.uk to have all the internals refurbished and have the forks lathed and re-chromed. I could polish up the fork lowers/bottoms later.
So while the forks were off being sorted, I got on with the stuff I could do, starting with fitting the fairing frame. I wanted to get this fitted as there were several things that I thought would need to fitted “around” it (e.g. the top yoke and higher bars, wiring, where to locate the fuse box etc.).
I also did quite a lot of sanding and polishing of various parts that I intended to fit. I plan to do another thread on cleaning, polishing and buffing, but for the time being this was the result of a lot of hard work:
The fairing frame is a simple affair. Your first have to remove the headlight and disconnect all the wiring and move the clocks out the way. Then simply bolt on the u-bolt clamp to the head of the frame:
The frame of the fairing support then bolts onto this first clamp:
The fairing comes with new headlight mount brackets which you bolt onto the frame, then you can loosely re-attach the rear of the headlight.
A couple of points worth noting at this point: The wiring looms and the wiring from the clocks need to be routed either as part of the process of bolting on the fairing frame, or just before. On my bike, the routing of the wiring wasn’t as it should be, so the fairing frame was on and off the bike about 3 times until I was happy that the bars would turn properly without anything in the way.
With the fairing frame in position (though most bolts just hand tight at this stage), I needed to address the top yoke and bars.
Unattaching everything from the existing clip on bars is relatively simple, and their removal straightforward. The old Revere top yoke, however, has the ignition bolted to the underside. This caused me no end of grief as it was stuck solid. I tried everything to loosen the bolts but simply could not shift them. In the end, I had to carefully drill them out to preserve the ignition.
Fitting the new top yoke and bars was uneventful (note, I had bought the higher Deauville bars as a used part from eBay – there are other “brand new” bars for sale but they don’t have the pre-drilled holes for the switchgear to neatly mount, so unless you want to do all the measuring and some drilling I would try to find good used parts).
Important points: As I raising the bars by a few inches, there are some important other modifications I had to do. These are:
- Deauville length throttle cables (both of them)
- Deauville length clutch cable
- Electrical wiring from the LEFT (indicators, hi/lo, flash) controls need extending
The choke cable seems to have plenty of length from the NTV so that remained unchanged.
Also: the later NTV top yoke is different positioned bolt-holes for the clocks – you must either fit later NTV clocks to the top yoke, or make brackets. I sourced a nice set of new(ish) clocks but retained the old clocks for consistent mileage proof if I ever sell the bike.
The following picture shows the polished top yoke fitted with the bars, the headlight brackets on the fairing frame fitted, the Deauville throttle and clutch cables fitted to the existing NTV controls. At this stage the electrics are not extended.
At this point it was important to check that the steering works and is unhindered.
I had now put off the wiring extensions as long as I could, so I had to tackle them. In concept, this should be simple. The wiring from the left hand controls needed approx 4 inches added to the length (due to the rise of the bars), but I also noted that the wiring to the headlight could do with a couple more inches in length also as the headlight had moved forward about 5 inches due to the fairing frame. I note on the Powerbronze instructions it simply states “Check the wiring is not stretched”!!
So even if I was not fitting the raised bars, I would still need to extend the wiring for the headlight because of the fairing. They don’t tell you that when you buy it!
So as I said, this should all be simple, but having never done anything like this before, I knew it probably wouldn’t be.
The following picture shows the basic concept (the picture is of the wires just to the headlight connector). I cut the wires and added lengths of the same wire using bullet connectors that I sourced from the internet. Conveniently, I had a spare but dodgy looking wiring loom in a box of old bits and used some good lengths of wiring from that. This basically allowed me to colour-match the wiring extensions throughout in case I, or anyone else, needs to undo the work later.
I’m sure to many people this kind of wiring is the most basic, but to me it was a long and tedious process. In the left hand switchgear there were (I think) 9 wires. So to attach the bullets and connectors on the cut wires and the extensions meant doing it 36 times!! I somewhat underestimated how long this would take me, but at least it could be an indoor job….
Once all the wiring was done, I then did a full ignition, controls, lighting test to ensure it was all working before using heat-shrink and, where necessary, black electrical tape to secure it all back together.
One final point on the wiring – if you’ve ever taken the front headlight off, you will know the wiring within the headlight is a spaghetti mess… getting it all back in is a tricky and time consuming affair – patience is required!
Whilst I was doing all this electrical stuff, I had also attempted to paint the fairing panels myself using Candy paints I bought from RS Bike Paints. Details are elsewhere on this forum, but let me just say this: It is impossible!! These candy paints comes with a metallic undercoat, candy topcoat and a lacquer – getting the right combination, number of coats, precise timing between coat applications etc. was something I truly struggled with. In the end, the only solution was to use the help of a friend who had the proper spraygun equipment. Once he helped me get to grips with things, the following picture was the result. But I would really stress that this kind of finish with aerosols would NEVER have happened – at least not in my hands!
Back to the main story… my forks returned and I had done some more polishing and they were ready to fit. The next two pictures shows the 2003 Deauville forks in place, the wiring re-connected and sorted (though presently just “hanging” down) and the new clocks attached to the top yoke:
You will see I still haven’t addressed the brakes yet, though I have changed the clutch bracket and the clutch lever.
Now would be a good time to mention the nightmare that I had with the forks/calipers compatibility issues… The important point to note is that there are two fundamentally different Deauville forks.
The 1998-2001/2 forks have calliper bolt-holes equidistant from the fork legs. These only fit the Brembo calipers. The 2002 onwards NT650 forks do not have calliper bolt-holes which are equidistant from the fork legs – the top bolt hole is much closer to the fork leg than the bottom one. These later forks are only for the Nissin linked brake calipers and will NOT fit the Brembo calipers from the earlier NT650.
Unfortunately (and I don’t take full responsibility for this), I bought a pair NT650 forks listed as years 98-01 from eBay, which, as it turns out, were a 2003 pair of forks!! Simultaneously, I had bought some lovely Brembo calipers for the 98-01 Deauville which would absolutely not fit my forks! By the time I realised all this, I had already paid to have the 2003 forks refurbished, so I had to change my plans from the lovely Brembos to 2003/4 Nissin linked calipers…..
With fresh pads, discs, the Nissin calipers (with the linkages blocked with M10x16 fine pitch 1.25mm bolts) and new Deauville-length carbon/red race cables, it was finally all compatible. The resprayed Deauville mudguard sets the front end off nicely…
The following picture shows the front end installed, and shows the fuse housing which is affixed to the rear of the fairing frame, behind the headlight. I ensured the mounting etc. was all compatible without any wires rubbing when steering etc. This is not the final fitment – I have ordered a waterproof neoprene case (designed for things like iPhones, cameras) for marine and diving use – the fuses will first be installed in this then mounted permanently. You will see later that this looks difficult to get at with the fairing, however, I only have to remove the lower fairing panel (3 bolts) to get at the fuses.
The fairing is installed with the top piece first, attached to the upper fairing bracket. The Powerbronze fairing comes pre-drilled with the holes, and is supplied with very nice qualityrubber grommets and spacers, through which stainless bolts pass. The next picture shows the top fairing in place, and you can also see that I have bolted the horns in place on the fairing frame. The frame comes pre-drilled with numerous holes, so attaching extras (horns, tax disc holder etc.) are very easy. I have also routed all the wiring and (using the fairing frame pre-cut holes) added a few stainless/rubber P-clips which seems a nicer way of wiring-routing and securing rather than just the usual cable ties.
The fairing lowers are a simple 2 bolts attaching to the bottom of the fairing upper, and one bolt to the rear of the fairing frame. There is a final bottom fairing piece which simply bolts to both fairing lowers and finishes the bottom off nicely.
You can see that at this stage I was still trying to decide on the footpegs. I had re-fitted the original NTV hangers, having decided that I would probably fit my Givi Wingrack and, having just fitted one to my white Revere, could see that it wouldn’t fit well with the Deauville hangers. I will still debating whether or not to keep the lowered billet footpegs that you can see on the next picture. In the end, I decided to fit a new pair of original NTV footpegs and (probably) fit the lowered pegs on my white bike later. I’m not convinced I need them on this red bike due to the raised bars…
And finally, the finished result… The fairing screen simply bolts on with plastic bolts (like smaller number plate bolts) – though the kit was missing one so I’m waiting for one more to arrive. The indicators are called “large flush cat eye fairing indicators” on eBay. The fairing came with a pair of amber ones, which I pinched for my white Revere. So I bought a set of carbon-look ones for this red bike. There are lots of “flush” fairing indicators, but they must be the larger ones as the Powerbronze fairings come with 45mm diameter pre-cut indicator holes.
As an aside, I can’t see any simple way of fitting the standard NTV front indicators, if you wanted to do that. Powerbronze obviously assume you’ll fit the flush ones (as they are supplied with the kit). My white bike (when I bought it) came with NTV indicators fitted, but it was a tight fit through the holes and a previous owner had made small brackets to fit them. In the standard Powerbronze kit, there is no alignment or pre-made fitting options for NTV indicators.
One final point – the fairing kit does come with rubber edging for the length of the fairing. I’ve chosen not to fit this as I like the finished look as is. My white bike does have the edging fitted if you want to compare, but my feeling is on the red bike it is cleaner to leave it off.
More pics are here:
ntvhonda.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=pictures&thread=2943&page=1#18374
This was the bike as I bought it from Outlaw. It already had a twin disc setup, using CBR600F2 front forks and brakes, coupled to a Deauville wheel brake master cylinder to power both calipers, and an NTV mudguard which had modified brackets to fit the CBR forks.
You may also notice that Outlaw had fitted the “sawn off” Deauville hangers to get lower footpegs. I wasn’t sure if I would stick with the Deauville hangers, so I got a pair of non-sawn-off hangers from eBay anyway, just in case.
There was nothing wrong with the bike, but I wanted to try something different. I had my mind set on a later Deauville front end (with a cleaner fitting Deauville mudguard) with the addition of a Powerbronze Colt fairing, similar to that fitted to my white Revere. I also wanted to fit higher bars, which meant swapping the standard Revere clipons to the later NTV top yoke.
So, step one was to strip the bike down and ensure I had plenty of room to work. So I removed the obvious things (tank, panels, hangers and forks) to see where I was starting from. The front brakes were left attached for some time as I wanted to make sure everything was compatible (and reversible if I needed to).
Importantly, I removed the metal bracket/frame that is behind the headlight – this is attached to both the top and bottom yoke and is also what the horns attach to. This MUST be removed to fit the fairing.
I must confess that this was the first time I had ever removed forks from a bike, but the process was straightforward. Very important note: make sure the bike is jacked up and/or up on blocks first!
I had bought a pair of NT650 forks from eBay which were pretty good condition, but I sent them to pittedforks.co.uk to have all the internals refurbished and have the forks lathed and re-chromed. I could polish up the fork lowers/bottoms later.
So while the forks were off being sorted, I got on with the stuff I could do, starting with fitting the fairing frame. I wanted to get this fitted as there were several things that I thought would need to fitted “around” it (e.g. the top yoke and higher bars, wiring, where to locate the fuse box etc.).
I also did quite a lot of sanding and polishing of various parts that I intended to fit. I plan to do another thread on cleaning, polishing and buffing, but for the time being this was the result of a lot of hard work:
The fairing frame is a simple affair. Your first have to remove the headlight and disconnect all the wiring and move the clocks out the way. Then simply bolt on the u-bolt clamp to the head of the frame:
The frame of the fairing support then bolts onto this first clamp:
The fairing comes with new headlight mount brackets which you bolt onto the frame, then you can loosely re-attach the rear of the headlight.
A couple of points worth noting at this point: The wiring looms and the wiring from the clocks need to be routed either as part of the process of bolting on the fairing frame, or just before. On my bike, the routing of the wiring wasn’t as it should be, so the fairing frame was on and off the bike about 3 times until I was happy that the bars would turn properly without anything in the way.
With the fairing frame in position (though most bolts just hand tight at this stage), I needed to address the top yoke and bars.
Unattaching everything from the existing clip on bars is relatively simple, and their removal straightforward. The old Revere top yoke, however, has the ignition bolted to the underside. This caused me no end of grief as it was stuck solid. I tried everything to loosen the bolts but simply could not shift them. In the end, I had to carefully drill them out to preserve the ignition.
Fitting the new top yoke and bars was uneventful (note, I had bought the higher Deauville bars as a used part from eBay – there are other “brand new” bars for sale but they don’t have the pre-drilled holes for the switchgear to neatly mount, so unless you want to do all the measuring and some drilling I would try to find good used parts).
Important points: As I raising the bars by a few inches, there are some important other modifications I had to do. These are:
- Deauville length throttle cables (both of them)
- Deauville length clutch cable
- Electrical wiring from the LEFT (indicators, hi/lo, flash) controls need extending
The choke cable seems to have plenty of length from the NTV so that remained unchanged.
Also: the later NTV top yoke is different positioned bolt-holes for the clocks – you must either fit later NTV clocks to the top yoke, or make brackets. I sourced a nice set of new(ish) clocks but retained the old clocks for consistent mileage proof if I ever sell the bike.
The following picture shows the polished top yoke fitted with the bars, the headlight brackets on the fairing frame fitted, the Deauville throttle and clutch cables fitted to the existing NTV controls. At this stage the electrics are not extended.
At this point it was important to check that the steering works and is unhindered.
I had now put off the wiring extensions as long as I could, so I had to tackle them. In concept, this should be simple. The wiring from the left hand controls needed approx 4 inches added to the length (due to the rise of the bars), but I also noted that the wiring to the headlight could do with a couple more inches in length also as the headlight had moved forward about 5 inches due to the fairing frame. I note on the Powerbronze instructions it simply states “Check the wiring is not stretched”!!
So even if I was not fitting the raised bars, I would still need to extend the wiring for the headlight because of the fairing. They don’t tell you that when you buy it!
So as I said, this should all be simple, but having never done anything like this before, I knew it probably wouldn’t be.
The following picture shows the basic concept (the picture is of the wires just to the headlight connector). I cut the wires and added lengths of the same wire using bullet connectors that I sourced from the internet. Conveniently, I had a spare but dodgy looking wiring loom in a box of old bits and used some good lengths of wiring from that. This basically allowed me to colour-match the wiring extensions throughout in case I, or anyone else, needs to undo the work later.
I’m sure to many people this kind of wiring is the most basic, but to me it was a long and tedious process. In the left hand switchgear there were (I think) 9 wires. So to attach the bullets and connectors on the cut wires and the extensions meant doing it 36 times!! I somewhat underestimated how long this would take me, but at least it could be an indoor job….
Once all the wiring was done, I then did a full ignition, controls, lighting test to ensure it was all working before using heat-shrink and, where necessary, black electrical tape to secure it all back together.
One final point on the wiring – if you’ve ever taken the front headlight off, you will know the wiring within the headlight is a spaghetti mess… getting it all back in is a tricky and time consuming affair – patience is required!
Whilst I was doing all this electrical stuff, I had also attempted to paint the fairing panels myself using Candy paints I bought from RS Bike Paints. Details are elsewhere on this forum, but let me just say this: It is impossible!! These candy paints comes with a metallic undercoat, candy topcoat and a lacquer – getting the right combination, number of coats, precise timing between coat applications etc. was something I truly struggled with. In the end, the only solution was to use the help of a friend who had the proper spraygun equipment. Once he helped me get to grips with things, the following picture was the result. But I would really stress that this kind of finish with aerosols would NEVER have happened – at least not in my hands!
Back to the main story… my forks returned and I had done some more polishing and they were ready to fit. The next two pictures shows the 2003 Deauville forks in place, the wiring re-connected and sorted (though presently just “hanging” down) and the new clocks attached to the top yoke:
You will see I still haven’t addressed the brakes yet, though I have changed the clutch bracket and the clutch lever.
Now would be a good time to mention the nightmare that I had with the forks/calipers compatibility issues… The important point to note is that there are two fundamentally different Deauville forks.
The 1998-2001/2 forks have calliper bolt-holes equidistant from the fork legs. These only fit the Brembo calipers. The 2002 onwards NT650 forks do not have calliper bolt-holes which are equidistant from the fork legs – the top bolt hole is much closer to the fork leg than the bottom one. These later forks are only for the Nissin linked brake calipers and will NOT fit the Brembo calipers from the earlier NT650.
Unfortunately (and I don’t take full responsibility for this), I bought a pair NT650 forks listed as years 98-01 from eBay, which, as it turns out, were a 2003 pair of forks!! Simultaneously, I had bought some lovely Brembo calipers for the 98-01 Deauville which would absolutely not fit my forks! By the time I realised all this, I had already paid to have the 2003 forks refurbished, so I had to change my plans from the lovely Brembos to 2003/4 Nissin linked calipers…..
With fresh pads, discs, the Nissin calipers (with the linkages blocked with M10x16 fine pitch 1.25mm bolts) and new Deauville-length carbon/red race cables, it was finally all compatible. The resprayed Deauville mudguard sets the front end off nicely…
The following picture shows the front end installed, and shows the fuse housing which is affixed to the rear of the fairing frame, behind the headlight. I ensured the mounting etc. was all compatible without any wires rubbing when steering etc. This is not the final fitment – I have ordered a waterproof neoprene case (designed for things like iPhones, cameras) for marine and diving use – the fuses will first be installed in this then mounted permanently. You will see later that this looks difficult to get at with the fairing, however, I only have to remove the lower fairing panel (3 bolts) to get at the fuses.
The fairing is installed with the top piece first, attached to the upper fairing bracket. The Powerbronze fairing comes pre-drilled with the holes, and is supplied with very nice qualityrubber grommets and spacers, through which stainless bolts pass. The next picture shows the top fairing in place, and you can also see that I have bolted the horns in place on the fairing frame. The frame comes pre-drilled with numerous holes, so attaching extras (horns, tax disc holder etc.) are very easy. I have also routed all the wiring and (using the fairing frame pre-cut holes) added a few stainless/rubber P-clips which seems a nicer way of wiring-routing and securing rather than just the usual cable ties.
The fairing lowers are a simple 2 bolts attaching to the bottom of the fairing upper, and one bolt to the rear of the fairing frame. There is a final bottom fairing piece which simply bolts to both fairing lowers and finishes the bottom off nicely.
You can see that at this stage I was still trying to decide on the footpegs. I had re-fitted the original NTV hangers, having decided that I would probably fit my Givi Wingrack and, having just fitted one to my white Revere, could see that it wouldn’t fit well with the Deauville hangers. I will still debating whether or not to keep the lowered billet footpegs that you can see on the next picture. In the end, I decided to fit a new pair of original NTV footpegs and (probably) fit the lowered pegs on my white bike later. I’m not convinced I need them on this red bike due to the raised bars…
And finally, the finished result… The fairing screen simply bolts on with plastic bolts (like smaller number plate bolts) – though the kit was missing one so I’m waiting for one more to arrive. The indicators are called “large flush cat eye fairing indicators” on eBay. The fairing came with a pair of amber ones, which I pinched for my white Revere. So I bought a set of carbon-look ones for this red bike. There are lots of “flush” fairing indicators, but they must be the larger ones as the Powerbronze fairings come with 45mm diameter pre-cut indicator holes.
As an aside, I can’t see any simple way of fitting the standard NTV front indicators, if you wanted to do that. Powerbronze obviously assume you’ll fit the flush ones (as they are supplied with the kit). My white bike (when I bought it) came with NTV indicators fitted, but it was a tight fit through the holes and a previous owner had made small brackets to fit them. In the standard Powerbronze kit, there is no alignment or pre-made fitting options for NTV indicators.
One final point – the fairing kit does come with rubber edging for the length of the fairing. I’ve chosen not to fit this as I like the finished look as is. My white bike does have the edging fitted if you want to compare, but my feeling is on the red bike it is cleaner to leave it off.
More pics are here:
ntvhonda.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=pictures&thread=2943&page=1#18374