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I'm starting a rebuild of my Kat with the goal of repainting her, readying her for my 5000+ km (3k+ mile) Euro trip next summer (maintenance, touring mods etc.) and adding some functional and cosmetic mods to make her to my liking. This thread will be my pictorial diary documenting my progress and showcasing said mods.
Info:
Mods by some previous owner:
First picture I ever took of her after riding her 400km (250 miles) home from Vaasa to Helsinki:
This is what she looked like after a summer and autumn of riding, safely tucked underneath my kitchen window for the winter. (12V outlet barely visible above turn signal.)
As you can see, that dark blue vinyl is asymmetrical for some reason. Minor fiberglass patchwork suggests it's to cover some cosmetic damage from a drop or crash.
First step in repainting the bike is to take off the fairings and scrub them clean. After two hours they were sufficiently shiny and were left to dry in the bathroom:
Smaller and less dirty pieces (mirrors etc.) were put into the dishwasher. With both my bathroom and my dishwasher full of bike parts, I came into the sudden realization that were I married, my wife would be hating my guts off right about now. God bless the bachelor life.
Stay tuned for more later. It'll only get better from now on.
Info:
- 1995 Suzuki GSX600FS "Katana"
- 90,000km (56k miles) as of December 2014
- Bought in July 2014 with 85,000km (53k miles) for a whopping 1500€
- Original color ocean blue
Mods by some previous owner:
- Goodridge brake lines in front, braided steel
- Post-98 front turn signals semi-proficiently modded into pre-98 fairings (it's like he gave up when he was 95% done, gonna finish what he started)
- Shovel chop
- Some vinyl work of questionable taste (guess somebody liked blue...)
- 12V cigarette lighter outlet
- LED rear turn signals
First picture I ever took of her after riding her 400km (250 miles) home from Vaasa to Helsinki:
This is what she looked like after a summer and autumn of riding, safely tucked underneath my kitchen window for the winter. (12V outlet barely visible above turn signal.)
As you can see, that dark blue vinyl is asymmetrical for some reason. Minor fiberglass patchwork suggests it's to cover some cosmetic damage from a drop or crash.
First step in repainting the bike is to take off the fairings and scrub them clean. After two hours they were sufficiently shiny and were left to dry in the bathroom:
Smaller and less dirty pieces (mirrors etc.) were put into the dishwasher. With both my bathroom and my dishwasher full of bike parts, I came into the sudden realization that were I married, my wife would be hating my guts off right about now. God bless the bachelor life.
Stay tuned for more later. It'll only get better from now on.
ditch those horrible signals. Definitely need something done with fairings, that scheme isn't right. I like the euro graphics on the pre Kats.
, fiberglass isn't going to work as good a a piece of ABS and ABS solvent. The fairing are ABS. Search fairing repair or plastics repair for multiple ways of patching ABS fairings. Like using acetone and Legos for instance.
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