Most of us have, at some point, had vague thoughts of building our own dream bike. Usually these idle thoughts waft about in our heads long enough for reality to make a nasty appearance and set us straight. The hours of quality time you plan to spend crafting your masterpiece, just you and your machine, are never going to happen. The expected cost, almost affordable if you sell the kids, and maybe a spare kidney... And the final pinprick in your dream bubble is the realisation that you haven’t a clue how to adjust a chain, let alone build a whole bike!
One would be cool, classic and refined, the other a screaming chav’s missus with overstretched dayglo lycra and lip gloss!
Okay, we’ve had over a year to think about taking spanners to bikes so they will now become this year’s “Winter Project”. Any expert bike builder will tell you that you need to have a clear idea of how the finished bike will look before knocking lumps off it. We’ve taken the “let’s just knock the lumps off anyway” approach and let the bikes customise themselves organically.
Why BMWs? Because you can buy one with loose change! Also, they are solid, well built and look very much like a 1950s British bike once the huge German fairings and panniers are removed. Under the plastic skin and frumpy skirts lies a naked cafe racer waiting to be born.
The cylinders sticking out the sides are like nothing made by Triumph or Norton, but they do offer styling possibilities – and are easy to work on!
Stage One
Now that we’ve decided to actually do it, the first step is a complete strip down to the last nut and bolt. That’s the easy bit. Undoing nuts and bolts is fun, just keep doing it and you’ll soon end up with no bike and a big pile of junk. Now comes the hard bit. Decide which parts are worth keeping, which parts can be sold on Ebay to recover some of the cost - and which parts are getting lobbed into the nearest landfill site...
With the parts now selected for the re-build, some form of schedule needs to be decided. The frame is the most important part of the project and needs to be looked at first. For this series of articles I’m concentrating on the R80, which will be the cool, classic and refined version. None of the original bodywork will be used, so any lugs, brackets, sticky out bits not needed will be removed to make the frame as smooth as possible. Once that is done, the frame will be sent off to be painted while I turn my attention to the engine and suspension.
My intention is to use the original parts where possible to reduce the cost of conversion and to keep things simple. Replacement parts are easily available both new and second hand, so anything that looks a bit suspect can be changed without the hassle of sourcing custom parts. In the next issue, I expect to have the frame finished, painted and mounted on a bench. Then, as the shiny bits arrive they can be bolted back on.
I usually hate the cold, long winter nights spent wishing I was somewhere else and waiting for spring. But now, I’m quite looking forward to them!
I want to go faster, I want to go faster..
