PROJECT CX: prep, paint, and assembly

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It's very rare I have a full weekend to spend in the garage. Between work, freelance, fixing the car and spending time with the girlfriend, it's often hard to find the time I want to spend. Luckily this past weekend I was able to convince the girlfriend to help me in the garage so....two birds.

All of Saturday was disassembly. We ran a few new cables, but otherwise it was all about removal.
About 8 hours of it.
Sunday I started making some forward progress. The day started with a can of Aircraft Stripper. That stuff is all kinds of awesome. Paint separates from the metal like oil and vinegar. My throats a bit groggy today from inhaling it, and metallic dust, but the pieces came out pretty good I think.


The initial goal was to re-paint them black, however I felt that the brushed finish fit more with the overall feel of the bike.


Next I disassembled the forks for a rebuild, cleaned them up, and hit them with some satin black paint.


The Posh grips I picked up are transparent, so the underlying color can cause the grip color to vary. To prevent this from happening, I sprayed the throttle and bar end to match.


I chose gray instead of black because I wanted to keep the grips a bit lighter so they popped more.

Here's the current state of the bike...and my mangled garage. Next steps will be to clean that place up a bit. I'm the kind of person who like's working in a heap of tools and parts.

DAILY INSPIRATION: taimoshan super cafe racer

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It's Friday! So to you, I bring something special. The Taimoshan Cycle Works "Super Cafe Racer," belonging to John Pellew.

"Starting with a blank piece of paper it was our intention to create a bike to represent an iconic design from the 1960’s Glory years of the Ace Cafe, Isle of Mann TT, mods, rockers, black leather jackets and the best of the modern era smooth fuel injection power, huge brakes, fancy suspension, light controls and razor sharp handling, the result was Taimoshan the “Super Cafe Racer.”



No detail was spared on this build. The biggest challenge they faced was cramming a modern water cooled V-Twin engine (sourced from the Aprilia RSV), and all of it's electronics and accessories, into a Norton featherbed-esque frame that was originally meant to house a single cylinder 500cc air cooled motor.



But how would they be able to retain that bare bones vintage look with such modern performance? Where would all those wires and electronics go on such a stark naked frame?

"...after hundreds of hours of designing and planning and re-designing  only a trained eye could tell that within the envelope of the beautifully polished Manx tank lay an “in tank” electric fuel pump, a huge set of fuel injected throttle bodies, electronic ignition, full engine computer and management system, ancillary management computer, a massive wiring loom with in-excess of 65 wires and a host of other tricky bits of electronics."



The end result is a beautiful collision of 2 great era's.  

For a complete run down of this build and the copious amounts of engineering and design that went into it, visit Taimoshan's build page.



 


DAILY INSPIRATION: blue blitz z650

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The crew over at Blitz Motorcycles in France have released another build, this time taking the wrench to a 1977 Kawasaki Z650. There's a very defined trend of 'raw yet refined' vintage bike building that's been steadily growing over the past few years, and Blitz, along with Wrenchmonkees, seem to be leading the way. This "Blue Blitz" is yet another prime example.



The "raw" aesthetic can be seen through the early model beat up tank, chop-welded custom exhaust, and vintage bicycle head and tail lights.




The "refined" approach is usually in the details or in unseen areas of the bike, such as the motor, which got a complete rebuild. Blitz went through the engine and threw in new crankshaft bushings, metal connecting rods, piston rings, valves, generator, regulator, and ignition coils. Time and money is spent in the right places, while still giving an overall evolved-rat-rod feel.





Although don't just think you can rebuild an engine and throw some rusted parts on your bike and be on par with these folks. To bring it all together there needs to be a cohesive overall message to the bike. This is one thing Blitz and the Monkees do exceptionally well. Blitz was able to tie in a very contrasting theme for this Kawa. The basis of the bike is done in dark grays / blacks against stark bright whites. They were able to get a strong differentiation between the mass of the bike, yet still were able to get the blue's in the tank and grips to pop.

The matte white powder coating of the wheels and fork tubes were matched to the high-temp matte coating of the exhaust and custom muffler.




Mini switches, refined wiring, and smaller gauges were fitted up front on to some Triumph T140 bars.



I'm excited to see future builds from these guys, and where the vintage builder community takes and modifies this new approach.

DAILY INSPIRATION: anvil motociclette cb750

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Below is one of the first builds to come out of Anvil Motociclette's Italian based garage. The bike is a CB750 at heart, nicknamed Selvatica - Italian for "wild." Designers / Builders San Marco Filios and Alessandro Phonz Fontanesi meant for this bike to embody the feeling they received after mounting their very first motorcycles back at a young age.



Marco describes that the main feeling behind the bike should be stripped and bare - a very minimalist and Italian approach. The choked up forks and blacked out shocks serve up quite an appealing stance. 


 The bent steel fender, fairing and seat pan also provide a very raw aesthetic - however I'm not sure how comfortable that could be. Marco, having been an art director and tailored apparel designer, seems to suffer from the Designer Philosophy most of us are plagued with - Form Over Function.



 

For more information on these builders and what they're up to, visit their blog, or view the recent interview hosted on Pipeburn.

DAILY INSPIRATION: blitz sr500

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As inspiration to a friend of mine inquiring about an SR500 currently...I bring you this SR500 done by the folks over at Blitz Motorcycles.



It doesn't take much at all to make these bikes look great. Here's the run-down from Blitz on what it takes to get the above results:

Hancrafted tail frame
Black powder coated painting of the wheels
Simplified electric wiring 
Motorcycle lowered by 1 3/4 inches
Hancrafted tank (www.sportsratster.com)
Thermo wrapping of the exhaust pipe
Cambell exhaust muffler
Bates headlight
Miller taillight

Run the pricing on those parts and you're looking at one hell of a pretty looking, budget build.