999s Restoration & Rebuild

Hi all, and welcome to curious visitors from Chromeheads also

Thought I'd share my restoration work on the 999s. Once hailed as the 'ugly duckling', many buyers are now waking up to its timeless design. I was one of them, receiving this 2003 model with 987km in June 2020. I had little to no information to go on other than photos and the seller's word, and unfortunately the bike turned out to be a lemon, though not entirely the seller's fault - he probably just didn't know any better. I had hoped it was in good condition on the basis of the very low mileage, but that wasn't the case. Was a lot of back and forth on that sale.. Anyway, long story short, I eventually stuck with it and got a partial amount of my money back, allowing me to move forward.

Here's how she looked online -




Day of loading up for her journey -


And arrived 3 days later -



Bike was known to not start. While I wasn't looking to mod or enhance it in any way, it did need a lot of my attention. Here were the early stages of me diving in, slowly opening up the can of worms. End of diagnostics concluded -

• dead battery
• rusted spark plugs
• rusted vertical cylinder spark plug tunnel
• rusted horizontal cylinder intake valve + seat
• badly rusted fuel tank
• ruined fuel pump
• clogged injectors
• worn + rusted clutch disks, basked chewed, fractured spider spring
• evidence of crash on left side
• spoiled oil cooler
• degraded sound dampening material
• leaking fork seals
• expired stator unit
• aged upholstery + worn rubber components
• scratched/broken bodywork and carbon fibre components
• bent rear brake lever bolt
• once engine was running, coolant was found to be mixing into the oil - bad vertical head gasket

Other areas to address -

• air filters
• oil + coolant change
• timing belts
• brake + clutch bleed
• chain + sprocket set
• brake pads
• tyres
• valve adjustment
• upgraded earth + starter wiring
• exhaust manifold ceramic coat

Oil drain plug magnet, not too bad -