Long Awaited Update

So its been awhile since the last update. There is not a whole lot to report in the way of bike progress. Funds have been sucked up recently to get the bike back into running order. Last week Josiah got new plates for the bike and was ready to start making it his daily rider. Alas fate conspired to keep him on four wheels. The bike wouldn't start so we had to troubleshoot. After looking at the starter, stator, and other components, we found that the culprit was a dead cell in the battery. The battery wasn't keeping a charge so we used the paint money to buy a battery instead. With the bike back up and running, we are taking this time to rethink some of our old paint ideas.


We have been wanting to use a different paint than you normally see on bikes. We have messed with the idea of using rhino truck bed liner to give the bike a matte textured black look.
This picture gives you an idea of what rhino liner looks like on something other than a truck bed.

We have since been looking into other paint products because Josiah is wanting to put a little more color into the paint. You can get rhino liner in other colors but we have found another product that is pretty cool that we may try first.........................

The new paint idea is called plasti-dip. This is a unique paint that dries to a matte finish like rhino liner without the texture. It is not however a primer or powdercoat. It is still rubbery like rhino liner. It comes in a variety of colors and is easy to peel off if you don't like it. To see a video of it watch my friend "Fonzie" on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdCtzxkER7k
Check out his other videos to get a better idea of the product.
There is a big user based support for this type of paint with a lot of innovative ideas. The only drawback to this paint is there is no UV protectant in it so it will fade overtime. I also don't know if it is gas resistant which is important on tank paint. But even if it fades, or peels from gas spills, at least its easy to repaint. Here are some colors were looking at:

Up until seeing the dipyourcar videos, I only thought plastidip was used on hand tools and car rims. It looks like a fun idea and would love to try it. I know it would just be easier to go the 2 step urethane paint route that we use on cars today, but the set up can be costly for equipment and were trying to do this bike on a budget. Most plastidip and rhino liner cans are only $8 and a urethane paint can cost $80-$100 without including the cost of a paint gun and compressor.
 
If you have any thoughts or ideas or have used plastidip or rhino liner let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Demo Time!

It's time to turn this:

Into

This:

 It actually looks like a respectable 80's Japanese muscle bike.

This only took an afternoon and wasn't too bad. We found the last owner didn't know how to use a wrench and not strip or cross-thread the bolts. Found a total of three like that. Luckily only one of them will really matter. He apparently cross-threaded the ghetto rigged windscreen into the handlebar riser bolt. But once we add our new clubman bars later, we will re-tap it.

Here is a pic of all the junk we removed

Can't wait to chop and get rid of that ugly rear light

Josiah learning to wrench with the best :-)

This is the slight head gasket leak we will fix when we pull and paint the engine

Had to rig the handle bars and turn sigs a little, but all will be fixed when our clubman conversion takes place. Replaced the ugly factory mirrors with some carbon fiber ones we had laying around.

 We will be working on the paint and prep next............

Were going for a textured flat black finish with chrome accenting. Stay tuned for paint!

Our Donor bike!

After extensive research and many failed craigslist meetings (really people! if you don't want to put effort into selling something why bother posting it! But that's another blog I could start entirely) we finally got it!

A 1982 KZ750 with 29k and lots of "awesome" custom work. Aside from the "custom work", This bike was actually really great. The previous owner used it as a daily rider and put a lot of new parts and work on it. Here is the list and he had all the documentation for it: 

• Rebuilt the master cylinder and rebuilt calipers
• new tires
• rebuilt carbs and resync'd
• rebuilt fuel petcock
• new spark plugs and wires
• replaced air-box with pods (which I love the look of)
• changed oil
• replaced fork seals and fork oil
• custom exhaust that sounds awesome
• replaced chain and sprockets

Now the bad:

• Head gasket leaks a little oil
• throttle handlebar insert is cracked causing the throttle cable to stick
• awful front "fairing"
• Ghetto rigged sissy bar and saddlebag
• Ghetto rigged front turn signals
• God awful paint job that is peeling
• exhaust needs new donut seals

Here are a few more shots so you can see all of it:

Whew! We have our work cut out for us. Time to get to work and make this bike look somewhat respectable. This backrest and bag combo are killing me............

Finding the Donor Bike

Finding a good donor bike is a big task. There are many things to consider when choosing one such as:

• How big of an engine do I want?
• What style do I want
• V-twin, Parallel twin, Inline4, SOHC, DOHC?
• Mono rear shocks, or dual rear shocks
• Shaft or chain driven
• Parts availability
• Reliability

To answer the first question we wanted at least a  500-900cc.
The rear shocks weren't too important because the virago mono shock looks nice and CB style dual shocks look clean as well. We narrowed down our choices to these four bikes.

1970s Honda CB750

These are great bikes for café builds and have a huge following especially for the SOHC ones that were produced up until 1978. CBs are easier builds than most because they have great parts availability and Honda built lots of them. To see more on these go here: http://www.cb750cafe.com/ Carpy is a legend when it comes to building CB café racers. We didn't pick this because we wanted a less commonplace café racer.

1980s Yamaha Virago XVS750

This is a  less commonplace bike in the café racer arena mainly because it fits more of a bobber concept. It comes from the factory with a mono shock in the rear and gives the tail end of this bike a real clean look. The v-twin however is more of a cruiser look than we really wanted. Here is a pic of a finished café virago:

Here is another legendary café racer builder who built this one: http://docschops.net/

1976-1981 Suzuki GS750 and GS750G

This bike is a fine choice because it comes with a powerful inline 4 and in later years came with the choice of shaft drive instead of chain. These bikes are great donors because of their strong motors and general easy layout for a simple café racer conversion. There is also a bolt together café kit made exclusively for the s40 if you want an easy café racer to put together. You can find that here: http://www.rycamotors.com/ If you don't like DOHCs inline 4 engines then you will want to steer clear of Suzuki 750s. Here is a pic of a Café racer Suzuki 750:

We were looking at these, but there was not a lot up for sale in my area and in the end chose...............

1976-1983 Kawasaki KZ750

These bikes weren't the fastest or even really that popular back in the day. They were built for dependability and ease of maintenance. They were one of the only bikes in Kawasaki's lineup that didn't have a 4cylinder setup. For this bike Kawasaki went with a parallel twin. It made the bike kind of wide in the middle but still looked better than the regular v-twins. In fact the Triumph Bonnevilles were probably the only other bikes out there at the time that used this set up. We liked this bike because there aren't a lot of café builds built on this one and we liked the fact that it had 3 disc brakes and cast wheels rather then spoke. The stance on these bikes are also phenomenal and easy to even out without cutting the front forks. These bikes were actually pretty plentiful in our area too so the prices weren't outrageous like the CBs and Suzuki's. Parts availability can be a problem for these bikes and more fabrication is probably required for this bike as compared to a CB. We are up to the challenge and hope we can make it into a finished product kind of like this one:

Lets see how it turns out!

Cafe Racer Build Blog

The reason I'm making this blog is to document the build of my brother's café racer. I've always wanted to document and do a how to on all the various projects I've done and were never able to. This is my first time documenting a build so here goes nothing.

A little bit about me:

• I'm 28 years old and have been under the hoods of cars since I was five years old
• My dad always was a gearhead and kinda passed it on to me
• I've currently completed 3 project builds to date and am always looking for a new project
• I'm currently without a bike and project car so I'm free to jump into my Brother's project and help him with his

A little bit about my brother Josiah:

• He is 18 years old and has very little experience with mechanics but wants to learn
• He wants to learn so I told him to buy a project bike and learn as we go through the process
• He was very adamant that he wants the hands on experience of this build with using my knowledge base rather than my wrenching abilities :-)

Info on what build he wants to start:

• Josiah is new to motorcycle riding and has a passion for bikes and wanted his first build to be his first bike
• We have a small budget so I suggested he get a 70s or 80s bike
• Josiah really liked all the customizing and different looks you could achieve with these kinds of bikes(bobber, café racer, and chopper look)
• Since were going the cheap route and Josiah liked the minimalist look and stance of the café racer, we went with this style build

Now we have to choose a donor bike as the base for our build.............