Finished!!!!

YES as the title suggests the bike is finished!!

I have lacquered the tank in petrol resistant clear lacquer.

I have stripped and rebuilt the forks and fitted new seals as they were knackered! I used this useful website http://www.bluepoof.com/motorcycles/howto/svs_fork_oil/ It's for a SV650 but everything is mostly the same.

My good friend Duncan came round and welded some nuts to the inside of the frame so that I could attach a small aluminium tray under the seat to house the electrics.

As you can see in the picture below, you cannot even see the tray from the side.

I bought a small aluminium mudguard at the Stafford show earlier in the year and have just used the mounting bracket from the original front guard. I painted the bracket black and used 2 bolts to fix it to the mudguard. The small timing cover was flaking its silver paint and this has been painted black as well.
I fitted smaller indicators to the rear of the bike and these just bolted to existing holes in the side panels and wired up to the existing connectors.

I fitted a nice Hagon bar end mirror to finish the bike off and it actually works!

So this is the finished bike. I like to think it looks better than the dodgy photoshop picture that I posted in March. I have enjoyed re building the bike and now have a fun pocket rocket to ride around on.

A couple of Gritty B&W photos set in an urban industrial setting!!

I was first inspired to mildly customise this bike after seeing the UM-2 by Untitled Motorcycles - http://www.untitledmotorcycles.com/2011/03/um-2-photos-by-damian-mcfadde.html
Excellent bikes and useful tips on customising your bike.

I now have a BMW R80 and that will be the next project...

Paint stripper

A long overdue update. I have finally finished the seat unit. I kept having different ideas for the seat/back light arrangement, but I cannot weld so kept it simple with what you see below.

I have a large amount of aluminium offcuts from the Robot wars seat hump that was attached to the BMW in the previous post DISTRACTED. I made a few brackets to attach the VFR400 rear light to the seat cowling and fixed it together using 8mm bolts and lock nuts and then made 2 brackets to hold the cowling to the seat, I used the original seat mounting bolts that were already there, unfortunately I didn't take any close up shots. I then made a number plate holder that attaches to the bolts on the rear light. I didn't want any visible bolt heads on the cowling but like I said I can't weld so I will have to make do with 4 bolt heads showing!

Looks ok!

I then made a small bracket to attach the rear brake reservoir.

The tank is too blue, it needs to be silver!

Get the paint stripper out!!

I have never stripped paint off a tank before so I did some internet research to find the best way of doing it. It was either paint stripper or sanding it off. Both looked messy. Looking at various paint strippers on the market in the UK, it seemed that a lot of paint strippers have had a key ingredient removed to make them safer to use, thus making them useless. I found this paint stripper on ebay and it has the magic ingredient!

I first removed the filler cap and masked it off. I then donned a fetching pair of overalls, thick rubber gloves and safety glasses. Be warned, this stuff will burn if you get it on your skin.

Liberally spread the paint stripper over the tank and wait 10 to 15 minutes 

 It will then start to bubble! This isn't time lapse, it bubbles before your very eyes!

After about 15 minutes it looks like this!

 It took about 1 hour and 3 coats of paint stripper to get it fully stripped. I then buffed up the tank with a fine abrasive wheel attached to a drill to give it the brushed effect.

To put a sticker on or not! before I lacquer the tank.