11/2/05

So I started with a '73 TX650 that already had one owner who wished it would become a cafe racer, but never finished the job. He had put new Megaphone mufflers, different forks accepting dual disk brakes, trimmed the rear fender, stipped the bike of anything that involves a passenger, added streetbike modern turn signals, and added clubman bars. The bike is a 650 twin cylinder, with 53 HP. When it idles, and revs, it sounds angry, and it revs to 10K redline! First off, big thank you to Graham for letting me store this in his Garage for the winter while at school.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but besides the ones of the bike outside, the rest will probably just be taken with my phone, then I'll take some nice ones when I am done.

This is the condition I received the bike

So far I have been replacing neccesary parts, even though I will have to dissasemble the entire bike to clean and paint the frame. I put a new chain and sprockets, a Big Foot chifter lever for my size 12's, new rear shocks, a nice chrome handlebar clam top, a new chrome horn, and new grips, and of course, new spark plugs. I also replaced all the lower engine hardware with new chrome pieces, and have the full chrome engine fastener kit, which will be done wen the bike is apart. Also, all the elctrical connections were checked.

I cleaned the rear hub the other day, it was black, now the perfectly preserved aluminum can be seen.

Things I have yet to do or acquire are, painting, make a seat and rear cowl, add a nice small tail light, fork seals (which I need to first find out what the forks are from), mirrors, jet coat, header wrap or chrome my muffler pipes, new illuminated white faced mini tach and speedo, fix the horn button, fork boots, add an oil cooler. I may powder coat the rims and respoke them with stainless spokes. The front fender will be trimmed in length, and I may add a fork connector, which stiffens the front end a bit in corners, as well as a steering damper, which is for racing and sidecars, and I may be involved in both. Plus it will look crazy.

Other ongoing tasks include, dual front disk, rear disk (I have a TX750 front wheel hub, which I will put a disk on one side, and a sprocket on a custom machined space on the other side), you may say that a front hub cant take the force, but remember, stopping acceleration from braking force exceeds acceleration from an engine, which means....if the hub can be used for brakes, it can be used for driving. Of course, the added torque from the offset will most likely have to be accountes for with another bearing on the sprocket side. Once that is complete, I'll just spoke up a new wheel, and add the disk brake.

The frame is going to be either black, or a gun-metal, the tank and other colored parts wll be the stock color. However, there will be no emblems, so it will look nice and clean.

The old school air filters will most likely be replaced with new K&N Cone Filters, and I may ditch the side covers, and hide the battery up in the seat cowl.

This is what I am aiming for, but with air filters.

This is the original look.

These are the K&N cone filters

The Future Rear Hub

Its not much more work to do, I am just glad I dont have to fully restore a lot on the bike. It came to me in amazing condition, considering it is 1.5 times my age, the main task is to get everything apart, cleaned painted or polished, and reassembled, and add some bells and whistles, then ride in the spring.

This will be my first street motorcycle. I have owned to 125 2-stroke dirtbikes before this.

12/4/05

So the bike is now in a few boxes and lots of labelled ziplock bags. Graham and I tackled the tear down in about 2-3 hours.

This is the bike before we started taking it apart.

So, there was this random statue of a knight in the garage, and we are trying to find as many functions as possible for it....

The following are tear down pics, they don't need much description.

Here is Graham drinking and driving

The stripped frame and my dad's harley road king in the background.

So I bought a piece of styrofoam at AC Moore for like 7 bucks, so I could make a mold, to make a mold, to make a seat.

It was pretty tough since my bandsaw only opens up to about 8 inches, so I couldn't make cuts the full width of the seat. This required me cuttung everythign into more pieces, but it came out nice in the end. I still have to roudn ot the hump more, but the hard part is done. Then Ihave to use a non destructive (to styrofoam) material to make a mold. I will probably need to use somethign water based like plaster. Styrofoam disintigrates with anything like epoxy.

Pictures of the seat foam process can be sen below.

Here is me holding the almost finshed product. Not bad for my first try.

Other things that I accquired over the last mont are: Another front caliper for dual disk, a rear caliper, another front disk, speedometer and tach, master cylinder, some chain tensioners and a new clutch lever bracket. I also took some random mirror in my box of parts that I like, and made some adjustments so it mounted to my new clutch lever bracket. It looks sick. I also have a rear rim coming, so I can build a rear wheel for disk braking.

I also cut some thing off my frame. I got rid of the center stand mounts, and the pointy things that I think were originally for the passenger footpegs.

Frame without center stand mount or the rear footpeg mounts. Looks better already.

I had my brother clean my carbs because he is all about that stuff. He said they look great.

We also rebuilt the two front calipers, so they are ready for operation.

I have to take the rotor hat on the new caliper and drill the appropriate bolt patter, and make it the proper thickness. Its from a 72 TX, and it has a different way or mounting.

I bought primer for the frame, and I just need to grind down a few more things and degrease/prep it for paint.

After that I will start reassembling the bike, and getthings as needed.

Thats all for now....

1/27/06

Some new pics of the work I did in from December to January...

So I ground some extremities off of the frame to clean it up a bit.

Notice the center stand has ceased to exist.

Hanging the frame for paint.

Frame Painted

Frame Painted again.

Painted swingarm

gnome

Painted bottom triple tree

Painted swingarm again, I need to paint the link that goes to the drum brake as well.

Taking a look at the preliminary seat design with the tank on.

The engine after being cleaned.

New chrome hardware.

All the parts

Swing arm is on.

Piecing it together,

Rear wheel on.

Close up with the fender.

Close up on the rear brake

Front suspension and wheel on the bike

My cutom milled gauge mounts, I made the butterfly bracket from aluminum plate on the milling machine.

One gauge mounted.

Both gauges! It looks awesome.

The whole bar setup.

gramullet

I will add more pictures soon, I did the above work from crhistmas until mid January. The bike is completely assembled now, and the tank and side covers (which I probably wont use) are ready for paint. I am replacing the normal fork ears with polished aluminum headlight mounting brackets, and I am putting a chrome headlight on it. The seat shape has been finalized and I just need to make a mold from it. After that I will be making a fiberglass seat pan and rear cowl, using epoxy. The elctrical work is finally done and everything is wired. I do have to add a few diodes to the blinker indicator line for my speedometer, because there is only one indicator light, and two blinkers, you do the math...I have yet to order my K&N filters, but Feb. is my month! I also need to adjust my carbs due to the increase in airflow when I add those filters. I am preparing to add my oil cooler as well. My friend just got his CNC mill, and I will be milling custom rotor hats for my dual front disk brakes, as well as a rotor hat for the rear brake. Besides that, I just have to tuck all the rear electrical work up under the seat, and get my small sealed battery, and I should be good to go.

3/24/06 - New Updates

Alright, so there hasn't been too much happening, but I have been picking away slowly at the final stages of the bike.

Most of my work lately has been devoted to the making of the seat plug. I finally got the shape I wanted, then starting refining and making it final with bondo. The styrofoam first had to be coated with twho coats of acrylic paint to avoid disintigration. Then I started skimming and sanding. My father put some of his nice fine marine bondo on for a good finish. After 25 hours of sanding the plug was done. Now I still have to make a mold!!! Just a note, figure labels come after the figures. (Its an engineering thing)

Me sanding

The sanded mold with regular bondo

My dad skimming it with fine bondo

The sanded plug

Primed plug

Painted plug

The plug on cardboard and saran wrap. The plug was covered with pam spray and rubbed with a paper towel to keep the plaster from sticking

Applyign the plaster over the plug

A little house to hold the expanding foam

The plaster encased plug

My brothers little house next store to my mold

Covering the mold in expanding foam

FOAM!

The first revealing of the mold

The tank somewhat finished

Got the plug on to take a look at what it will be like!

Note that the fender will be inside the seat cowl when done because it will be a hollow fiberglass shell.

So now I just need to fiberglass the shape and add the padding and leather.

I bought West Marine's west system Epoxy for this.

Graham and I bought leather for both our bike's seats the other day.

I also just recently got my black clutch lever, a new clutch cable, Napolean bar end mirrors, Aluminum headlight brackets, a 7" schore halogen headlight, larger main and pilot jets for my carbs, the second disk and rotor for dual disk in the front, my K&N filter is on the way...its an oval with a double flange. I'll be making two stainless steel tubes to connect it to my carbs.

When the seat is done, I send it out to cousin Paulie for paint and thats the rough stuff done. After that I'll machine my custom rear sets, and some other goodies.

I also got a sample of 22k gold leaf vinyl from my friend for my logos I will be putting on my tank. The tank and seat area will be painted a dark metallic blue.

If I had more time the project would get done quicker, but engineerign school and machining parts for NASA has consumed me. Although, I did get to go skateboarding today, which was glorious.

I also watched a documentary today, which I am very angry about, especially since it seems to be about 99.9% true. Visit my site www.revoltindustries.com for more political stuff...

Thats all for now. Oh, and I ahve a hand drawing Ihave been doing when I am bored in politics class. This is what the bike will look like:

4/22/06 - New Updates

The seat has been fiberglassed, more custom parts, dual disk brakes and more!

The new chrome headlight and the stainless bolts and spacers I made.

Bolt and spacer assembly - 304 Stainless

Double Shoulder Bolt, made to my needs...

My old brake line. I am having new braided stainless lines made for my dual disk in the front!

Fiberglass laid out on the seat plug shape

The shape of the raw fiberglass

Fiberglass in mold with epoxy.

I used the Wet Marine "West System" Epoxy, no VOCs, you dont even need to get stoned when using it!

Glassed

Slightly trimmed

Detailed trimming before it turned to a rock.

The finsihed seat, just needs to be prepared for paint

The seat on the bike, with the mold and plug next to it

Bike again with seat

Forks opened up. Replaced the fork seals, added dust seals, and put good fork oil in.

Napolean bar end mirror

Me on the bike, checking it out

8/20/06 - So I haven't been able to do as much work on the bike as I hoped this summer, however, things are still progressing. By September I hope to have the tank and fibeglass seat painted, and ready to roll. The last remaining tasks are:

Paint; I am probably goign to paint the tank and fiberglass a dark metallic blue, similar to the new Kawasaki bikes, and BMW uses a similar color on their cars.

Exhaust; custom stainless pipes, increasing diameter to 1.75"

Tail Light; making an enclosure for the modern yamaha dual light with integrated flashers

Seat bracket and battery box; making the hinged seat mount with incorperated battery box

Front Flashers; need some sort of mount that wont look stupid with the rest of the rad bike

Seat; I made a seat cushion with foam and buffalo hide, but it is too thick to stretch properly, so it looks good everywhere but on the rear of the cushion, so I am goign to buy some thin seat grade leather and redo that, but it will look great.

Decals; The sides of the tank will say Buccobali, and this will be applied by 22k gold decals I am having cut, then i'll have a few coats of clear put over that.

Fender Mod; The fender mount on the laft side needs to be altered to allow the brake line to run through, so I have to make a die for the hydraulic press to do that.

There is some other randoms stuff, but those are the major tasks. I did manage to clean up the wiring in the front end, I labelled all of the connections, and cut them then soldered them to remove unwanted extra length on some leads.

The dual disk brakes are awesome, and the Custom stainless lines from HEL USA are great, they do an awesome job. I just need to mount the lines permanantly.

The bike is running, but is hard to start, I rejetted the carbs to mid sized jets, both pilot and main, and have the needle set between stock and rich. The K&N Air cleaner of course provides much more flow, so it just makes it a pain to start. However, once it is warm, it runs fine and can start back up easily if shut down.

The exhaust is extremely loud, measured 100 dB @ 2000 RPM, I may be screwed at inspection! I may need to put some temporary baffles in for that.

No pictures this time, but I'll have some new ones soon! For now, feast your eyes on my Jet Engine, and then the concept drawing of what I am thinking for a Winter project...

You may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you're lookin for...