Topic: New build.

[bruceybigguns]

Now then,

I have picked up my first café racer project this weekend. The guy who I bought it off was expecting some 60 year old to pick it up not a 28 year old, I told him how much cooler these bikes are than some r6 / fireblade which every Tom, Dick or Harry has 
I have attached a picture of the bike. I am confident in the fact that I have a good helping hand in my girlfriends dad who is I am sure will be willing to show me where I am going wrong when I am struggling.

Just thought I would start this blog as a place to find help when needed and hopefully learn a thing or two in the process and it may be of interest to someone some day!

First two things wrong with the bike are:

1.  The battery is not charging and I am #$%* at wiring- good start I know. Anyone got a wiring loom diagram they would share?
2.  The front break calliper (Brembo off a Ducati) rubs on the spokes and has split and is pissing break fluid, can these be repaired or do I just replace?


Looking forward to seeing this come along over the coming months. Going to be a long slog but no pain no gain and all that.

Cheers,
Bruce.

[mickwinf]

Nice project, check out the uk site also at www.sohc.co.uk , use same name so we recognise you, regards Mick

[Bankerdanny]

Nice, but the fork ears appear to be reversed and upside down. Combine that with the lack of charging and the caliper rubbing on the spokes (!), and I would double and triple check every aspect of this bike before doing much riding.

It is cosmetically pretty, but it seems the builder half-assed some stuff.

The caliper rubbing the spokes is particularly troubling. A damaged caliper when riding = bad, but you still have a back brake and can downshift through the gears to slow and stop. Broken spokes however can = catastrophic failure and death.

That's the tank from a CB500 twin by-the-way. A great cafe tank because the knee dents came from the factory.

[bruceybigguns]

Mick, appreciate the heads up on the UK site- will be on there too. Do you know of any clubs/meets/scrap yards etc that I would find useful in North Yorkshire area?

Danny, thanks for pointing out the caliper, had a little ride on it without using the front break but the rear drum is so #$%* that I wasnt going to risk doing anymore. Can you explain what you mean by the fork ears been reversed and upside down as I am not to clear on this?

Cheers fellas.
Bruce.

[flybox1]

Can you explain what you mean by the fork ears been reversed and upside down as I am not to clear on this?

looks like the PO added modified  headlight ears to your fork mount headlight ears, and  braced the gauges higher, too     Was he a tall fella? 
anyway...like the tank and seat combo/color.  looks clean.

[Bankerdanny]

The gauges angle towards the rider and the bottom edge sits a couple cm higher than the top triple.

The headlamp should be centered between the triples.

[bruceybigguns]

Danny/Flybox,

Thanks for clearing this up for me- I thought the headlight and dials sat high but for all the staring at the thing that I did my simple mind just couldnt figure out why!

Going back to the rubbing on the caliper.....

The wheel when in position sits clear of the caliper but when ridden rubs and that isobviously when the damage is caused. It looks as if a spacer has been added when I removed the front wheel.
My question is- do you think that the wheel is more than likely moving due to A. needing new bearings .B. needing the spacer looking at again .C. the wheel needing re-spoking etc or .D. All of the above or .E. Something else that is going to really piss me off!?

And finally- if there is a hair line fracture in a break caliper can this be welded over and re-used and kept an eye on to ensure no further leekage or would you bin it and start again?

Cheers in advance.
Bruce.

[Bankerdanny]

You need to take some pictures of the caliper position relative to the wheel as well as the damage to the caliper so we can see waht you are seeing. It is very difficult to offer anything but the most generic of advice without actually seeing the problem.

Calipers are not generally expensive, if it is damaged I would buy a replacement.

[bruceybigguns]

Calliper outside

[bruceybigguns]

Calliper inside

[Bankerdanny]

You should be able to loosen the headlight ears and slide them down on the fork tubes to get the light where it belongs. However, based on the 2nd picture you might need to remove the headlight to slide the ears past the throttle cable.

The gauges are a bit tougher. I would bet the headlight is mounted so high because the builder didn't want to fabricate proper gauge mounts and if the light was in the right place there would be a huge ugly gap between the light and the bottom of the gauges. It looks like they are attached via flat brackets, you would need to make a bracket that steps down to lower them to where they should be. You could also look for a bracket from a CB500 or 74-76 CB550

Well, you definitely have a fitment issue that MUST be solved. But I'm not sure what advice to give to proceed. Fitting an alternative rotor and caliper to your bike requires careful attention to spacing, something the builder apparently didn't do.

Unfortunately the pictures of the bike are both from the right side, so there is no good shot of how the caliper and rotor were adapted to the wheel.

It's possible that the rotor and caliper can be shimmed out slightly to clear the spokes. Even if the caliper were weldable I would replace it. Brakes are too important to get wrong.

I would ask you to reinstall the caliper and then take a bunch of pictures of how the rotor and caliper are attached with different angles showing their position relative to the wheel and lower fork slider. With the right pictures there are a bunch of really talented and experienced fabricators here (and I am not one of them, my experience is all OEM) than can help you figure out how to solve this.