New project bike.
 

Not content with one piece of crap Yamaha SR250, I acquired another one tonight. My first one looked like this when I got it

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/35...11672bff_o.jpg

Now it looks like this

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/199/4...32a6598c_b.jpg

The new one is sitting in the back of my car looking like this

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/...8bfdd748_b.jpg

As I've already built a flat-track style SR, I have a feeling this one is going to get the full on Cafe Racer treatment - alloy sheet front mudguard, clip-ons with bar end mirrors, 18" alloy rims, disc brake up front, reverse cone mega exhaust with Norton style downpipe, 60s style race seat unit, XS250 tank but with an identical paintjob to the other one.

Opinions?

Re: New project bike.
 

Rickman topbox... for the true "despatched to death" look :-P

I reckon the cafe racer will look better than the flat tracker. I reckon bare alloy tanks look the nuts on cafe racer types but only when they look of the right era. For SR I reckon that red and white suits it well though

Re: New project bike.
 

If I could find a bare alloy tank I'd have it, but they are so rare and expensive - I think a square shaped XS tank will look just as good with the classic Yamaha TZ paintscheme I've got on the flat-tracker (which has a huge amount of people in the queue to buy it). I'll be putting a fair bit of the budget towards converting the front end to take 250LC fork sliders on the SR stanchions, putting an LC caliper on those with an RD250B wire spoked wheel and disc. Both wheels will be rebuilt with 18" alloy rims so I can fit sticky Maxxis Barracuda tyres. All that lot bolts together nicely - the joys of parts bin specials :D

Re: New project bike.
 

The finished pic of your first bike looks great. I am sure you will do a great job of this one too Loz. Loving the pic of your latest 'project' in the back of your car :cool:

Re: New project bike.
 

All good projects start off life being picked up in the boot of my cars. The first SR came home in the boot of a Golf hatchback.

Re: New project bike.
 

There is a company here in Sydney - Deus Ex Machina, that build customs out of old SR's, Triumphs etc and similar. Don't know how well they are known around the world, but check out their website:

http://www.deus.com.au

There is a really nice SR400 cafe racer on there. The bikes are stupid money for what they are, but still worth checking out, if not just out of curiousity!

Re: New project bike.
 

Oh wow, the TT and Manx are the kind of look I'm going for, but I just can't justify spending on an alloy tank.

Re: New project bike.
 

Great job on the first one Lozzo, happy restoration'in for the second.

Re: New project bike.
 

The restored first one looks cracking. Hope you do the second one as nicely.

Edit: Wow, the Deus site is nice. I particularly like what they can do with the contemporary Kwak W650.

Re: New project bike.
 

+1 like the white and red tank ... 8)

How come you did black side panels dude? Surely the same white&red would have looked the nuts?!!? :confused:

Do you actually ride the things or just do them up? :scratch:

Re: New project bike.
 

I use the SR daily as my commuter, it's pretty much my daily rider. I did about 3000 miles on it last year and about 2500 this year - I have a short commute and live just outside of town.

The sidepanels were left black on purpose. I did the usual paintshop thing on a photo to see what it would look like and everyone prefered it with them black. Besides, the right side one had just been professionally resprayed in black and looked gorgeous, so I was loath to repaint it. I'll be leaving the new bike's sidepanels in black too. I want the pair to look identical in colours.

Re: New project bike.
 

How much did you pay for each donor bike? and how much did #1 bike cost to complete (if yo don't mind me asking).

Re: New project bike.
 

Both bikes were given to me by friends, one of whom couldn't be bothered to repair it (needed a rebore and was rusty), the other by a friend who has a bone deformity in his wrist that makes riding painful.

Bike #1 cost me a total of 300 quid to get looking like that and road legal. That included the rebore, piston, gaskets etc. A close mate owed me a favour and painted the tank for 50 quid, absolutely everything else I did myself :D. The rest of the money went on paint and sundries, nuts and bolts from the hardware shop nearby, bars, rear light, decals, engine parts, oil/filter etc, MOT and tax. I'm a self taught car trimmer by trade, so I will be making a new seat cover; the one on there is just a piece of scrap vinyl slapped on as a temporary measure just to see how smooth the foam was, and I haven't got round to finishing it off yet. It was only meant to be on there a day, and it's been there 18 months.

Re: New project bike.
 

Your restore job looks nice on the Bike #1 I like that.

Re: New project bike.
 

Thanks, the idea was to make it look as far removed from the cruiser that it was, as was humanly possible on as little budget as possible.

Back in the 80s Performance Bikes did a couple of bikes up, they called them Project Dole-Bike, and Project Dole-Racer. One was a Kawasaki KH250 2-stroke triple , the other was a Honda 400 Four. They did similar things with their bikes from complete wrecks and each one only owed them about 150 quid by the time they were finished.

Re: New project bike.
 

Cool, seat covering is expensive too get done and a new seat would set you back silly money ... so if you can DIY it'll save you a fortune ... its the kind of thing that seems disproportionate in cost for what it is ... many of my old bikes have been let down by horrid looking seats, but otherwise look perfectly reasonable! :(

Re: New project bike.
 

You obviously put a lot of time, effort and money into the first one. I'm sure the next one will turn out just as good. Cafe racer idea sounds good.

Re: New project bike.
 

I had to recover that seat because I chopped so much of the foam out of the pillion end to make it flat. The old cover wouldn't have fitted. The new bike won't have that problem, I'm fitting a complete 60's cafe-race style seat with rounded bum-stop to that one and chopping off the pillion hangers. That means making a new bracket for the silencer to hang from, but that's nothing that's beyond my abilities.

Re: New project bike.
 

great job! looking forward to seeing the cafe racer version!

Re: New project bike.
 

The first one looks lovely. The SR looks like it will lend itself well to the cafe racer look, so I'm expecting that to look superb too. I guess that you'll post pics once it's done.

Re: New project bike.
 

I'll be doing what I did with the first one and taking photos at the end of each process. I wasn't working when I did the first, so I was spending whole days on it and taking pics at the end of the day. Those were posted up on flickr.com. Some of the new bike's bits will be farmed out to local companies, like sandblasting the frame etc, re-plating the spindles and brightwork and the powder-coating, but I'll have photos of each stage of the rebuild.