Iron Horse Revolution

01/12/2023

So after checking the compression and adjusting the valves. The next job was acquiring spark. The engine cranked but no spark. The wiring was a mess of twist and pray type hack work. So a full strip back and trace of the fault was in need. Once that was sorted fueling was on the menu. The carbs were stuck and full of crap.

01/12/2023

Another little 250 project. This time, less over the top custom fab work and more of a generic build. The typical run of the mill, goggle image result, cafe racer built with easily acquired bolt-on bits.

Opportunistically found leaning up against a garage wall whilst picking up an unrelated item off marketplace. The owners father offered it to me for $250. Missing parts and in unknown condition. It was worth a punt.

28/03/2023

28/03/2023

Part 4 of The Riff Raff Tracker project.

Now that all the frame mods have been completed, we get to throwing some paint over the newly welded areas to prevent flash rusting. Then a run through some parts and plans moving forwards.

27/03/2023

So I acquired this old girl a while ago. She’s been the quiet little hero bike acting as the parts getter run around bike always running and ready for menial chores whilst my other vehicles might be parked up.

Id always had a love for the clean look of an aircooled 4cylinder Japanese UJM framed bikes aka CB750s and these XJs. So to come across one that was silly cheap and in reasonable condition I couldn’t pass it up.
Picked her up from less than 10mins down the road. Loaded her in the van, brought her home and had her up and running in an hour. Since then I’ve done the slightest tidying up work on her but never took her off the road to do any serious work.

I always wanted to keep her as a daily rider/getter, so the mods and work will be done slowly and selectively, hence the “slowburn”

Keep an eye on this space to see her pop up from time to time.

10/03/2023

They say, if you don’t look back and marvel at your bike after you’ve parked.

You own the wrong bike.

Candy looking sweet as always.

12/06/2022

Part 3 of The Riff Raff Tracker build.
Shaving and DeLugging the frame and building the Tank and seat supports.

28/05/2022

14/05/2022

Part 2 of The Riff Raff Tracker Project
We refresh the engine aesthetics and start working on the tank.

13/05/2022

The 2nd photo dump instalment of
The Riff Raff Tracker.

07/05/2022

The Riff Raff Project. Part 1

02/05/2022

Story time…..

So about a year ago a homie asked me about helping him source/build a bike for when he got his riders license.
Life and Covid and pre-existing projects meant that unfortunately I had no time to take on another build. Even though we had a suitable donor bike available (it’s still available… we will get to it eventually)

Fast forward to late March 2022 and I get a message saying hey…. So…. I bought a bike off Gumtree. But, it’s a bit of a mess and a few local mechanics don’t want anything to do with it cos it’s too sketchy. Wow.

I get him to send me some pics and sure enough, it’s a proper sketchy death trap.
So much so, it was reminiscent of a few bikes of a similar story from about 15yrs ago which we had named The Banana Projects 1 and 2 as they were so bent and bad
(There’s a full build series on YouTube from way back when)

Anyhoooooos…. Thus brings us this emergency build project essentially putting the other builds on hold whilst we get this pile in order and make something closer to the value of what he’d paid (sadly 4x what we would have valued it at) 😵😵😵

*This album as usual will just be progress photos but there will be more detailed videos uploaded soon.

So without further delay.
I give you the Riff Raff Tracker Project.