Ade's Custom Bike Part 2

Hello and welcome to Alex's Blog. Ade from our Northwich store is an expert of all things motorbike - what he doesn't know isn't worth knowing. Ade has tinkered with bikes and done bike refurbishments before (read about his RD 250 restoration) but he has just built his first custom build bike and this is chronicling that. Read part 1 here. Now on to part 2:

Last time we got to the top yoke and moving the speedo. After this the frame got shot blasted and painted after I had cut off the parts I didn't think I needed, which included the rear subframe.

At this point I could try and plan how it was all going to go back together and what form it was going to take. With black being the theme, I set about painting the fork legs, the wheels, the swingarm and final drive unit.

As you can see, even if I say so myself, they were looking good. With the rear subframe cut off I had to decide what I was going to do with the seating arrangement and how this could fit with the standard tank. I didn't really want to change the standard tank because of the way the frame was designed it would involve just too much work. I started to look around for potential seats on eBay, Gumtree, social media etc. that might do the job and fit in with my chosen theme which I had now finally decided was going to be "Brat".

I had never heard of this before but every bike that I looked at and liked the look of was described as this. I found a seat on eBay which looked and sounded like it could do the job on the description with a little bit of work. I hit the buy it now button and a few days later it arrived. Of course, it was absolutely no way going to fit at all! So I set about designing a subframe that would make it work.

In the meantime I decided I was going to wrap the tank rather than spray it. It might work for the experts, but for me it was a complete disaster and a complete waste of good vinyl! So out came the wet and dry and it was going to have to be sprayed. You live and learn. I thought two tone black might look nice - gloss and matt. I masked out a design and set to work. I must admit that I thought it looked pretty damn good.

Happy with that, the metal arrived and I started on the subframe to mount the seat unit. The new seat needed to sit literally two inches higher than it previously would have on the original frame. The way I got around this was to weld on two inch 4mm angle irons:

The new seat at three quarters of the way back had a little kick up on it. I had to cut and weld the angle iron to suit. It all looked easy but when you've only got one pair of hands its just time consuming and a real pain in the backside. However, in the end it worked out fine.

The new subframe was on but this revealed that there wasn't going to be any room for the rear numberplate or light. What a headache. For the rear lights and indicators I used an LED strip and mounted this to the plate just under the subframe.

As for the registration plate there was no other choice than to make a side mounted bracket and run it off the swingarm. But that is another story.................."

Every week Ade gives great tips with his "Ask Ade" videos that you can see on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, stay safe,

Alex