My long winded wheel swap ordeal is finally over. It all started with my pathological fear of having another puncture with the tubed tyres fitted as standard. A bit of digging led me to the French Cagiva forum where some bloke had done the swap by simply removing his Cagiva wheels and replacing them with CBR 600 rims.
Easypeasy thinks muggins.
Muggins then finds a pair of wheels on e-bay, CBR600 F3 which are 5" rear, 3.5" front. They came complete with discs and knackered tyres and had been powdercoated in shiny black. I removed the tyres, as I was cleaning them I had a long look at the rear rim, then spun it up and noticed a slight buckle.
B*stard.
I then found another F3 rear not far away in Rotherham, did a cash deal and it's a minter. I removed the rear wheel from the Nail and offered up the new wheel with Honda sprocket carrier and the disc from the Nail.
Too wide.
By a lot.
B*stard.
A dose of looking at and the relieving of some Honda casting (angle grinder) sees the F3 wheel in position and all lined up. A 3mm spacer on the caliper side and the everything is hunkydory.
The front was always going to be more of a challenge, the Nail uses 25mm I'd bearings and a 25mm od spindle, Honda 20mm spindle and bearings.
More looking at. Then measuring. Then remove the front wheel and discover that the F3 wheel with discs on is too wide to fit between the forks let alone the calipers.
B*stard.
The Honda discs have a 17mm offset (dish), so muggins thinks just fit some zero offset discs. None exist in the correct combination of od, center bore, pcd or bolt holes. Telephone number quotes are then given for custom discs.
B*stard.
More digging reveals that Cagiva fitted front discs from the VFR 750. Mmm. Digging reveals that Honda fitted that VFR with 16" wheels. Tw*ts. More digging then leads me to the CBR600 F2 front wheel. Same disc pcd, same bore diameter, same size bolts as the Cagiva but smaller disc. No worries Cagiva discs will bolt straight on.
Back to e-bay, the only decent front is part of a pair that the seller won't split but he does accept a low offer. The wheels arrive, both straight though I only need the front. I remove the front wheel from the Cagiva, take the discs off and they bolt straight on.
I dance.
I then offered the wheel up to the forks, you guessed it too wide. By 16mm. No b*stard this time as I knew they would be. By this time I'd decided to use the Cagiva spindle by sourcing larger inside diameter bearings, unfortunately these bearings are also 3mm narrower so I fitted 2 on one side and had the other side machined out to accept the standard sized bearing. I had the disc mounting posts machined by 8mm on each side and the counter sinking for the disc bolts increased.
Nearly there.
Last week was a good week. We weren't too busy at work, we have job and knock (when your drops are done, you go home but still get paid for the full shift) and I finished at lunchtime on a couple of days. I removed both wheels and did a full mock up. The rear was straight forward, the front needed a bit of adjustment but everthing lined up. I'd briefly considered powder coating the wheels but realised that I couldn't be a*sed with waiting, so rattle can it was. I removed the rear tyre from the Cagiva wheel, fitted it to the Honda wheel but then masked and painted before blowing it up. The new front tyre arrived on Friday, yesterday I fitted the tyre, rubbed down the wheel, masked and primed it. The primer went mental, reacting to whatever was on there before so I rubbed it down again, it was better but by now I was beyond caring. I blew up both tyres, fitted both wheels and decided that the colour looked OK.
This brings us to this afternoon, I decided to go for a quick spin. My first impression was utter astonishment when I turned into the first corner, the steering is so light and direct. It tips in so easily and just stays there. Stunning. No head shake, riding with no hands the 'bike is rock steady and doesn't wander.
I'm happy.
The gearing needs changing at some point, the Honda sprocket carrier came with a brand new 43t JT sprocket, the Cagiva has a 41t.
Some pics