Engine out

Today a major milestone was achieved, with the help of Tim, the engine is out of the bike!

The bike in the background is actually
quicker than the Hayabusa right now

This weekend was mainly spent doing that, with the last few bolts being a bit of a pain. Luckily I'd read ahead in the workshop manual and saw that a special Suzuki tool was needed to get some of the engine mounts out. Looking online and these go for about £90 which seemed a bit steep to me, so I looked on a few forums and a bunch of people make their own out of a long socket and an Dremel (note, it pains me to call it a Dremel, that's like calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover, but still, everyone knows what I mean if I say Dremel). However, I don't have a Moto-Tool Dremel and it looked difficult, so eBay helped me buy a Chinese knock off version of the Suzuki tool for a fraction of the price, God bless the Chinese and their lack of acknowledgement of international copyright.

"I'm gonna make you great again"

To be fair, the tool worked well and all but one of the engine mounts came off quite easily, there was one however which took some leverage and I was pooing myself a bit that it was going to snap off as I was using a 2 foot scaffold to help turn it. It was all good though, it came out eventually so then it was a case of lowering the engine out and popping it on the side for a clean, oh and that damn exhaust manifold bolt needs extracting.

Steve at work lent me his engine hoist, so Tim and I set that up. Tim thought that we'd better test it first so he hoisted me up using it. It's good to try these things :) However, we're missing the chain to connect the hoist to the engine, so there's no trying it for size just yet.

My new cafe racer