Ok so I was being optimistic when I hoped we’d have the bike together (minus the plastics) by July 4th. The good news is that the jet kit, forks, battery tray, and battery will be here this week. I can’t really order anything else this week since I blew what little bit of extra cash I had left on a few pool toys. I needed something to float on in the pool, and the old floats we had weren’t holding air.

We also have another problem I wasn’t expecting. The gas tank sat on the porch for a couple weeks, and we’ve had 1 heavy rain. It looks like water got in the tank, so when Hubby cranked her up the other night she sounded like crap.  There wasn’t much gas left in it to begin with, so he drained that.  The carbs are getting a full cleaning anyway since he’s got to take everything apart to install the jet kit. He cleaned the tank up last night and JB Welded the two small holes. That’ll hold until I can find another tank.

The only other major thing I still have to order are the rotors. Putting things back together is the easy part. Waiting on things to ship is killing me!

Wow, I can’t believe how well the bike is coming together. It’s not back together yet, but a major part of getting it put back together is hunting down all the parts we need. When I estimated the price for our parts list we were looking at close to $2500 if we bought all the parts from the dealership. I knew it would be a lot cheaper getting them off Ebay and the YZF600r forums, but I still figured we’d take a big hit before our friend/my cousin has a chance to pay us back.

I’m happy to say I’ve already got most of the major parts we need, and I’m still sitting below that $1000 mark. Our biggest concern have been the front forks. We found one set on Ebay that sold very quickly. I’ve called numerous motorcycle junkyards all over the country with no luck. The cheapest price I’ve found anywhere for a brand new set, $324.26 EACH. Yeah, that’s a big blow.

Hubby finally tracked down a set on the 600r forums, and it looks like I got my wish. We found a full set for under $300 including shipping!

For now our plastics are still usable to get it to a point where it’s just ridable. I don’t care what it looks like. We’ll rock a rat bike all summer if we’ve got to. So really right now all we need to get it on the road, the front seat, front rim, front rotors, passenger pegs, r6 battery tray, front stay, and r6 battery.

The mounting blocks for the subframe are being machined this weekend, and then we’ll be able to weld the blocks to the new subframe and the existing bike frame. Just to get an idea what it’s going to look like Hubby tied the subframe up last night and suspended it roughly where it will sit. It looks hilarious though. He couldn’t find a rope around here long enough to suspend it, so he used a long CAT6 cable I had lieing around. He better be glad the subframe doesn’t weigh much!

I figured it would take at least a couple months to get everything back together meaning we’d miss most of this year’s riding season.  Looks to me like it’s going to be complete by the end of the month if we stay on top of everything, 4th of July at the latest!  Yeah!

This week hasn’t been so great. It’s finally starting to sink in with Ben that he probably won’t have a bike at all this summer. We do ride year round, but it just sucks not having a bike to ride during “riding season”. We’ve been working like crazy to get her put back together though, and so far everything’s going great!

He finished extending the cdi last night, and we’ve got a new swingarm ready to go on. We’ve also go the R6 subframe that’s ready to get welded on this week. The 600r frame has already been cut, and she’s ready to go. Our poor bike looks like she’s taken one diet pill too many! LOL

She sure will look good when she’s done though! I can’t wait!

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!