I'm just going through a strip and rebuild of my recently purchased 888 SP4, It thought that I might keep a blog of the rebuild, to share with others contemplating something similar, this is the first I hope of many installments, and I promise to add some pics through the process, warning, it's a bit longwinded.
24th November 2012
When I purchased the bike the seller got it running briefly but seemed to have an intermittent fuel pump issue, one point about the 888 is you always know if the fuel pump isn't working when your tank isn't whining at the flick of the ignition switch. With a fresh battery on the pump whined away and I through we were good to go, but after only 30 seconds of running the SP fell silent.
The main fuses were ok as the dash lights were on, I doubted it was a pump issue as the seller had fitted a new one recently. Then on cycling through the ignition the relays on the rear subframe clicked and the pump primed, then silence again. On checking the 2x15 amp fuses for the ECU relays under the seat, the connectors were dull with age and showing some corrosion, a quick clean with 400 wet and dry and a splash of WD40 and the 888 fired up a treat. So in the course of this rebuild I'm going to have to clean up all the electrical connections, whilst the bike runs fine now I don't want to be stranded at the side of the road next summer with an aging electrical connection, another job to add to the list.
So with the bike running I reveled in the dry clutch clatter and twin pipe boom, how these bikes passed a noise test is beyond me, Mr Castiglioni obviously knew how to appease homologation testers!.
I love the sound, it feels like hands grenade going off on every firing beat, and that analogy soon triggered me to flick the kill switch, 20yr of timing belts could be a recipe for my engine grenading itself in spectacular fashion.
Whilst the bike hasn't done many miles (or km's on the clock), it was pretty grubby, the engine covers showed some oil sweating around the mating surfaces, and it had a film of road crud. With only 2,100 km's I suspect the oil could be from the initial assembly that was never washed off by the first owner.
A quick spray of degreaser and some paintbrush handiwork and it was ready for a rinse and wash, I really wanted to get it done this weekend as the temperature here plummets over the next few weeks, so I am sure my neighbors questioned my sanity washing a motorcycle on my drive when the was 28 degrees F outside. Suffice to say the wash was a quick one, with the water beginning to freeze on the bike!, following that I started it up and let it idle to temp to dry it off. It was painful (literally) to wash a bike when it's freezing, but the benefit of stripping a clean bike in the coming months will be well worth it.
Back in the workshop and I blew over the bike with an airline to dry it off, I also unbolted the front calipers and ensured the discs were dry, be careful when storing a bike after a wash that you don't have wet pads rusting onto discs giving you a pulsing brake come next summer.
After giving the bike a more detailed once over, it looks promising. There isn't any damage other than surface corrosion, I think I am going to order a home plating kit to re-finish all the bolts & brackets. The engine covers need a lick of paint and the rest of the bike just needs a strip and clean. At the moment the toughest job on my mind is how to re-finish the crank cases, the lacquer has lifted in places and shows some corrosion. This isn't a show winning concurs build so stripping the engine for blasting and re-painting is out of the question. I hope I can clean it up and re-paint locally where needed.
So that's about it for the first weekend, it runs, it's a bit cleaner, I have a growing list of parts needed for the rebuild, and I am looking forward to getting it back on the road.