Tintin's Cafe Racer project - BIG PICS WARNING!

jayel

when you click on NEW TOPIC instead of POST REPLY, you could go back edit (delete) your pics and then reenter them downsized

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

So I pressed the new needle bearings into the swingarm, used my dremel and a little drum sander head to remove the powder from the pivot bolt holes in the frame (very very carefully mind you - insert into hole turned off, turn on, sand, turn off, remove from hole) and popped the swingarm on just to see how it looked. Left the dustcaps off the swingarm pivot - just temporary install and the dustcaps need to be shined up Wink

Quite nice - probably going to stick with the Radian arm on it, but we'll see how the stocker looks on it once the bronze bushings come and I can have a look.

Took some pics with the alloy tank on it, which after 8 months of handling, really needs a bit of a polish!

INXS650 · 650Rider Supporter Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Posts: 645

I'd go with the Radian if you've already done the work for it. Seems like a waste if you don't. Looking good though.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Will likely go Radian, but I do like the look of the stock. The Radian is a lot longer than the 1972 stock arm - like 3 inches more wheelbase.

I've gotten both arms ready - bronze bushings in the stock and fresh needle bearings in the Radian. Both have been cleaned up - no chain guard mounts, and powdercoated at the same time so no color variance from the frame - all one batch.

We'll see what happens. I might run the stock arm for now, until I take the rear wheel apart, polish the rims and hubs, replace the spokes and then buy new bearings to fit the 17mm Radian axle.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

My Manx seat from Clubmanracing.com arrived today Smile

Fits better than OJ's glove. Like it was made for the bike really. Couldn't fit any better - exactly the right width and length. Just need to work out some rubber cushions about 1/2 inch thick to seat it on the frame rails without ruining the finish on the frame and some simple brackets to hold it down at the back end.

Just so you know how particular I am, the reason I bought the petcocks I did is they have little red vinyl coated levers, matching the red piping on the seat Wink

Aside from that the rest of the bike will be black and alloy.

Kablazzie

I love this bike. Any updates?

georelle

It looks great. The top on the triple tree really shines up nice. Thanks for the photos and giving us some ideas.
Awesome bike.

Georelle

KYLEPRESTON

YOU COULD HAVE USED THE SWING ARM FROM A LATER XS THAT IS WHAT I DID FOR MY 73TX BUILD THE SWING ARM FROM THE 75 AND UP IS 2 INCHES LONGER THAN STOCK FOR YOU AND NO MODIFICATION NEEDED.

LOOKING GREAT THOUGH. HOW IS THAT SEAT GOING TO GET MOUNTED?

CHEERS KYLE

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Sorry its been so long between updates - summer vacation and logistics have conspired against me.

I've been gathering up more parts. I now have two 18" rear alloy rims which will go on the bike front and back. They're drilled for drum hubs so one is being laced to the front drum brake from a 1970 model.

The rims, hubs, forks etc. etc. are out for professional polishing. Once I get the rims/hubs back, then I can get the right spokes and get the wheels laced up, bearings put in, and Avon Roadriders put on.

Once that's done, the reassembly will begin. Engine is close to ready to be put into the frame, but I'm holding out till I have the bits I need to get it up on two wheels.

The seat mounting hasn't been sorted out completely yet. I'll be putting some rubber between the seat and frame - probably just cemented to the underside of the seat. Then I'll turn the mounting bolts into female with a coupling nut. This will allow the seat to be mounted with stainless socket-head bolts from below, through the alloy tray I'm making up to carry electrical, battery etc. which will sit in the area under the seat, dropping perhaps an inch below the frame rails.

Lots of work to do. I had always anticipated this taking a couple of years, and started in April, so I'm going a lot faster than I thought. Just need to get over the current hump and it will start to look like a bike again.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Oh, and my goal with the swingarm wasn't to extend the wheelbase - it was to get a stiffer swingarm. Using a Radian arm is a pretty common mod on these bikes, but they work much much better with the 1973+ frames.

Up to 1972 it would seem the swingarm is shorter AND narrower at the shock mounts making modification necessary, even of another later XS swingarm.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Hey guys - long time no post. Think you might like what's happened in the last few months.

Ended up getting a different alloy tank - an Evan Wilcox custom tank made for the XS650 (no, I didn't shell out the $1500 he sells them for!) - got the bike on two wheels yesterday. Yeah, I'm working slowly but it's coming together.

sswagon · New Member Joined: Mar 24, 2008 Posts: 7

Dam sweet bike man very nicely done!!!!
Love everything but that tank and seat is killer!!!
The rims and drums look awsome!!!

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Thanks - the engine is a lot cleaner than it looks, and I have fully polished engine covers, valve covers etc. ready to bolt on. It's got fresh 0.5mm over pistons/rings etc. in it, fresh valve job blah blah blah. Nothing exotic, just a stock engine.

I'm planning on grabbing another engine to do a complete tear down and maybe something a little 'hotter' in terms of the cam etc. to go with the bike.

TheDude

Yes, that tank, seat, and wheel combo is truly inspiring. Got any tips for polishing? I want to make my wheels look just like that.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Well, my only tip is $$$$ Sad

I know people love to do the work themselves, and I love wrenching. BUT, I hate polishing, I don't have the proper facility or equipment to do a proper job safely, and for those parts like rims/hubs that can't be done easily, I farmed out the work.

It wasn't cheap. Would have been cheaper to buy new rims, or possibly to have them chromed. The anodizing had to be stripped, and then they were professionally polished.

The upside of professional polishing is the surface is way smoother than I'd have been able to achieve, which will make maintenance polishing done by me much easier and more effective.

Finksies

Geeze love this build, its makes me wanna build one of these things so bad, I think it gunna be my next xs project. Couple of questions.... What happened to the dirt bike looking swing arm? why the tank change, I think the other one looked really good as well.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Well, I ditched the Radian swingarm for a couple of reasons. One was I would be into different wheel bearings and custom spacers to make it work. The Radian has a 17mm axle compared to the 20mm XS650 axle.

Also, people started paying big bucks for Radian swingarms, and I had a chance to sell it and get all my money back out - I paid to have the shock mounts moved to align better with the stock locations, put in new bearings and had it powdercoated.

Last but not least, I decided I wanted round tubing to maintain a more vintage / British look. I know there were lots of square swingarms back in the day, and maybe I could have put a Dresda sticker on it, but I do like the round tubing on this one.

I may switch to the longer later model swingarm though. The one on the bike now is a 1972 model and is a lot shorter than later years, of which I have 2 sitting in my rafters. Just need powdercoating and bronze bushings.

The tank swap was a spur of the moment thing. I came across this Evan Wilcox tank which is much more in keeping with the styling I was after for the bike. The tank I sold frankly was a better tank IMHO. It had an internal baffel to keep fuel from sloshing around and the filler cap threaded on. The Wilcox tank has no baffle and the filler cap is actually epoxied on, which was a real surprise.

It's a gorgeous tank, and it cost me nothing to swap. I also picked up a set of Omars rearsets and a Boyer ignition in the deal.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Well, it's turning into a weekend kind of project - not a lot of time during the week, and only an hour or two on weekends to fiddle. But it will get done.

Not exactly sure how, and perhaps scrutiny of some photos will tell me my error, but dropping the rear wheel off to put the sprocket on and putting it back on seems to have solved my off-center problem - DOH! Weird.

Sprockets are in place (loose) and a quick wrap of my very long chain confirms a) things are lined up PERFECTLY and most importantly, the extra bracing I had added to the frame clears the chain with room to spare. That has been keeping me up at night since last May.

Got my new lift yesterday and put it together today - looks good. Totally useless for a BMW Airhead for obvious reasons, but very useful for the other bikes. Works like a charm. Just need to sort out how to stash it away in my garage.

Retiredgentleman

Your bike is looking real good. Where did you buy that lift and how much did it cost? Can it be locked at different levels? Would the lift work OK with the exhaust pipes in place?

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

The lift is from good ol' Princess Auto - pretty sure there's one in Calgary. Was $200 - not the cheapest, and I'd splurge the extra $150 and buy the full table when it goes on sale, but I just don't have room for a full lift. It is a new product, so perhaps it will go on sale sometime soon.

It runs off a hydraulic jack, and the platform can be left at any level you want. At one point I had it set just so the tires were on the ground, making it easier to pull axles out etc. It has a safety pin that would prevent the platform from crashing to the ground in the event the jack fails. Ideally you'd set the platform just above the safety pin, which has two available positions.

You can see the pin in the first couple of pics just below the bottom arm lifting the platform. Adding positions would be as simple as drilling holes through the main body of the lift. But again, it's only needed if the jack fails.

Not sure how well it will work once the pipes are on. As-is, the lift is designed to lift the frame, and you wouldn't want it pushing up on the exhaust.

PA sold another more typical jack, like the one sold at Canadian Tire, that had Y shaped movable fingers on it which you could position to reach up between exhaust etc. and cradle frame rails. If this had those, it would be perfect. I'm considering making something like that and mounting it on the platform for use with the 650.

y other bike, a 1975 BMW R75/6 will never go up on this sort of lift. The engine is WAY too wide to allow the platform to sneak under and lift the bike.

tintin · Full Member Joined: May 07, 2007 Posts: 96

Got the tank mounted today - progress is slow but coming.

The toggle is just wired down to the frame right now (black heavy coat hanger ;)) - am going to sort that out this week with a couple of small rod ends and then a bolt across through the toggle.

Looks great! Took some creative use of foam (Active Surplus yesterday) and spray adhesive to get the foam the right thickness and shape to let the tank sit nicely on the frame and above the engine.

xsMVxs · Full Member Joined: Oct 10, 2007 Posts: 68

sweetest freaking bike ever... i can't look at it anymore

santiablo · Full Member Joined: Apr 14, 2008 Posts: 98

well im not a big cafe fan but this is hands down a sweat as hell ride!! that seat is great! im glad you went with the round tube swing arm i think it looks lots beter!! you could try the longer one it would look cool but at the same time it looks frican cool how it is!! what are the bars mounted to ur front fender mounts and where did you get them?

acetek · Full Member Joined: Feb 24, 2008 Posts: 68 Location: PNW

Is that a stock width front rim ???? what size roadriders are you running? i am a little unsure of sizing ...Im going to have Buchannans lace up an 18 " rim to a suzuki 4ls double shoe drum for a resoto...cafe im building Along with every one else im a big fan....Your bike is awesome

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