Post by sandgroper on Dec 21, 2017 7:03:53 GMT 1
Hi All
I'm new to the site. I am currently in the process of rebuilding a 1989 J model NTV 650 Revere - pic attached
Frame slowly being pulled to bits....
I'm based in Perth, Western Australia... this is a UK site, I lived in South London from 1989 to 1996. Revere's are pretty rare in Australia, although oddly enough there's an NTV review on Youtube by a guy with a British accent that was taken about a kilometre from my house. He ends up at a nearby pub where there's another Revere parked also... but one of our local bike wreckers says he hasn't seen one in 20 years of wrecking.... go figure.
Anyway... a couple of weeks ago I sent an email to the Administrators of this forum (as a guest). Didn't get a response... but they probably thought I was a scammer or spammer.
In the course of me stripping down the bike I've been kind of auditing all the parts that need replacement... a lot of the rubber bits are fairly degraded... the harsh Australian sun and high temperatures do a lot of damage to rubber and plastics... so there's a fair amount I'll have to source. I get a lot of parts online out of Europe.
One thing that really struck me was that there appears to be no supplies of radiator hoses... can't find new ones anywhere!
Being a proactive kind of person, I decided to get in touch with Samco Sport, who make silicone hose kits. They in turn put me in touch with RaceBikeBits, who seem to handle the motorcycle sector for them (not quiet sure how that works, but nevermind)
The guys at RaceBikeBits were pretty unaware of the NTV series of machines and were like "wow, OK...". So I exchanged a couple of emails with them and in principle they'd be up for making silicone hose kits for our bikes.... but there's a couple of caveats/catches for the process to start rolling.
First - they need some OEM hoses to use as templates for their initial tooling. That's OK... I can give them mine, but there may be hoses from other models I don't have.
Secondly - the tooling for the hoses is fairly expensive and being a commercial operation that wants to make a profit, they aren't just going to make a kit out of the kindness of their hearts - they need to assess whether there is a demand. They need to basically have enough interest for about 20 kits to cover the set-up costs of the tooling.
Thirdly - they can't tell me how much the kit will cost retail. This is a chicken-and-egg situation. Until they get the OEM hoses and see what's involved, they are unable to provide an estimate... but looking at their site, I would guess around the GBP100-150 mark.
It's worth visiting the Samco Sport website and have a look. These are race-spec silicone hoses and they can make them in around 20 different colours. With Honda no longer really supporting the bikes we're all going to be pretty screwed when the existing supply of second-hand rubber hoses dwindles to nothing, so here's an opportunity to get bespoke hoses produced to keep out machines running for years to come.
Now the first thing I want to stress is that I make no financial gain from this (I might get some free hoses for my efforts, see below, but that's all), nor will I be asking for any money from anyone - I'm just interested in getting the kits made and I'm willing to do the legwork to coordinate it, as per my offer to RaceBikeBits.
What I have done is set up an email address: ntvhoses@gmail.com. I have done this as I don't want my personal email inbox filling up with stuff related to this project, not because I'm a scammer or spammer...
Essentially I need to be able to demonstrate to RacBikeBits that there is a demand for the kits. What I therefore need is for anyone on this site who believes they would buy a kit if one was available to email me the following information;
Name
Location (ie, country in which you are located)
Model (ie, NT Hawk/Bros, Revere (J,K,L, etc), Deauville, etc)
Year Of Manufacture
Confirmation that you would likely buy a kit if it were available
Also - if you would be willing to donate hoses to create the tooling templates (you will NOT get them back, they are kept in the OEM hoses archives by Samco, but you will get a free silicone hose as a replacement). If the project goes ahead and they take you up on your donation offer you might be without hoses for a couple of months, so bear that in mind.
Once I've had enough responses, I will forward the emails and profile-up the makes and models so RaceBikeBits can make an assessment of the market and demand. I will keep this forum notified of progress.
So there you have it - I'm trying to get silicone hose kits made, the rest is up to you...
Regards
Brendan (Sandgroper)
I'm new to the site. I am currently in the process of rebuilding a 1989 J model NTV 650 Revere - pic attached
Frame slowly being pulled to bits....
I'm based in Perth, Western Australia... this is a UK site, I lived in South London from 1989 to 1996. Revere's are pretty rare in Australia, although oddly enough there's an NTV review on Youtube by a guy with a British accent that was taken about a kilometre from my house. He ends up at a nearby pub where there's another Revere parked also... but one of our local bike wreckers says he hasn't seen one in 20 years of wrecking.... go figure.
Anyway... a couple of weeks ago I sent an email to the Administrators of this forum (as a guest). Didn't get a response... but they probably thought I was a scammer or spammer.
In the course of me stripping down the bike I've been kind of auditing all the parts that need replacement... a lot of the rubber bits are fairly degraded... the harsh Australian sun and high temperatures do a lot of damage to rubber and plastics... so there's a fair amount I'll have to source. I get a lot of parts online out of Europe.
One thing that really struck me was that there appears to be no supplies of radiator hoses... can't find new ones anywhere!
Being a proactive kind of person, I decided to get in touch with Samco Sport, who make silicone hose kits. They in turn put me in touch with RaceBikeBits, who seem to handle the motorcycle sector for them (not quiet sure how that works, but nevermind)
The guys at RaceBikeBits were pretty unaware of the NTV series of machines and were like "wow, OK...". So I exchanged a couple of emails with them and in principle they'd be up for making silicone hose kits for our bikes.... but there's a couple of caveats/catches for the process to start rolling.
First - they need some OEM hoses to use as templates for their initial tooling. That's OK... I can give them mine, but there may be hoses from other models I don't have.
Secondly - the tooling for the hoses is fairly expensive and being a commercial operation that wants to make a profit, they aren't just going to make a kit out of the kindness of their hearts - they need to assess whether there is a demand. They need to basically have enough interest for about 20 kits to cover the set-up costs of the tooling.
Thirdly - they can't tell me how much the kit will cost retail. This is a chicken-and-egg situation. Until they get the OEM hoses and see what's involved, they are unable to provide an estimate... but looking at their site, I would guess around the GBP100-150 mark.
It's worth visiting the Samco Sport website and have a look. These are race-spec silicone hoses and they can make them in around 20 different colours. With Honda no longer really supporting the bikes we're all going to be pretty screwed when the existing supply of second-hand rubber hoses dwindles to nothing, so here's an opportunity to get bespoke hoses produced to keep out machines running for years to come.
Now the first thing I want to stress is that I make no financial gain from this (I might get some free hoses for my efforts, see below, but that's all), nor will I be asking for any money from anyone - I'm just interested in getting the kits made and I'm willing to do the legwork to coordinate it, as per my offer to RaceBikeBits.
What I have done is set up an email address: ntvhoses@gmail.com. I have done this as I don't want my personal email inbox filling up with stuff related to this project, not because I'm a scammer or spammer...
Essentially I need to be able to demonstrate to RacBikeBits that there is a demand for the kits. What I therefore need is for anyone on this site who believes they would buy a kit if one was available to email me the following information;
Name
Location (ie, country in which you are located)
Model (ie, NT Hawk/Bros, Revere (J,K,L, etc), Deauville, etc)
Year Of Manufacture
Confirmation that you would likely buy a kit if it were available
Also - if you would be willing to donate hoses to create the tooling templates (you will NOT get them back, they are kept in the OEM hoses archives by Samco, but you will get a free silicone hose as a replacement). If the project goes ahead and they take you up on your donation offer you might be without hoses for a couple of months, so bear that in mind.
Once I've had enough responses, I will forward the emails and profile-up the makes and models so RaceBikeBits can make an assessment of the market and demand. I will keep this forum notified of progress.
So there you have it - I'm trying to get silicone hose kits made, the rest is up to you...
Regards
Brendan (Sandgroper)