❙ APRILIA RSV1000 MILLE
Bruce’s life is never straightforward… and his project’s not either – time for the Aprilia Mille to ch-ch-change…
Bruce Wilson returns with part three of his Noale V-twin.
Last issue left-off with a largely built Mille, alive and kicking thanks to the helping hands at Aprilia Performance, so why does it look like it’s been stripped by a breaker for parts?
Well, because despite the temptation to bolt on a set of tidy fairings, to coat the wheels in retina-burning rim tape and to call it a day at that, I figured there was loads more to gain with a bit more time, graft and the contents from my wife’s bank account (I’ll pay her back at some point).
So what’s been happening? I guess the best place to start is with the aesthetics. Having fitted the later Gen-1 tank to the bike last issue, the OCD in me made me go looking for a set of updated fairing panels to go with it. For £175 I got a job lot of Mille R bodywork, including the pillion seat cover (which seem to fetch crazy money) and a couple of spare bits and bobs. It was a good haul, and one which I took straight to my mate Clive White at Rapier Paint works, in Hull. He checked out the panels that I had, looking for cracks, deep scratches and missing fixing tabs that could make the refurb that little bit harder. The truth is that any 20-year-old bike’s bodywork is going to be a bit battered, but it’s worth keeping the best bits for an easier life!
“When you’re working with parts that aren’t original to the bike, you’ve got to be pretty brave to spray them without making sure everything fits as it should do,” explained Clive as he told me the merits of ‘dry fitting’. I could see the new shape of my Mille, complete with wind deflectors and a Mille R seat unit come together. It was a random mix of panels but I knew Clive could work his magic. I also knew that I needed a different sub-frame (bought) and a later headlight (not yet!).
Time to prep and paint – something I know nothing about, but I’m keen to learn, so time to get stuck in with the panels. “90% of a paint job’s finish is down to the prep work. Mess that up and you’ll never get a decent-looking job,” said Clive, before handing me a heat gun and talking me through the easiest way to remove a panel’s stickers. The trick was to get enough heat on the graphics, but not so you risk warping a panel. With those gone, the remnants of gluey residue also needed removing, so out came nail varnish! It turns out acetone is pretty potent stuff and it was also great at getting a panel clean and bare, and ready for a proper degreasing using a specialist formula. Clive: “If you were to just get stuck in with the flatting-off without making sure parts are clinically clean you’ll risk contaminating the bodywork.” I helped out with some flatting-off of the panels, but Clive’s the expert...
At the AP Workshops, Griff had said he’d seen scabbier Milles than mine, but the bubbling of paint on the crankcases was a pain I couldn’t suffer. They had to come off. To get to them meant removing the majority of the water system, the oil tank and a whole load of brackets, and the two retaining bolts for the starter motor had to be removed as well.
The left-hand casing came off a treat,
needing to remove the generator in the process, but the larger right side was a bit of a beast. The water pump housing first had to be removed, along with the clutch case cover that had a rubber diaphragm behind it, and a locking nut that kept the larger casing in place. Eventually both cases were off and stripped of paint before being blasted.
The OE Showa forks looked a right state: bare minimum they’d need stripping, cleaning and reassembling, but I figured that was a lot of effort to go to for the sake of old forks. I opted for newer forks from a 2010 GSX-R, being the exact same length as the Aprilia’s and sporting the same width bottom yoke. Up top things changed, because the Mille’s yoke was wider than the 50mm equivalent on the Suzuki. There were quite a few other differences between the two set ups, including stem length and width, fork width, and the fact the original forks suited axial mounted calipers while the Suzuki sported radials. I’ve seen fork and yoke transplants on many a project bike, but after a few calculations my head was spinning, with the most likely looking resolve being to use the Mille’s triple clamps and to sleeve the top yoke down to suit the Suzuki forks’ upper dimensions.
I mentioned this idea to my mate Rob Bean, who casually mentioned he had a set of adjustable offset yokes with a Mille stem in place and the correct diameter holes to work with my new forks – I had to have them! With three options for offset adjustment on the cards, I opted for the most neutral position for the yokes before mounting them to the bike and sliding the Gixxer forks effortlessly into their new home. The plan is to keep the original wheels on the bike, so that’ll mean there’s still plenty of work making wheel spacers, working out disc offsets and finding a pair of radial calipers to see the job right, but I’ll worry more about that next time.
Swingarm time: I’d toyed with the idea of switching it out for a Gen-2 arm or even a single-sider off of a Futura (but they weigh a ton), before Rob suggested fabricating the original item to make it look a bit more special. The problem was that its anodised finish needed to go before anything could be welded to it, meaning I either had to get it acid dipped or bead-blasted. The wheels needed their paint removing too and while I was at it I wanted to tart up the sub-frame, sidestand and foot-peg carriers.
A call to Technicolour in Filey proved the solution. Owner Bry is big on bikes and didn’t hesitate for a second to let me load my troubles on him. He gave me a tour of his powder-coating factory. “We get everything from bikes to boats in here,” said Bry. “The trick is to know your metal and work with it accordingly.
“On a heavy-duty item, like a set of iron gates, we’d use a coarse grit, called chilled iron. On something like a motorcycle wheel, which is made from soft aluminium, we’d have to switch the medium to suit, so a less coarse glass shot is far more appropriate.”
With the grit loaded, the parts were loaded into a chamber and given a blasting. Twenty minutes later out they came, stripped back to bare and ready for a fresh coat of powder. Technicolour stores just about every colour of powder and as tempting as it was, I managed to avoid pink and chose to have everything bar the wheels, which Clive is spraying, coloured in a gunmetal. Before this could be sprayed on, everything was hung up on a production line in front of a water-aided dust/powder extraction wall. I rolled my sleeves up (for once), got stuck in with the air-line and gave the parts a thorough blow-off in readiness for a grey primer.
Time for the powder-coating: at one end you’ve got a gun, at the other an induction system that draws powder into the system and electronically charges it. The production line is earthed, so when the electro-charged powder leaves the gun it’s drawn to the earth and clings to its surface. Bry was keen to show that with the powder applied, you can wipe it off by hand. To get it to stick requires a good baking in an oven. “It’s crucial you get your oven temperature right. Too cold or too hot and you’ll compromise the finish. Likewise, if you don’t bake for long enough the powder won’t have adhered properly to the metal, so it will crack or break off.”
My aluminium parts were loaded into the oven at 180 degrees C, where they’d stay for the next 20 minutes. When they came out the rough powder had morphed into a flatter, smooth finish with a glossier look to it. There was a necessary cooling time before Bry’s son Will was able to step in and spray the items in their gunmetal top coat, which saw a repeat of the process. I had high hopes for the end result, but couldn’t believe how smooth and brilliant my parts were when they came out the other end. After 15 minutes the finish was rock hard and the temperature low enough to handle the items and remove the silicone bungs that had been inserted to protect any threads. I was buzzing. Time to hop in the van to head to Bry’s friend Jim’s place.
Jim’s place in Scarborough is an engineering firm where he makes some amazing rolling works of art, but he would be helping with my swingarm, making it a little more snazzy. Rick from over the road aqua-blasted the arm so Jim could fabricate something on it. Sadly I had to leave then, so we will check this out next time.
As projects go, it feels like I’m right in the guts of the process now, but it’s proving to be a pretty special experience. I just hope it rides just as ‘specially’!
Stay tuned.