woensdag 29 december 2010

virago update

Yep, we've been working on the Virago again. Started of by going to the deep south of our country, Brabant, which is almost Africa, for a new starter motor. So we finally have a working starter motor again now. We quickly adapted the side stand so it doesn't have to lean on a block of wood the whole time and fired up the bike. The exhaust system with rings that worked so well on the Suzuki worked marvelously on the XV too. It runs better on both cylinders now we have restricted the flow in the much shorter rear exhaust.

We had hoped to take it for a first decent test ride and although I (for some reason it's always me who has to do the first ride, tells you a bit about the confidence Vincent has in our building skills) broke the previous record of 5 meters, the final 7 meters weren't very impressive. The bike kept dying after running for roughly 20 seconds. It did that every time, very annoying. We excluded fuel and battery problems, but we're not sure yet what the problem is.

After draining the battery in all the attempts we took it back into the shed and did some other vital work (like making a whole new throttle set up, the old one was CRAP and we didn't have very much control over the revs). All in all a mixed result. No test ride yet, but in the end we did have the feeling that we made progress.

The carburetor that caused so many problems yesterday:


The exhaust fumes were getting to someone's head while trying to do a test ride:




maandag 27 december 2010

Floris' 1off Bol d'or freestyle racer

I've posted this bike on this blog before, but Floris has decided to make it even cooler, so I'll just have to post it again. Stunning bike, love the out of the box thinking on this build.




Builders website: http://www.florisvelthuis.com/

vrijdag 24 december 2010

When this bike builder get's bored

The garden is still covered in snow, so no bike building here. We have worked on the Virago, but we spend most of our time on the new startermotor that turned out not to work either. Wast of money and time.

The only thing left to do was play around a bit with metal pieces I had kept (never throw away metal).



Hope to be able to go back to bike building soon, but the weather forecast doesn't look very good :(

maandag 20 december 2010

Look what found it's way back into my garden

It's Zoran's KZ400. The photo obviously isn't from today, but it's here in the garden. I made a new wiring loom for it this summer, now I'm going to do some of the finishing touches like making brackets for the lights/license plate, finding a place for the battery and some more stuff.

Before you start think that I've gone commercial: The deal is that Zoran will only pay for the materials I use. I can't afford a new project myself, but I really like having something around that I can work on. So this way it's a win-win.

donderdag 16 december 2010

Very cool Virago cafe


Came across this photo on Chopperstyle. Best looking Virago I've seen so far!

R60/6 cafe by Pbeckm





I was sure I had already posted this bike on this blog, but looking back in the history I must have forgot. Shame on me. I sure as hell had planned to post it, because I love it. It's another BMW cafe on ADV rider. It's a little different, but very, very impressive. Love the styling, looks like a hell of a lot of fun to ride. Kudos for Bpeckm for this bike!

The build thread here.

woensdag 15 december 2010

Spot the differences:




Let me Help: New rear wheel (with a 130 tire instead of a 120), passenger pegs and the timing cover on the side of the engine. The wheel was the last big hurdle, now I just have to wait for new jets for the carbs before I can really start using the bike.


maandag 13 december 2010

Rear view

Some day I'll get a better looking mirror. It has no priority though.

zondag 12 december 2010

zaterdag 11 december 2010

It works.

Yep, it works. Had to test it, even though the roads are a bit messy. testing went mostly fine. It's not running smooth enough in the lower rpm ranges and it wasn't charging properly, but it works. I'll have a look at the carbs this week and I already seem to have fixed the charging problem, though I will have to keep an eye on it. It barely gets up to 14v at the mid and higher RPM ranges with the lights on and it drains the battery a little while idling and just above idle.


Next on the list is finding a new rear wheel. Shouldn't be too hard.

woensdag 8 december 2010

Got the seat back!

The postman had a package for me yesterday. My seat. Raymond has made it exactly as I had asked him to which by itself is already pretty impressive. I love how it turned out. Fits right, sits right and I think the gamble with the color turned out very nice. No more talking. Photo's:



Again: If you need a seat, Raymond is your guy for surprisingly little money. For spam-email reasons I won't put his contact data here, but if you're interested, send me an email and I'll get you in touch with him.

zaterdag 4 december 2010

Snow

Yep. snow. Lot's of it. Not only ruined my plans for tonight, it also makes working on the bike impossible, I keep loosing all my tools... 


It should start thawing soon, so hopefully the melt water will also take away all the salt they've been spraying on the roads. Hopefully.


But since you're reading this anyway: Can I get your attention for this please:


Cafe Racer TV is trying to raise awareness on this great cause. Please take your time to read the post and spread the word!


woensdag 1 december 2010

Dicovery Channel Cafe RacerTV Bike of the week!

How cool is this?

Cafe RacerTV bike of the week!!!


A welcome to the people that fond my blog trough the Cafe Racer TV website!!

I already wrote a short introduction on the bike of the week page, I'll do it a little more elaborately here. 


My bike building addiction started with this bike:


It's a Honda CX500 I bought together with a friend. We turned it into this:


It turned out so much better than expected! 


The next project came when my girlfriend wanted a bike for herself (I was still riding my first bike at the time, a Yamaha YZF750). We found a CX500 in mint condition (only about 18.000 miles on it!) in parts in a shed somewhere. I turned it into a mild cafe so I could easily return it to it's original state (my girlfriend insisted on that):


All this could only lead to one thing: Me selling my Yamaha to build a bike for myself. I decided to go for a wrecked BMW R80. It was a wreck, but it was cheap, had upgraded suspension and a 1000 cc engine.


I turned it into the bike that is now the bike of the week.






In the mean time I'd also bought a Yamaha XV920 Virago together with the same Guy I build the CX500 Chopper with. 

It's not finished yet, but we're getting close to the first test ride...




It didn't end there.... I'm an addict, so I had to build something after finishing the CX500 and the BMW. The Virago is a bike we build with the two of us and we can't work on it as often as we'd want to, so I bought another project for myself. A Suzuki SP370.


Another ULTRA low budget project. When it was finished I liked it, but didn't love it. Mainly because a 400cc Thumbert is just not big enough for me 6'7 frame.


So I sold it and bought a Honda CB750, the bike you can see me building on the last couple of pages of this blog.

Before I bought it:


And as it is now:



Thank you for your visit. Hope you like the blog! Also a BIG thanks to the people of Discovery Channel and the guys of Dime City Cycles!!