Ade's Custom Bike Part 3
Hello and welcome to Alex's Blog. Ade from our Northwich store has built a custom build bike. In this blog he is chronicling his journey. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
"I don't want to bore you with too much detail but the engine was sat there looking heavily corroded and trying to get someone to sandblast a complete engine is nigh on impossible. I know. I tried. The only thing to do was buy a handheld sandblasting kit and do it myself! The results, surprisingly, were great. It completely got rid of all the crud and corrosion leaving a perfectly keyed finish for the paint to stick to.
So out came the rattle can and the once silver (and corroded) engine was now black. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel finally.
 Sandblasted Engine. |  Painted Engine. |
Time for assembly. Swingarm in to the frame first, with new bearings fitted, then on with the yokes then front forks and then front and rear wheels. It was starting to look like a bike again.
Because I was still having to modify as I went along I knew that the engine had to go in next because I wanted to mount the ignition somewhere on the frame and I needed to know how much space I had left to put it on.
As I had chopped the back end off and made new support bars I was going to have to make side panels from scratch. This was the next job.
 Making Cardboard Templates. |  Panel in place ready for painting. |
It was then that I realised that the only place to mount the ignition without altering the wiring harness too much was behind the left side panel. This is what I did.
 Left Panel Cut. |  Painted. |  Fitted. |
Once the engine was in the carbs could go back on, the air box and then the tank. Those bits were easy as not too much had changed. However, the handlebars that I had chosen to use meant that I had to change the way that the brake pipes came out of the master cylinder. That was quite a task but I got there in the end.
The headlight I had chosen was a seven inch round headlight with built-in indicators and I finished it off with a grille.
When I first planned the bike I had planned on an LED light strip for the rear lights, these are really small and neat. After incorporating a flat piece in to the subframe when I built it I added this on to there. I didn't want a huge front mudguard but it was going to be tricky trying to get something that looked right so in the end I cut the original mudguard down to my preferred size. I shaped and filed it. It looked great so I gave it a lick of paint and it was good to go.
The bike was virtually back together at this point but I wasn't happy with the gap between the front wheel and the headlight - it just didn't look right. After much deliberation I decided to make and mount a "nitrous oxide bottle" just for show. I did this using an old hobby gas welding bottle, cut it down, rewelded it back up and it came up a treat and tied in with the looks of the bike.
Make sure you catch the blog next week for the final part of Ade's custom build.
In the mean time if you want to see any of Ade's tips then we have a new feature coming out every week called “Ask Ade” on our YouTube channel (and promoted on our Facebook and Twitterpages) show casing his weekly videos:
The Kappa Smart Phone Holder is available in-store or online.
Until next time, stay safe
Alex
