Cafe Racer dreams..............rusting wreck rescued from the spiders???

[lchris21]

Just posting up some pics of the café racer style bike I'm planning / working on.

Based on an old '81 Harley wannabe Japanese imposter. Its a Yamaha TR-1 which was rescued from under a tarp. Saying that I've seen better condition equipment rescued from under the sea

Hope there's no animal lovers reading this thread?................."some spiders were harmed during this production"

I'm going from this:



To hopefully............... something like these.....







Just got to work my way through this lot first

 

[Pete.]

Wow, I wish you a lot of luck rebuilding that. Does TR stand for "Totally Rusted"?

Anyway, I have the same stand, and you can improve it a LOT for what you're doing with a small modification. Some flat bar across the front to spread the casters and another small piece bent U-shaped and bolted to the right side with holes to take a through-bolt on the centre stand mount and it can do this.

 

[lchris21]

ditto on the stand mod, you can just about see on my first pic I've welded a piece of angle on with some castors bolted to it....

 

[Wedg1e]

7th photo... I make that spider about 44mm long

 

[lchris21]

yeah not far off............44mm long, to 2thou flat in a millisecond

flattened about 10 of the ******s in all during the strip down

 

[pedrobedro]

We dragged one of those in earlier this year and it went on ebay runner or spares. It was a complete bike and the engine turned over with a battery fitted. It was a horrible heavy donkey of a bike though. Somebody came all the way from Southern Ireland for it with a van, it must have cost him more to fetch it than to buy it.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

7th pic down (one with spider).
Are those cracks in crankcase where head studs go in ?

Paul H

 

[norlander]

good luck with the project, caff racers have made a comeback, later style now is flat trackers or street scramblers-pretty much the same style except for the bars and some fit knobblie style tyres.
My fave is the Storz sportser-love to build one.The first model top left, some of the other pics are XR1200 conversions.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=s...AXavoHoDg&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1920&bih=949

 

[lchris21]

7th pic down (one with spider).
Are those cracks in crankcase where head studs go in ?

Paul H

nah just the remains of Harry the Spider's, web.........

 

[lchris21]

Been acquiring some bits from the local breakers.............some of them might even fit together????
Mix in a Triumph front wheel with a set of Yamaha R1 forks, connect them to some GSXR triple clamps, add in a Kawasaki back wheel and its looking a million times better than the original bike already.

The bits are just thrown in for the time being, bit of head scratching on modification to get them to work together first................that's part of the fun



Even had some new bits.....all the way from Thailand..........Customs man took his Xmas bonus though before they delivered it

 

[DrNik]

That will look really good when it's done, I remember as a kid one of the magazines did a cb400/4 into a cafe racer..... I was in love

 

[Wallace]

I like it, I have an MZ sat here needing the same treatment.

 

[DrNik]

Mz........ ???? Wasn't that those bikes that had a really flat head, Russian or something like that

 

[Splatterer]

Would anyone be kind enough to give me the make/ model of the workshop stand in the above posts, please.
I'm needing one anyway, so one with pre designed useful mods would be on the shopping list.
Thanks.

 

[Wallace]

Mz........ ???? Wasn't that those bikes that had a really flat head, Russian or something like that

East German and yes it has a big square cylinder head.

 

[julianthegypsy]

East German and yes it has a big square cylinder head.

And don't forget the exhaust pipe that was about four feet long, designed for mowing down bus queues!

 

[lchris21]

wow......its been nearly 10 months since the last update....Lets hope the bike goes a bit quicker when its done !!!

This a long term winter project for me, so work re-commenced ready for the winter 2014 stint.

Have been making some progress....honest

Begining of this year and end of last seasons build ended up with a lot of head scratching and trawling the web for info on what will fit with what.....

As a reminder, its a Yamaha Tr1 frame, Suzuki GSXR triple clamps, Yamaha R1 forks, with a Triumph front wheel...............I likes a challenge.

I manged to find some brake calipers that would not foul the spokes on the front wheel. These came off a Honda Blackbird.........just need some Kawasaki bits and I've got the full house on the font end then

Lit bit of jiggery pokery with the lathe and a bit of 21st century stuff with a 3D printer and all is looking good up front. GSXR Front end triple clamps now sits nicely in its tapered roller races, and the mock-up brake caliper brackets should work great. I'll be making them out of Aluminium though as i don't feel the plastic will last

Next it was onto the shock. The original one is a bit too heavy and is totally knackered. So a bit of a rummage round the bike breakers came up with an alternative. Its out of an early Yam R6 sportsbike, so should give me a bit more options when it comes to fiddling with the settings. The mounting points were different to the original, plus the overall length is shorter. I fabricated a nice chunky bit of box section with a welded in bush to shift the mount. Just tacked in at the moment to get it on its wheels.

Next headache was the rear wheel. Tried various different options, different diameters, rim widths. In the end I settled for the rear off a Triumph Thunderbird cruiser. Its just the right size with my choice of tyre width. Again its not just a straight plug and play job, the cush drive and sprocket carriers is out of a completely different Triumph model to get as close to the sprocket offset and wheel alignment as I can. There's a few mods planned to enable to alignment to be spot on, but it should go in there nicely.

First time on its "new" wheels......

 

[F.J.]

That will look really good when it's done, I remember as a kid one of the magazines did a cb400/4 into a cafe racer..... I was in love

My brother has just bought a cb 400 to turn into a cafe racer or scrambler. As I'll be doing most of the work I'll be doing a thread on it when his garage is clear enough

 

[CRB]

East German and yes it has a big square cylinder head.

?How dare he Wallace?

I will be into my archives if you would like an idea for the MZ-R as featured in Bikes' Readers' Rides a long time ago. I do remember it had the clocks modified with Mickey Mouse faces.

I will see what I can find.


Ichris21, looking super, just my vintage too.

 

[Wallace]

You have to forgive him, he's a Dr! It do look good. Is the tank GRP?