With the engine in bits I could suspend my disappointment and get on with other things. First up is to sort the wishbones that I’ve been meaning to remake. This is to get rid of the Delrin bearings, which haven’t really worked, and hopefully to get a bit of weight out. So, making my usual MDF and bracket jigs I remade the rear upper wishbones, as seen here. You’re right, they’re awfully short (although you have to add a lot of length in the rod-ends to this photo) and this is what completely re-designing the rear of the car would have sorted. However, I just don’t have the time, especially as I’ve just got a new job. (As well as still teaching, this time to “Engineering Doctorate” students, up at York and my PhD viva being next week. Eeeek.)
I made sure that those wishbones articulated properly, which they did after I’d attached them with an angle grinder, and then set about the front rockers. This is a bit more tricky as I’d like some better bearings where the rockers attach to the chassis. As standard the J15 has rubber bushes here. On the 
Fury I replaced the equivalent bushes with needle roller bearings. However, I found that they tended to wear the housings really quickly. Not really surprising, I guess, because they don’t move much and all of the weight tends to be taken by the same small number of needles all the time.
Although, to be fair, when I recently read Tony Southgate’s autobiography he commented that he got lots of needle roller bearings into the suspension of the Le Mans cars he designed. So, perhaps I’m wrong. All the same, I’ve decided to try using some spherical bearings. I bought some housings for these but I needed to make the housing a bit bigger, so as to provide enough meat for welding the rocker components to. I turned a couple of bits of tubing into suitable housings for the housings and welded them together, as in the photo. As you can probably see the bearing is retained by a circlip. As this is the front of the car I can orient the bearings so that all the load is taken on the housings rather than the circlip. I just had to hope that I didn’t end up getting any weld spatter in the circlip groove which 
would have been terminal. (Note that I TIGged the housing; I’m so glad I bought a TIG as it does things like this much better. Uses prodigious quantities of argon though.)
I then used the old rocker to make another jig. As you can see this time it’s rather harder because the component is very 3D; most other suspension components are essentially planar.
So, making this rocker was rather harder than usual, and is made more difficult by not being able to just turn the component upside-down to make the part for the other side of the car. All the same, after a considerable number of hours in the trenches I ended up with a new rocker for the left hand side of the car, ready for painting and insertion of the bearings. Apart, that is, from a minor problem caused 
by one of the circlips going ping! around the garage. I reckon it’s somewhere around the lathe but I doubt I can be bothered trying to find it.
So, all I’ve got to do is make another one and then I can get onto something else.
But, I can hear you all asking, what about the engine. Well, I’ve spoken to Andy about it lots of times and we’ve not been able to find a suitable crank from a suitable supplier. That means I can either just wait for a while until one turns up or press on and get another complete engine. The advantage of that is that I’d end up with a bunch of spares. The disadvantage is that it’s rather expensive. However, as I’ve now decided to cut off my route back to using the ’07 engine I can sell that (for example, I’ve taken the hydraulic clutch pipework out). That should make a decent amount of money. So, if you’re interested in a good CBR1000RR07 engine which has only done about 4 races since being refreshed by Andy, give me a shout. I’ve even got all the gubbins like the billet sump, the throttle bodies, the electronics and even a Power Commander…