Cali 3 to V7 Sport conversion

[rutgery]

What length of shock are you running? The bike looks a little low compared to the V7 sport. A longer shock will also quicken up the steering. I believe the lemans 1000 runs a 13.5" .

The standard KONI shocks from the cali 3 are 337 mm (or about 13.2'') so a little shorter, and the mounting points on the frame are slightly rearward compared to the LM frames. I hadn't thought of that as a possible difference!

[rutgery]

The bike still isn't done. I wanted to fit a center stand but the original cali 3 unit didn't fit anymore as the swingarm is now shorter than original. The solution to this would be fitting a T3 center stand, but that hits the rear calliper.. So some welding had to be done! The left leg is moved about 3cm outwards. A piece of the left foot is removed, and the feet extended to just lift the rear wheel off of the ground.







Fitted on the bike:






I also got some high round valve covers, they needed some work so they are sandblasted and sprayed with silicone spray to keep them clean. Just waiting on the adapter plates before they can be installed on the bike..




The Indian repro fuel tank just isn't as nice as the original on the real V7 Sport.. So I've finally decided to buy a real repro from Italy! quite expensive, but the tank is way nicer and fits more closely on the frame and cylinder heads. The only problem is that the fuel tank rubbers are attached about 2cm higher on the new type frame, so I'll make some rubbers to close this gap and hold the fuel tank secure
 





And last but not least, I got tired of the tarozzi rearsets. In my opinion they are way to far back. I've bought a brake and shift lever, and am currently working on a set of new footrest plates which will use the tarozzi hardware as the T3 units are unobtainium.. The picture shows the difference between the levers

[Rick4003]

It will for sure be a sweet bike when you are done. 

I agree completely on the rearsets, I have the Agostini kit and it is way to high up and maybe too far back too. Maybe they didn't get the footpeg location all wrong at the factory after all 

One of the projects for my bike is certainly a relocation of the footpegs. Lower down for sure and maybe a bit further forward too. I will make a few different mounting plates to find the best location.
- Ulrik

[Fnq1000]

Progressing very nicely, well done!

You mention that you bought a repro tank from Italy. Where did you source it?

Cheers
Jason

[rutgery]

It will for sure be a sweet bike when you are done. 

I agree completely on the rearsets, I have the Agostini kit and it is way to high up and maybe too far back too. Maybe they didn't get the footpeg location all wrong at the factory after all 

One of the projects for my bike is certainly a relocation of the footpegs. Lower down for sure and maybe a bit further forward too. I will make a few different mounting plates to find the best location.
- Ulrik

a mounting plate with multiple holes to be able to adjust the position definitely isn't a bad idea, I might steal that for my own project

Progressing very nicely, well done!

You mention that you bought a repro tank from Italy. Where did you source it?

Cheers
Jason

Thanks Jason! I got the fuel tank from TLM Nijmegen (the netherlands) as I live close by. The same tank is available at stein-dinse. Don't forget that there are two versions, they have the fuel cap flipping to a different side

[canuck750]

Looking real nice and it will be much more powerful than the original V7 Sport with superior brakes as well.

[rutgery]

Well it's been quite a while, but the project still is ongoing. As mensioned before, I wasn't impressed with the front fork, that's why I decided to swap the internals of a Honda RC36 (Showa) into the 40mm bitubo forks.











It was quite a straightforward swap, only the bolts to hold the damper units in place are 8mm items for the bitubo's and 6mm for the Showa's. I turned a small cylinder to fit around the bolt and press fit into the tubes so that the seal will hold the fork oil. The showa caps threaded straight onto the bitubo forks, but their end cap diameter was 41mm so I turned it down to 40 to fit through the triple three.

The fuel tank is painted and decals applied:




To make the bike more comfortable, I made some new footrest brackets which use the tarrozi rubber parts. The  base is milled out of steel, and two cylinders are welded on to fit the tarrozi items.




I want to be able to run tubeless tires, and thought a bit more black on the bike would benefit the looks as well, so I decided to try to adapt the older type snowflake rims. The main issue were the brake disks, the new floating disks use five mounting bolts, and the old type used originally on these rims use six mounting bolts. I originally wanted to use adapters with a five and a six bolt pattern on either side, but there wasn't enough space for this, that's why I opted to make new disk holders. These use the six bolt pattern for the wheels and hold the ''floaters'' for the brake disk. They are turned from one block of aluminium. For the front, one side is countersunk for hex bolts, and the other side I cut thread to accept and hold the bolts.








wheels are powder coated semi-gloss black and valves threated into the rim




everything added to the bike:



upload foto gratis


The front callipers will be replaced by brembo p04 calipers, which should improve the breaking a lot. The front master is replaced by a ps16 unit. The rear f08 calliper is maintained, but uses a new brake master to achieve the correct ratio.

[rutgery]

The eagle eyes among you might have noticed I fitted 36mm carbs as well. I had some interferance problems with the replica thank, but this Italian made tank doesn't have these problems. I modified the splitter to fit onto the throttle just like the 1000s has, and made a custom adjuster.

[Frenchfrog]

Nice work , especially on the forks !

[Don G]

Very nice indeed! DonG

[s1120]

Im used to seeing the California III bikes having a rear frame rail kick up. Is that just on the later ones, or did you remove the kick up on yours?

[rutgery]

Im used to seeing the California III bikes having a rear frame rail kick up. Is that just on the later ones, or did you remove the kick up on yours?

As far as I’m aware, only the Le Mans 1000 series have a kick-up in the frame. My frame is, except from the mods shown in this blog, stock.

[Mike Strong]

Very nice work - I have a T3 project that I'm planning some similar themes for. I'm looking for some side covers at the moment - where did you source yours?
Cheers,
Mike

[wirespokes]

The 97 Cali I sourced parts from has the kicked up frame rails.

Looking good rutgery. 

[rutgery]

Very nice work - I have a T3 project that I'm planning some similar themes for. I'm looking for some side covers at the moment - where did you source yours?
Cheers,
Mike

The side covers are made by Winny in Belgium, he has a facebook page ''silverrock motorcycle'' with his contact info. As far as I know, he's the only one making them in steel

[Rick4003]

Hi Rutgery,

Very nice work on the disk carriers! And the rest of the bike of course, it doesn't look bad with the black rims at all!

[rutgery]

I guess it's time for the final update on this build log. It's been sitting unedited for quite a while but the bike's been driven a lot during this time. I'm happy to report that the RC36 damper rods inside of my 40mm forks fork perfectly. The bike has covered about 5500 km without any major issues in its current trim with the black wheels (and metzeler Roadtec 01s), new footrests and italian tank. The handeling is slightly slower than my G5 but that's to be expected as the wheelbase is slightly longer.

The new brembo P04 callipers mated to a ps16 master brake superbly but the rear P08 calliper linked to a 13mm Nissin master with custom linkage is slightly too wooden for me, I might change that in the future.

The Ducati 900ss white face dials look great on the bike but I've changed the tacho to a cheap replica model as the ducati one doesn't have the right gearing and was reading about 20% higher all the times. The current Vega tacho has the correct ratio and is very very simmilar in appearance, but if you look at the details, it does look cheaper made. It also doesn't read the revs quite as fast ast the veglia does weirdly enough.





Really the only downside I can currently think of for this build is that the green colour seems to attract a lot of flies, which I thought was kinda weird

[Vwtee2]

Great job, looks fantastic, i have a v7 sport from 1973 but previous owner made it in to a le man 1 look a like. I've been looking at v7 parts to rebuild it but its like you said its like gold dust.. weldone with your bike, i love it

[Canuck750]

Beautiful bike 

[Don G]

I have an 2001 V11 Sport in Green, I have noticed that in the evenings the Aphids are attracted to it, I mean it will be covered with them.  DonG

[rutgery]

Thanks for the kind words! It's been a while since the last update on this build log but I've been riding the bike quite a lot in the meanwhile. It's been a real treat with the stock cali 3 engine. However, as it it a Sport conversion, I did find the power a bit lacking in comparison with it's looks. That's why over the last year I've been collecting items to improve this. These are the following;

A lightened flywheel.
The stock flywheel of a cali 3 is one of the heavy types weighing in at 4200 grams excluding a stock ring gear weight of 2650 grams. To improve the throttle response I wanted to fit a lighter flywheel. As I'm still a student there's a budget to work with so when a second hand lightened (and balanced) flywheel and ring gear off of a 1000S became available I bought it.
This ''new'' flywheel weighs 2200 grams excluding the 1950 gram of the lightened ring gear.
Here's a picture of the lightened flywheel and ring gear.




The only issue with a used flywheel (used for about 70.000 kms) is that the clutch plate teeth will notch the flywheel. This can make the clutch notchy to engage/disengage. As can be seen in the picture below a slight notching is visible.




To prevent the clutch engagement being notchy only a few km after installation, I decided to file every inner tooth surface of the flywheel by hand. It was a terrible job and wouldn't recommend anyone to do it.. BUT, it did work very well and after way to many hours the notches were gone. The picture is taken in progress btw, so don't flame me for not filing every tooth




Bigger Carbs
More air = more power right? Also, bell crank PHF 36's are in my opinion the best looking carbs ever made. However, as the engine is a small valve 950CC square fin, just sticking on the bigger carbs won't do much good. To make them a bit more useful, I replaced the stock 33mm intake manifolds for a set of 36mm manifolds off of a SP3. By scribing the heads the exact material to remove to flow the heads can be determined (as shown in the pictures). I made sure to remove the material evenly and gradually.







next up was replacing the new white carb floats with the old black ones from my 30mm units as these are way less prone to leaking.



Up next the jets were installed. No point in telling what I started with but the jetting I ended up with after the assembly with each of the components listed were the following:
pilot jet- 60
atomizer - 265
needle - K-9 (clip in the upper groove)
slide - 60-3
main jet - 135
Note that this is in the Netherlands so basically sea level.




A faster cam
As is covered many times on this forum, installing 36 mm carbs without changing the camshaft doesn't yield many gains. Also, a cam a bit ''hotter'' than the standard cam (or lawnmower cam as it's often called) can give a big improvement in both torque and top end power. As I wanted a cam with proven longevity, relatively cheap and a nice combo of rideability and power, and a tacho drive on the nose, the most logical choice was a B10 cam used in the LM 1000 series. I found a second-hand one for relatively cheap and it was in very good condition. The B10 cam can be indentified by the ''K'' stamping in the end of the cam.




Next to the change in the camshaft, I changed out the valve springs as a B10 cam engine stock has stiffer valve springs. Replacing the valve springs is relatively simple but I made sure to check the spring shimming to ensure proper valve spring pressure. Also, a ''special tool'' which is just a glue clamp with a welded on bracket was used to easily remove the C clamps from the valve tips.
Removal of the valves.



checking the valve shimming, all shimming was within factory specs.



New valve springs installed.




I'll follow up on this post soon with the disassembly and assembly of the sport with these components. Hopefully, I'll have tires for the high shoulder spoked rims. If that's the case it will be included in the build log post.

[wirespokes]

I can't imagine anyone else filing those flywheel teeth! What a miserable job! I think I spent four or five hours over a couple days when I did it. I was concerned I might not have gotten the teeth smooth enough or uniform enough, but the clutch seems to be working perfectly. I don't think they need to be perfect - I've heard since, that the flywheel teeth aren't as critical as the hub.

Looking forward to the ride report after it's all buttoned up.

[rutgery]

I can't imagine anyone else filing those flywheel teeth! What a miserable job! I think I spent four or five hours over a couple days when I did it. I was concerned I might not have gotten the teeth smooth enough or uniform enough, but the clutch seems to be working perfectly. I don't think they need to be perfect - I've heard since, that the flywheel teeth aren't as critical as the hub.

Looking forward to the ride report after it's all buttoned up.

Interesting that the flywheel teeth aren't as critical as the hub, why would that be the case?

[rutgery]

The disassembly of the bike was quite straight forward as all work to be done was only to the engine. Because of this I removed the rear wheel, exhausts and swingarm and ''wheelbarrowed'' the top part of the motorcycle away. After that, I made sure the engine was nice and stable before removing the lower frame rails, gearbox and centerstand leaving them attached to eachother.








Next up the clutch ringgear was removed. Note that the current flywheel inner teeth are ''notched'' similar to the lightened flywheel. I was surprised to see this as the clutch actuation was as smooth as could be so the notches apparently aren't that big of a deal. The old flywheel was easily removed with the help of an impact driver, but the new flywheel was hold in place while tightening the bolts with a very special tool shown in the picture. This works just as well as any special tool which will hold the flywheel at the ring gear teeth.






Being the cheapskate that I am, to install the clutch plates (I reinstalled the old plates as these where barely worn, they must've been replaced by the previous owner before I got the bike) I 3D printed a clutch alignment tool. A little figuring out what tooth spacing I had to use lead to this tool shown in the picture.




This tool combined with an extra bolt and a few washers laying around made the clutch installation quick and easy. I didn't even forget to reinstall the ''puck'' inside the flywheel after removing the alignment tool. The ring gear can easily be torqued to spec while holding the ring gear with the other hand. So no other special tools required. 












After the clutch and flywheel, I removed the heads from the engine. I was surprised to see a lot of ''mayo'' inside the valve covers as I thought the engine would get plenty warm as it sees longer distances quite often. It might be due to the colder climate of the Netherlands.. Anyhow, it's not that big of a deal so I just removed it with a cloth.



I didn't take too much extra pictures of removing the head as it's quite straight forward.










While the heads are off, replacing the camshaft is way easier as you don't have to worry about the pushrods and/or cam followers. So the crank nut was removed with an impact driver and the ''old'' cam was removed. I didn't take many pictures here either as I needed all hands. I asked two people to hold the cam followers in place with magnets on a stick while I removed the old cam and reinserted the ''new'' B10 cam (indentified with the ''K'' mark at the end of the cam). Taking a picture of the distributor will help checking if the new cam is installed properly and the timing hasn't ''jumped'' a tooth with the removal/installation.








Now the heads and valve train can be reinstalled, torquing everything to the correct specs as the base and head gaskets are replaced. This will need a re-do after a few heat cycles and again after 1000 kms.




Next up was a very nice trip to Austria with my trusty V1000 G5, racking up just over 2500kms in slightly over a week.




After the trip the tires where delivered and thus installed on the wheels. This meant the Sport would finally have her spoke wheels back!





Unfortunately, I must have done something wrong as the rear wheel was 13mm off center.. This was a huge bummer but fortunately it could be resolved by adjusting the spokes. The front wheel installation went smoothly and this is how she stands now:




The ride is very different than before, acceleration feels way faster and shifting smoother (presumably due to the lighter flywheel). Also the bike seems to have much more power above 5000 RPM than before. I haven't had the change to try the freeway but I'm sure it'll drive smoother and quicker there as well. I haven't noticed faster stalling off idle due to the lighter flywheel either.

[wirespokes]

Love it, Rutger! 

Yeah, I'm curious why the flywheel teeth don't impact clutch operation to any great extent. Nice getting your experience as well.

For a clutch alignment tool I turned down some hardwood to the correct diameter and then used some drill bits to align the teeth. Nice that you've got access to a 3D printer. I'm jealous.

[rutgery]

Love it, Rutger! 

Yeah, I'm curious why the flywheel teeth don't impact clutch operation to any great extent. Nice getting your experience as well.

For a clutch alignment tool I turned down some hardwood to the correct diameter and then used some drill bits to align the teeth. Nice that you've got access to a 3D printer. I'm jealous.

That alignment tool is a very creative idea! As far as 3D printers go, it really isn't a huge investment. I bought mine for about 300 usd and the learning curve (especially if you can draw in CAD) is very easy.

[wirespokes]

I'm horrible with stuff like computer programs. Not intuitive at all. Maybe I could learn - but it might be super painful.

Yeah, making a clutch tool seemed difficult until I realized I didn't have to mate with the splines. The spline inner diameter is enough.

[Mad Welshman]

Hi there cracking build I am in the process of doing a very similar build any idea where can I get a pair of those steel side panels?, Jon.


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