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

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

Wow 6 months gone......time to kickstart this thread for the Winter 2016 build season. With the long winter nights soon to be upon us, its time to get back in the garage. Plan is to try and get this thing on the road for Spring 2016......

Managed to get some smallish jobs done over the summer, and made a start painting, powder coating and cleaning up stuff.

First up was the shock for a makeover...

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

Made a start stripping down wheels, frame, brackets etc ready for powdercoating.

Overall was happy with the results, but the coater had a problem with the wheel rims. They were pretty poorly pitted, and needed doing twice. I was still not happy with them so have decided to flat them back, fill in the pitting with some polyester filler, prime and wet paint them myself.....

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

Was never 100% happy with the seat "look" as its got a bit of a "Bobber" look about it, so decided to make a seat cowl from fiberglass. This will be painted the same colour as the tank and should give it more of the cafe look I'm after.........

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

knocked up a few brackets to hold it in place when its fitted, then glassed them in place. Ready for its first rub down after filling....

Wallace · Sep 20, 2015

Very nice, I'm starting to hate you!

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

Next onto the tank.............This had been dropped several times during the fabrication work so was looking in a sorry state. Its been the single most time consuming part of the build, and its still not painted !!!! filing, sanding, filling, sanding, repeat............

Also messed around with the Yamaha speed-block pattern I'm planning on using for the paint job. Plan is to paint it myself, something I've never done from scratch. Just used normal rattle cans for the odd repair job over the years, but I've got the gun and paint ready to give it a go....

Shox Dr · Sep 20, 2015

lchris21 said:
this bad-boy will not see rain..............

otherwise the horn/main beam could be a distraction for fellow motorists when they short out !!!

Nice bike Chris. :waving:

Will you ride it at night? If so have you thought of running on a daylight MOT, rids the bike of a lot of cables, and lights :laughing:

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

Cheers Shox................think it needs lights to complete the look??? Saying that, I'm not looking forward to the wiring, plus its all got to be done from scratch, and electrics are not my favourite subject :doh:

dobbslc · Sep 20, 2015

Nice work I love the look of freshly powder coated parts.
I'm still (slowly) working on my XV 750 cafe......
What size rims do you have?

CRB · Sep 20, 2015

Getting there, :cool:

The evil that is FB does have some positives when it comes to information gathering.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Spez.fahrwerke/search/?query=TR1

lchris21 · Sep 20, 2015

cheers................19" front, 16". Both Triumph, front off a Tiger, rear off a Thunderbird...

lchris21 · Oct 11, 2015

Phew........I hate bodywork. Hats off to those who do it for a living !!! This is my first big painting job from bare metal, its been a steep learning curve and many hours getting it right.

More progress on tank. Finally finished all the filling, sanding, filling malarkey. manged to get some colour on it with some advice from over on the paint fourm. Overall I'm happy with it as it was my first attempt at painting with a "real" gun.

Had a few sleepless nights with the colour though, kept changing my mind every couple of minutes!!!! Finally decided on red. Its all flatted back ready waiting for some decals to be printed then its ready for the clear-coat.............The tank has been a long old haul :doh:

lchris21 · Oct 11, 2015

Spent most of today polishing back the paint on the wheel rims. They were in a pretty poor state after they were blasted for powder coating as they'd been outside for a few years. lots of pitting. 2 x attempts at powder coating was still not happy. So I painted them myself a few months back and began the laborious task of polishing the paint.

Coo · Oct 13, 2015

Great work !

lchris21 · Oct 13, 2015

thanks............

lchris21 · Oct 18, 2015

got the decals on and the clearcoat...............just got to wait for it to harden for a while before flatting and compounding.

Overall its been a long old drag with the tank, steep learning curve for my first paint job, but It should be worth it when its polished up...