With all this talk about the bike, I know I haven’t talked much about how the guy who wrecked it is doing. He sent me some photos tonight (yes crappy cell phone photos) of his left arm and left leg where he’s still got some pretty bad road rash. This is a little over a week after the crash, and he’s starting to heal up. He was pretty sore for a few days, but he’s doing better now. Like I told him it could have been a lot worse. I doubt I’ll ever have to worry about him riding any bike ever again without gear!

His leg is rashed all the way up to his hip, but I told him I’d rather not see photos of the rest of it. I don’t need him dropping his pants on my blog!

I’ve been ordering parts like crazy this week, and slowly but surely the bike is being put back together. We don’t own a stand, and our bike doesn’t use spools so we can’t borrow Alli’s. Ben decided to build his own hoist for the tear down. He is a master carpenter after all!

It worked out a lot better than we thought. My entire guest room has been transformed to the garage which makes it a lot easier to work on it late at night and on rainy days like this weekend.

We got the right clip-on yesterday, and Ben put it on first thing this morning. I received tracking numbers for the subframe and the lower triple, so those should be here in the next few days. Right now finding those front forks are what’s going to make or break us. I seriously don’t want to have to buy them direct from the dealership for over $1200! I finished making my list of motorcycle junkyards, and I’ll start calling around on Monday. If you know of a great motorcycle junkyard in your area please let me know about it. I probably don’t have it on my list yet!

All the money that’s going into this rebuild is a lot, and I’m thankful in the end I won’t be paying for it. I do have to throw my cash in up front, but Nick will be paying me back a little each week to cover the costs. He’s a stand up guy who takes responsibility for his mistakes…especially the big ones like this. I feel sorry for him though. He was planning to take trip to Europe next year. The price of Tuscany villa rentals and the airfare is cheaper than what he’s going to spend on fixing the bike for us. Oh well, stuff happens right?

PS- I don’t have a clue why the blinds are showing up two-toned in the photo! My blinds are not that ghetto! Oh, and before anyone asks, yes the floor in there is getting replaced so we didn’t put down a drop cloth. It’s old crappy linoleum from the 70s, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to replace it!

We got a lot done on the bike today. We spent a few hours last night and a couple hours today removing things to see exactly what is damaged. We already had a partial list of stuff we figured was damaged, but we took some time today to inspect everything for a full list. Surprisingly a lot of the stuff we figured was damaged isn’t, and we only had to add 1 thing to our list.

We still have to see if the lower triple tree is going to be ok. We’ve got someone who’s going to put it on a machine and test it for us to make sure it didn’t get warped. Upper triple tree is fine though. The front forks are totally busted, and that’s going to be the most expensive thing to replace. I’ve got a list of motorcycle junkyards, and I’m going to start making some calls on Tuesday.

Right now it’s looking like there’s going to be roughly $2000 in repairs, and that’s Ebay prices/used parts prices.

A friend of ours tried to lighten the mood a little today. Since we’re doing the r6 rear end conversion I guess he thought gift baskets might help. He showed up with a neatly wrapped basket with his old tail light and passenger pegs off his 01 r6. That’s exactly what we need since we’re doing the 01-02 conversion! Alli already has the tail section we need, and I’m keeping an eye on a few Ebay auctions for the subframe we need.

I’m hoping I can start ordering parts by the end of the week, and hopefully parts will start coming in soon enough for us to work on some of the fabrication we’re going to have to do to the subframe. I’m just so ready to jump into the project. Yep, it’s definitely a project now, and the 600r has turned into a full on project bike.

I took some more pics of the bike torn down, but my card reader has gone missing.  I’ll share those as soon as I find it.

Now that it’s daylight I had a chance to get outside and take a better look at the bike. Yeah of course it looks a lot worse than it did last night in the dark. At least at this point I’m calm. I’ve been up all night pretty much waiting for daylight to hit because my mind is in overdrive. I just couldn’t sleep knowing it was sitting there, and I couldn’t examine the damage up close.

As soon as Hubby was dressed for work we both took off outside to take pics. Sorry these are blurry, but like I said, I’ve been up all night, I’ve had a shitload of caffeine (yeah yeah another reason I can’t sleep), and I haven’t charged my Kodak in a couple days. I had to settle for the cell phone cam. Plus I left these full size so you can click on them to see the damage more closely.

Notice the distinct twist in the rear. Yeah, good thing we’ll be cutting that off. We’ve got a friend who builds custom bikes coming over tomorrow to double check to make sure we’re right about the twist in the frame being beyond the point we need to cut it off. If the twist starts before that, yeah we’ll have to total it, but from what we can see right now (before taking the plastics off) it looks like we’re going to be ok.

Part of being up all night was taking the time to hunt down all the parts we’re going to need. We owe way too much to even think about totaling her out. Besides that’s supposed to be MY baby. I was going to start with the 250 and graduate to the 600r. Hubby was then going to buy my best friend’s 05 GSXR 750. It happens to be the one pictured in my blog header. Luckily Nick will be paying for most of the parts, so I don’t have to worry about this taking a huge chunk out of my funds.

We haven’t gone over her with a fine tooth comb yet. We’ll be moving some stuff around in the guest room tonight after Hubby gets home from work. We’re going to setup shop in there, so we’ll have plenty of room to tear her down and put her back together. It’s going to be a long operation, so we might as well be comfortable doing it.

I’ll probably add many many more parts to this list by the time I’m done, but so far this is what we know we’re going to need. I’m sure I’m totally leaving something off the list that I already know we’re going to need, but I’ll figure it out later. At least this is a good start. Priced on Ebay, it’s all about $1500.

• throttle tube
• throttle cable
• brake lever
• master cylinder
• clutch lever
• kill switch
• brake hose
• brake reservoir
• front stay
• headlight
• windscreen
• both mirrors
• mirror base plates
• front cowl
• bolts
• front forks
• gas tank
• rear swing arm
• left fairing

Then for the conversion we need all of these from an 01-02 r6. Priced around $300 since I already have some of the parts.

• subframe
• tail section
• seats
• taillight
• battery
• battery tray
• undertail

Luckily Allison used to work at the dealership. When she worked there they just happened to be throwing away a front cowl and a tail section from an 02 r6. She snatched those suckers out of the trash even though at the time she didn’t have an r6.

Now she’s got an 07 r6 and no need for those, so they’re hanging on her wall in her basement waiting for the day one of her friends might need them. Well today is that day, so they are now officially mine! Woot! It really makes me want to go ahead and do the front end conversion, too! I mean the bike’s already trashed. What have I got to lose? Oh yeah, I’ve got a friend with the taillight as well, so I’m good there.

Ok, I think I’ve rambled enough about this now. I’m just so glad I can sit here and say it’s not as bad as it seems anymore!