Mac has started on the Harley / Yam project. The forks have been stripped and the primordial ooze emptied from the bottom of the fork legs. The internals look fine so a new set of seals and retaining clips ordered. The legs have gone in the “powder coat box” along with the front wheel (minus bearings that were shot). Need to see one of Heisenburgs mates to sort the Harley / Yam head bearing mix , the stem being almost the same as a Harleys . The bottom yolk was fine but the top had been butchered to accept some “streetfighter” risers – so a set of 1″ dia risers have been acquired with a view to using some old stepped down  1″ – 7/8 bars so that he can use the old switch gear but retain the chunky ‘Harley’ bar look. The top Yolk will need some work (are you reading Mr Heisenburg?).

Then there was the front mudguard – looked Ok on the bike but when removed was full of holes – not one to bin stuff it’s been treated to a good scrub down and will be re fibre glassed to accept new retaining bolts.

A bit (lot) of fibre glass and bondo  and a quick rub down and it’s getting there.

Finally got some photos of fruitshoots xs400 today –  a shame it’s taken so long as so much has been done to it that has not been documented (see the blue thing in previous posts). This is due we think to fruitshoots inability to work out the technical finery of a camera!

The rear subframe has been altered, stepped up to level the rear and a seat unit made by Heisenburg after a failed attempt by fruitshoot at nicking Macs in one of his now famous supermarket sweeps – he did however get away with a number of other items from Macs garage before being caught and returned to the “.managers office”

I understand that the metal for the side panels has also been ‘sourced’ from a pressurised contributor.

Lovely metal seat unit courtesy of the sickeningly talented Mr. Heisenburg.

Kids and bikes……………. it’s in the blood – Macs boy just after he’d learnt to walk…………. why have a plastic hammer and some shapes when you can help work on dad’s bike?

Fruitshoot………………………. Nuff said!

Decided to go out for a blast and a Breccy this morning to the wonderful “Super Sausage” on the A5.

Bit of a slow start as we had to wait for Heisenburg to blast out the pondlife from the carb on his big Trailie. Thought we’d cracked it until two newts and a water boatman clogged up the main jet resulting in a top speed of 50mph. Think it may have convinced him to put the bike in the garage – out of the rain!

Made me laugh like a drain when I saw this….. reminded me of my boy ‘helping me’ with my Harley when he was that age! – pinched it off the Rogues site – hope you guys don’t mind – love what you do!!

Anyway the surprise actually refers to the number of visitors to our site. We didn’t even have a counter put on til a few weeks ago and well – I’m amazed that folk are interested enough to check in and see what we’re up to – Thank you!

This site was really only an exercise in cataloguing what we get up to when we have some spare time. It’s not updated enough – because we’re busy…… frequently forget the camera when we’re building or frankly can’t be ar**d.

I’ll try and do better.

Just a quick update… Heisenburgs still at it with the XS, Fruitshoot has a new shed so works afoot on his XS400, Silus has a new shed and plans for the Suzuki before the summer, The mad prof ……… is well  -mad and nobody (other than himself) truly knows what he’s up to and Mac has too may toys and not enough time – The XS is pretty much finished, The V50 needs Electrics and he’s just fell across a low mileage 1200 Harley engine to start his next chop…… oh and there’s the café racer too………. needs a holiday!

Thanks for checking in and we’ll (try to) keep you updated! Ta!

On reflection the standard bros brakes were a bit naff so as I mentioned before it was time for a modern upgrade, I removed the lugs that mounted the original calliper and have made a bracket to fit the new calliper from a Suzuki Hayabusa, I won’t be attempting the welding on this part of the project as I have no way to join aluminium other than jubilee clips and nails so I have handed the parts over to Stable fabrication in Towcester http://www.stablefabrication.co.uk/ , great bunch of chaps who will have a go at anything within reason for very sensible rates. – Heisenburg.

I collected the forks from the fabricators yesterday and was very impressed with the welding job, very neat!

Tonight I managed to find some time to start putting things back together, the weld had penetrated inside the tube a little and distorted the inner wall so much the stanchion would not slide inside the leg anymore, I hadn’t even thought about this happening but managed to fix it easily, I made up a 38mm aluminium cylinder with a thread in one end to take about a foot of threaded bar, this went in to my drill, the other end I hacksawed a cut and attached some 400 grit emery cloth, I reamed this in and out of the fork leg for a few minutes with some thin oil and it all fits quite well now.

Next job is to finally start the yokes, I have a bit of an odd design in my head but it should be fine, I’d prefer to go the normal route but I couldn’t blag the right size of aluminium slabs for free so second best will have to do. – Heisenburg.

The Runnaround ………. relatively standard………. at the moment!!

Quick update

Finally found time to start the front end after my supernatural illness…. new bearings fitted, new dust seals and a stainless axle made for the mock up, Honda 400 bros forks slightly modded but with standard calliper, the calliper doesn’t fit well so will swap out for a more modern unit.

I have the slabs to make the yokes now so time to get moving, BFOM is sneaking up on us!

Time to get on with the café racer project that’s been sat around for years!

Xs 650 (our fave) frame that’ll be trimmed of all it’s unnecessary clutter, big old brit tank, small tailpiece, rearsets – you get the picture.

Plan is to attempt a reverse head engine on this project – so get the exhausts exiting from the rear under the seat and out high level – need the advice from the ‘Mad Prof’ on this one!

To keep it looking like a 50’s racer the old Yam disc brake set up has been ditched, an early drum brake purchased and reconditioned and the later fork legs have been shaved and adapted to take the drum brake (courtesy of the Mad Prof).

New Drum………………………….

and New hoops………………… powder coated gun metal grey!

Time to start stripping the old wheel…………..