movements on your screen

I got the Honda hardtail rolling today and rode it home from the shop, all seemed to go well apart from one of the carbs sticking open and dumping a wee bit of fuel, as it's been stood a wile it was expected but nothing a slam from a hard object didn't fix. I wrapped the exhausts white too cause I had some hanging around, also, I have some old BMX handlebars that bolted on and they looked freaking sweet, they do need to be wider so I may pop down the bike shop tomorrow to see if they have any appropriate sized ones for the job, if not I'll just cut and weld the ones I've got wider. I found an old video I did on my computer maybe a year ago or so, just thought I'd share it for a bit of a laugh.

A little bit of good and some very bad

Ok, firstly it seems that I've fixed my new lil bike 'HH', the regulator/rectifier seems to be at fault, that is gone and a fresh-un is on the throne and the battery is currently being re-soaked with billions of atoms of energy. good.

Now the bad, Richard died this week, this is his Harley. Rest in peace dude. My respects go out to Mandy at his time.

Time flys

Its seriously been that long since the last post? well, here's a couple of photos to get you up to speed. There's been a old Dodge pickup truck, runs to the Ace cafe in London, crazy scooter chops and stuffed toys, ALOT of them. I'll come back tomorrow with something substantial when it isn't early in the morning as I gotta work tomorrow....

sorry, so very sorry.

ok, I know, its been beyond months since I've been here. I'm very sorry. There are two excuses for this, one, I started uni and two, I started working for Battistinis. well the first year of uni went well and I finished that 3 weeks ago or so and as I'm at Battistinis now I've down graded my workshop to a little garage thats closer as I get less time to spend there now and work on my own bikes. BUT, I have been working on this little beauty...

but anyways, I'll keep you updated on this 1971 triumph and the other work I'm doing at battistinis from now on I promise....

check out battistinis here: www.battistinis.co.uk and come on down to our open weekend this weekend coming, 26th and 27th June.

I'm gonna be relaying some old tech documents for you over time that may be helpfull...
Just click on the images to enlarge

The love and death of motorcycle building

To love to build and ride motorbikes is in no comparison table like the love of a girlfriend. Undeniably I love my girlfriend with no ounce of hate becoming involved whatsoever but with motorbikes it is somewhat different.
I can be in love with the build, even reciting poetry to it as we develop our relationship towards the crescendo of the sucking of air and the exit of carbon and all of a sudden it acts like a fucking bitch.
Firstly I have never before set the timing up wrong so the engine will ram the pistons into the valves and whilst we're on a magical tour of a nightmare like state I have never, within a matter of mere seconds afterwards, dropped a bike with a freshly painted frame onto a motorbike lift causing the meeting of metal that should never have met.

Hate. A very fine line between that and love which I have fluttered across today without the stealth of a tightrope walker.

mounting the engine in the frame

I had a couple of minor battles with the cam chain this morning but I eventually won after a few false starts. Also got the engine in without destroying the frame which is quite a feat when your by yourself.

blocks and laquer

The cafe-racer engine blocks have been re-assembled, only got to get that FUCKING cam-chain back on. The bain of my life everytime. other than that a couple more coats of cream were applied to the frame and 2 coats of laquer, I'll apply a couple more tomorrow but as you can see from the photo you only can do so much without an extraction unti before you get concerned about the vapours igniting!

de-tabbed

Today saw the complete clean up of the frame, i.e. grinding flush the un-used tabs and the remaining paint and putting a couple of coats of primer on so no surface rust appears. Also broke the fibreglassed rear end off its mould so all is looking sweet there. Annoyingly I won't be in until wednesday so it'll just have to sit there annoying me to get done until then.

lucky 13?

Today I ripped the engine out of the frame and took everything else off too, stripped the frame of paint and fibreglassed the rear section. sounds productive ay? well, for once it felt like it was. score.
I have given myself until the 20th November to finishe this so that leaves me 13 days, thats right a total of 15 day strip and rebuild. crazy beans but it can be done.

I'm gonna murder you

All that happened today was I went from this:













to this:


















all because at some point during the last 30 years someone put the wrong bolts inside the engine. moron.

getting the hump

A fair amount of the un-neccesary frame work has been cut from the cafe racer and the new tank put on, removed the clocks and also ordered a smaller headlight and the arms to hold it. Most of the afternoon was taken up with making the tail section and seating mould ready to be fibre-glassed (many thanks to karen & wayne for their help).
Plans for this bike include :

• Upgrading the front end to double discs
• Re-build the engine due to gasket leaks and polish ports etc during re-build
• fit lower bars
• move electrics to centre of the bike
• make aliminium rear sets (footpegs and associated levers)
• make twin stub exhausts
• make a lighter and more attractive chain cover

For more photos of the build look at the photo album on facebook titled 'cafe racer'

bits and bobs

The Avenger has had a couple of little peices completed now from the gear linkages being complete to the rear mudguard struts being finished now the next major peice is to mount the exhaust. I've obtained the girders for the frame jig to start making full bike frames now. And here is a picture of the next project about to start, here we have a '79 Honda CB which some will recognise as my own hack until recently. This over the next couple of months will benifit from a engine re-build with some tricks installed and a lil bit of customising to become a cafe racer.

cnc plasma machine is go and Poker Guards

- insert bollocks justification here as to why no direct work has been done on any motorbike - but aside from that the cnc plasma design is coming on with a honking success. I have picked out and priced up all the frame work, finalised on a rack and pinion drive for each axis but trying to find out the potential benefits of a roller pinion system over the conventional and whether the probable extra cost is justified. If anyone has any thoughts or input on this I'd be most appreciative. I've also found the drive units to run the stepper motors and it is surprisingly cheap, the software that it'll be running on is Mach 3. But before anything is purchased I shall be popping down to see the guru of such things Mr Stuart this weekend for him to look over my designs and see if he can spot any potential disasters. The ratitude finishes in a couple of days from now and I'm pleased with its current success on ebay as I didn't put much effort in, all I gotta do now is figure out where the other end of the expansion tank is meant to be...

On a side note, I good friend of mine is making these great looking poker chip guards for your evenings activities, they are made from solid brass and have a great surface finish and what is even better is they can come with whatever you like milled ontop! I think for £15 a piece they are a bargain. check them out here - Poker Chip Guard

clip on bars

Not much work has been done on the Avenger recently as I've had to be getting the ratitude ready for ebay, buying a few other hacks (a Yamaha Maxim 750 & Yamaha Seca 750) and preparing to take my stock 1979 Honda CB550 off the road to be cafe racered for next spring, my inspiration being Stonebridge Motor Company's bike called 'little miss dynamite'.

Anyways, I have put the clip on handlebars onto the Avenger and I have been nibbling at the gear linkage's again but just to prove I havn't been kicking back I have also been sorting out the workshop even further as more and more gets rammed into the ever enclosing space.

Above and beyond all that the Iron Monkey Store has also been starting to roll in preperation for its currently un-dated launch.

I know this hasn't been updated for a little while but things have been going on. The gear linkage on the Avenger is 3/4 complete now so the linkage takes the suicide clutch over to the right hand side of the bike, the front on is complete and attached to the bike after it having to be dismantled for a extra sleeve for the lower bearing. The regal raptor is 3/4 back together and looking very shiny indeed and the rat only needs one more clip for the tank and a battery and they'll both be put on evil-bay on friday. Also, some other behind the scenes business activities have been set into motion for some (not too far in the) future aftermarket parts to be available.

footpegs & handlebars

This morning we located and fixed the electrical fault that was stopping ratitude from starting, knowing that was ok I then rushed off to a kind gentleman who goes by the name of stuart. Located within his workshop is a fantastic old Wilson Lathe. No newish lathe is anything like an old one, the old ones you cant really break, the new ones will fall apart in your hands and Wilson sure had lots of character. Inbetween the chuck seizing tight due to a lack of oil I turned the footpegs with grooves for o-rings to sit in for grip and bored out the handlebar grips. I'll turn the outside diameter of the grips tomorrow as I have to dash off to dinner with family tonight but shall complete tomorrow morning and check out how they look, sweet.

nothing much but paper shuffling happened today but I took some photos of the Avenger for you all to enjoy of the first layer of paint.

The only other thing is this site I recommend called Bike EXIF, it has a different (mainly) custom bike everyday by some real top class dogs but not your mainstream stuff. They do favour their cafe-racers and classics but its good to flick to each day for some fresh input, check it out here - www.bikeexif.com

a little bit of this, a little bit of that

this afternoon I was doing a little more work on ratitude, I turned the exhaust around and re-routed them to sit in a more agressive and suitable position. Also, I welded a couple of cross frames and securely attached the rear fender and fired the thing up. She started with relative ease as it's been sat for some time now. I finished welding the fuel inlet and tank and also decided two other smaller ones would suit sitting each side of the main tank also, it just seems right. The Avenger's first colour, nato green, has been put painted on by Wayne of Dirty Fish and next will be the lettering on the side of the tank, the rust and then laquer. I would have taken photos of it but I got distracted stripping one of keiths bikes with him which on re-sale should fund our new lathe so it was a worthy distraction.

here's nothing at all

today has been pretty un-eventful. I spent most of the day waiting on the lovely establishment we refer to as banks with no success whatsoever. awesome, thanks guys. so I popped down the workshop late afternoon to meet a chap who came to measure up an engine I'm ebaying to see if it'll squeeze into a frame he has. so between the chap, brushing up and generally shifting bikes around I took a quick picture of the current state of the ratitude for you to enjoy. In this photo here you can see the fire extinguisher tank that I have shortened to look more appropiate and the petrol cap I have started making. I've cut the hole and tack welded the tube in and cut two location holes for aki's old piston to be the cap cover and using one of aki's (yes he frequents, er, frequently) old chains to make sure it doesn't get lost when filling up at a station. I also crudely mounted a speedometer onto the side as I do believe crude is the term with rat bikes. does anyone have a old rat toy I can seperate from them to donate towards the project? I feel it may be suitable. Also, I now have a suitable project for this sticker I picked up some time ago now as I knew it would be good sometime...