Projects & Restorations RSS

Les has changed his 650 Bross (RC31) a few times over the years but has always liked the "flat tracker" look. He asked us to create his bike and started us off with the seat unit. The first job was to remove the unwanted parts to enable the new framework etc, seems like a lot of spare bits!

Jims big bore kit has got through customs at last and should be with us soon. We will show you how we go on fitting it next week!

After the success of the W650 Cafe,  Bill from Culcheth  asked me to make him one. After a bit of looking around for the donor bike Bill said he fancied it made from a Triumph, so a T140 bike was found and my welder was fired up. Bill wanted it to be drum brakes like the Manx Norton so I picked up some conical hubs built them into ally rims and fitted modern TT100 tyres (from SMD Leigh) I managed to find  a brand new set of forks and yokes to match the conical hub front wheel. (Ebay, but not...

I cut up a damaged W650 and created this Cafe Racer. (The Triumph in the picture is featured Later) The Idea was to make a classic cafe racer but with modern engine, brakes and electrics. The project was created for Kevin at Bikesmart motorcycle training in Wigan, who wanted to get the seat height as low as possible so his wife Jannet could also ride it in comfort. I sent the wheels to Jeff at KB Wheels in Bolton who rebuilt the wheels with 17" rims. which gave me the added bonus of a better choice of tyres as well...

The beast lives, it started up straight away with no fuss. A nice smell of "castrol R" for some reason? and a lovely tone to the exhaust, a lot quieter than I expected. I ran her for a few minutes to get it up to temperature, then let her cool down so I can re-torque  the head nuts and check for oil leaks etc. Dave has fitted the harness and wired most of it up, I will finish the wiring off when I do the re-torque. If you want to hear it running, gently for now, see below.