- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
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- 2,585
This is a link to my earlier thread with my café racer all done cafe-racer-all-finished-t4710.html?hilit=finished
I put it in storage because I had other projects, first my Commando café racer cafe-commando-build-thread-t8372.html and then renovating a restaurant for my daughter and building a bar for a friend, also it was a bear to start, the only way I could start it was to use a borrowed roller starter which spun the back wheel or put the track stand and kick like mad. The main reason for hard starting is the lack of a center stand and short clipon handlebars which do not give any leaverage to keep the bike upright when kicking, not to mention getting older every day.
I had put the bike at the Montreal moto show when I finished it, the first year, I rented a small enclosed trailer from U-haul, but the second year, I used my own MC trailer which is all open, even if on both the to and fro the weather was nice, if you call sub freezing temperatures nice, the sun was out and the roads were dry. Here salting the roads is a way of life it eats whole cars in a very short time. When I got the bike back home, it stayed in my garage until the next autumn and I took it to my friend's garage for storage to give me room to make my Commando. His storage area was not heated and there must have been many days where condensation hit all the metal parts, well the nice steel surfaces had a little bit of salt picked up from just two trips of less than 20Km from my house to the exhibition hall and back. After a couple of years in storage, what I got back home was in a bit of a sorry state, the kick start lever was very pitted, the shocks were really rusty and many other steel or chromed bits had rust. The bright shiny aluminium was now dull and I even found sunflower seeds in the battery compartment from rodent activity.
I will add pictures as the installation progresses, so far it looks good, I made a few modifications but I think I should have this on the road by spring (famous last words)
Here is a picture with all the primary drive taken off
Jean
I put it in storage because I had other projects, first my Commando café racer cafe-commando-build-thread-t8372.html and then renovating a restaurant for my daughter and building a bar for a friend, also it was a bear to start, the only way I could start it was to use a borrowed roller starter which spun the back wheel or put the track stand and kick like mad. The main reason for hard starting is the lack of a center stand and short clipon handlebars which do not give any leaverage to keep the bike upright when kicking, not to mention getting older every day.
I had put the bike at the Montreal moto show when I finished it, the first year, I rented a small enclosed trailer from U-haul, but the second year, I used my own MC trailer which is all open, even if on both the to and fro the weather was nice, if you call sub freezing temperatures nice, the sun was out and the roads were dry. Here salting the roads is a way of life it eats whole cars in a very short time. When I got the bike back home, it stayed in my garage until the next autumn and I took it to my friend's garage for storage to give me room to make my Commando. His storage area was not heated and there must have been many days where condensation hit all the metal parts, well the nice steel surfaces had a little bit of salt picked up from just two trips of less than 20Km from my house to the exhibition hall and back. After a couple of years in storage, what I got back home was in a bit of a sorry state, the kick start lever was very pitted, the shocks were really rusty and many other steel or chromed bits had rust. The bright shiny aluminium was now dull and I even found sunflower seeds in the battery compartment from rodent activity.
I will add pictures as the installation progresses, so far it looks good, I made a few modifications but I think I should have this on the road by spring (famous last words)
Here is a picture with all the primary drive taken off
Jean
