The Virago in motion

Video didn't work out completely as planned, so we will have to do it again.

Virago update

It's been a while. Vincent managed to make something that's even louder than the Virago: A child. Cool kid though, Max.

Anyway: That was the reason for not working on the Virago and the SR500 for such a long time. I found a manual for our carb online, so I really wanted to give the Virago a tune up, while Vincent had some work to do on his Ducati.

I took the CB to get there, so we had quite a nice collection of bikes sitting in the sunlight.

Time to take the bikes for a test ride and of course: The Virago broke down (it only ran on 1 cylinder). As usual: it had nothing at all to do with anything else but bad luck: The rear spark plug didn't spark anymore. Every time the Virago has a problem we immediately start suspecting our home made inlet manifold and the carb and everytime it is something else.... (air hose, fuel problem, rubber inlet etc...) 

Anyway: the Virago ran very well and the Duc still has some work left on it.

Bikes at the Vehikel swap meet (March 2012)

I needed to get the BMW up to temperature to set the timing (see the previous blog post). At the moment the Vehikel swap meet is going on only a few minutes from my house (see my report from the Vehikel swap meet last December: Vehikel). I don't really need any parts and the entrance is quite expensive, so I just went there to have a look at the bikes parked outside.

Conditions were far from ideal, so the photo's aren't that great, but some of the bikes were really interesting:

The first one: Our Honda CX500 chopper project

I don't remember which one of use started all this, but years and years ago a friend of mine and me decided we wanted to have a go at customizing our own bike. Neither of us had any experience on pretty much anything related to working on bikes, thought Vincent had done some work on a few mopeds.

We wanted to build a chopper, because that looked like the most fun thing to build. Since it was going to be a chopper, we wanted a twin. The problem is: the risk of failure was certainly there, so it had to be really, really, really cheap. We found this Honda CX500:

No need to wonder why it was so cheap.....

Engine, wheels and frame were the only usable parts. Good, they were the only parts we needed.

My first bike is in the background. A Yamaha YZF750 R

This photo proves it: There are bikes out there that are ever uglier than the Virago we used for our second build.

Now we had a bike, we needed the basic tools no bike builder can do without: An Angle grinder and a welder.

Vincent doing some welding

Me doing some grinding

We started off with stripping it:

A naked CX. You can see why the frame feels like rubber when you ride a CX. 

All metal work was new to use, so making a suitable battery box took quite an effort:

Trying to look angry for that 'real bikers look'. Having a great time though. The welder in the left of the photo is probably the most crappy welder ever.

Crappy welder + no skills = A lot of finishing to do. We just started welding with the welder and invented how it works as we went along

The box has a pretty tight fit. The indentation leave just enough space for the air filters. I am proud of how it turned out.

I think we redid the forward controls about 3 times before we were happy with them:

Gear lever: start

Gear lever: Almost finished

The crude set up of the forward controls

I received a lot of questions about the rear fender. It is not a stock fender. I think it originally is a Harley fender, but we changed it quite a bit:

The fender was in a pretty bad shape, but we got it for free.

After a while, things started to take shape:

Cool moments while bike building: Trying out new parts (the tank in this case) and instantly realizing it looks exactly how you wanted it to look on the bike.

But new rear springs and a Kawasaki handle bar changed the look to the final look:

I et a lot of quisteions about the mufflers. I dont know where they are from, I just know they are made for a Harley. They work fine on the Honda too.

You can see the airfilters sticking out sideways here. we had to scratch that idea, it disrupted the airflow too much. We later also changed the tail light. We learned by trial and error and had a great time doing so.

The first test rides. Memorable moments in any bike build.

Usually I am way too big for bikes. On this one it doesn't look too bad.

Time for paint:

Painting is by far the most dreaded part of a bike build for me. 

And the final result:

As a first build, I think we were very successful in creating what we wanted: A styklish bike without going over the top. It got us both hooked on building bikes.

A list with most of the changes (I will have forgotten a few):

- Mustang tank (modified)

- Kawasaki handlebars

- Exhaust with H-box (home made)

- Harley Mufflers

- Ural seat

- Harley fenders (modified)

- Suzuki Savage rear suspention

- Heinkel (?) Headlight (modified)
- Headlight brackets (modified)

- Aftermarket tail light

- After market brake pump

- Emco air filters

- Old warm water bottle for cooling fluid

- Home made forward controls and linkage system

- Home made battery and electrics box

- electrics (modified)

- Handlebar mirror (home made)

- Frame (modified)

- Oil breather system (modified)

- Tank brackets (home made)

- Triple trees

- Risers

- Cockpit (home made)

- Tank and electrics box emblems (home made)

- And quite a few more mods, not all are visible.

Virago

That's it.

That's it. That's it for the photo's I made of the Virago last Tuesday, but that's also it for the Virago build. It's finished. We had to look it up, but we bought the Virago at the end of 2008 and now it's finished. It was the second build Vincent and I did together and we're both very happy with the result.

When we set out, we wanted a more radical bike that had a better finish than our first bike and would be more thought out. (For instance: To remove the saddle of the cx500 chopper, our first build, you had to disassemble about half the bike). The photo's won't show you that it is better thought out, but believe me, it is. I'm pretty sure the photo's do show that the bike is more radical. We were never sure the carb would work, but it does. So do the exhausts. Raking it did not make the handling dangerous and hardtailing it did not make it uncomfortable. It amazes me every time we start it. Now on to the next build!!

The bike as we bought it. Bikes don't get much uglier than that!

2 minutes after we started on it :)

Starting on the inlet manifold

We made the inlet manifold out of old car exhausts that we got for free out of the waste bin of the local Kwik Fit store

We used the carburetor of a classic car (Opel Kadet B)

Construction of the side fairing. We used material we got at the local old iron dump. The problem with that is that it's not always the most suitable. The metal plate we used here is about 3mm thick and MAN was it hard to get it into the right shape. The spring under the seat also came from the same place. We later replaced it with the leave springs of an MG-B classic car that we got for free too.

Making the exhausts was on of the most fun things we did on this build

With the Virago being a Virago, the starter gave us quite a bit of trouble.

We made the rear light entirely ourself. We shaped the alu on the lathe and soldered every LED. The latter was a bit of a pita and we had to do it again because someone (not me ;p) blew them up at the first try.

We really like the result!! 

The electrics were a mess, so we did it all over again, from scratch.


The very first test ride. It actually all works!

Welding......

Tinkering

More welding.... (glad we replaced that welder half way through the build, it was pretty crappy) 

The forward controls are home made too.

One of the first test rides. Always exciting!

The end result exceeds what we thought we could ever do