Cafe Racer Parts and Plan

So now that we have the design locked in place, we've got our plan ready to go and our budget already done, next step is we have to actually dive into the bike and figure out what we need in regards to new parts. Also, if you're gonna change the look and the feel of which we are, we wanna change the color of it and we need to figure out if we're gonna powder coat, chrome, or even paint that. And obviously that's gonna be cost reflective or you can save some costs on that. And then last thing is the modification of parts. So three things, new parts, paint, and then modifying parts. What we've done to make it simpler is I've put a parts list together, which we can share with you. And what we started with concerning the bike is 20 years old. We wanna go through some of the components that may be original on here and also safety issues that we may run into. One being the handlebar bushings. We do wanna change those out relatively cheap and just something that is kind of a big deal on your bike is making sure you have nice dampeners on there and helping with your ride. Second thing, these turn signals awfully bulky. We figured out that they don't match that style with cafe racers. So we're gonna be eliminating altogether these front turn signals and just put in a nice little slick setup in the back to help bring in, just so we're legal as well on the roads, but also bring them in a little bit more to condense the rear end of the bike. Third thing is gonna be the handlebars. Fifth Street Customs is hooking us up with a nice set of handlebars up here and we're gonna be keeping these risers as well. That set up will be nice and clean along with the cables which will be platinum from Barnett. I'll be running all those through and helping clean up this front section. Another thing is the gas tank. Gas tank is huge on the bike and can change the entire demeanor, the look and the feel of the bike. And with the stock setup, obviously that was one thing that we decided right off the bat that we had to get rid of. With that new one, provides that low sleek stance on it and gives us a little bit of a highlight with the recessed indentations on the side. Also gives us some area down the road if we wanna change up color schemes or add something on there. That would be a good little resource to go as well. Grips. Even though they seem small, they're a big deal. Obviously for comfort style and then also kind of matching your design of the bikes. So we've gone back and forth on this one and looking to get a black knurled set on here but that's something that even during design processes, you can take your time on and change that last minute if need be. The big component on here is gonna be your hand controls and your housings, and your leavers and your perch here as well. So we've decided to get rid of the stock set up, bring something in a little bit more smooth-looking rather than so bulky like this and give us a nice runoff in the front where everything's flowing and we have good lines up there as well. Contour matches, it looks good and it's good to the eye as well. Mirrors. We're dropping the mirrors out. The tack and speedo. We do have the original tack and speedo on here. We've got a new one from Dakota Digital with that chrome bezel on it that we're gonna be installing on there. So that's gonna help when we get to the color choices to help modify and bring out some of the black areas on this bike. Additionally, we have tires. So this is huge. Even when buying the bike, you wanna make sure you're checking out the tires, the rims, or even if you have mags on there, that there's no damage. With these, the rims are actually fine, but it didn't fit the feel and the look that we wanted with the bike as well. So we're gonna go with a different setup on this bike, and try to get in away from the wire wheel and the solid rear wheel as well. And that will obviously help bring out the rest of the bike once you get to the wheels. I think for all of us, that's the first thing that we kinda wanna change on our bikes is getting a new set of rims down there. We're gonna be looking into getting those switched out and modified. And then front suspension. Again, 20 years old. It wouldn't be a bad idea number one, to change out the oil, but number two, we're gonna be putting in a lowering kit into this to bring the front end down just a little bit. And when we do get to change not the rear shocks as well, that's gonna drop the rear down. So we wanna make sure our lines along with the ride height is smooth as well. And we did keep in consideration after that rear is dropped that the front has to as well. It also will give us a good point to inspect the suspension and see if there's any issues with the dampener or the coils, and get into that. 'Cause again, on a bike like this, you wanna make sure you're kind of covering all basis on there as well. Cables. Now this is one big thing when you're buying bikes is that these aren't frayed and cracks. So we're actually just gonna take cables and get rid of them and put in a new set of Barnett's. We have a new clutch cable and that's a platinum. We're gonna run that right down the frame rail here, shoot with a brand new clutch basket from Barnett as well and give us a little bit more grip and sturdiness to that primary we have. We have a one-piece front brake line. The reason being is that this your terminal down here, we wanna make sure that we have one straight line, keeping the lines flowing with the cables and the throttle cables as well. So we're gonna be popping those guys out and making sure they all match with that platinum covers as well. Another component, your carburetor, air filter. We did get a blackout S&S shorty along with the little pretty select looking muscle air cleaner on there that we're gonna be throwing in. It's gonna be bringing out a lot of the contrast and other areas on the bite that we are looking at. It gives us that feel that that cafe racer it's not too over the top, and it's too basic, but just enough to give us a little shout there in the corner. And then also brake rotors. This is something that we've gone back and forth on. And depending on the rims that we do get on this bike, this is something that either you can keep stock, or you can also get an aftermarket. You just wanna make sure you can also modify those as well. So from that standpoint, obviously a new battery would be something to look into if this one was drained out. But this one has been replaced so we're good on that front. So with new parts, obviously the seat. That's kind of wanna go through and make sure you have all those bases covered. Next area you're gonna get into is what to modify. And that's kind of the fun part about all this is that this is where you can let your imagination go and really run loose on it. So with cafe racer, as you see now, you don't wanna have these bulky fenders too big. So on the front end what we're gonna do and cut the front right here and same thing on the back, condensing it and making it a little bit meaner for what we wanna do. And it's a good idea to always start a little bit higher on your cuts and then move your way backwards. So we're gonna be modifying that area. The front suspension. We're gonna be going through and putting that lowering kit in here. Also changing out some of the bolts. So after 20 years of finding these things and also having hundreds of chrome caps on these bolts that holds the water, we ought to be going through and touching up some of these bolts. A lot of them don't need it due to the chrome caps but we're gonna be looking at the hardware as well throughout the entire build and making sure that everything is still has the strengthen and integrity that we need those bolts to have and hold that torque spec, but also it also has that appeal. You don't want rusty bolts all over the place on your bike. Also we're gonna be going through the handlebars. Like I mentioned, we're gonna be swapping those out and we're gonna be putting those as black. So those would be powder-coated black. The new calibers. We're gonna be keeping these and not getting new ones. So we're just gonna be swapping out the pads on here. These are pretty worn down and tore up so the guy had definitely put a few miles on here and that's something that's cost-effective and probably life-saving as well as making sure that you do put new pads in and making sure your braking system is up to par. So that's gonna be one of the first things that we do modify. Also, the rear fender we're gonna get to. And this is gonna probably be one of the larger parts of this entire build that we have to do on the fabrication side or modification side. We're gonna be cutting these struts in the rear here and then found the contour of the rear of the seat and cutting the fender that way as well. So as we go through and we start modifying these kind of things, there's a lot of things you have to keep in mind while doing that too. It's just not easy as bolting off and bolting back in. We lose a lot of that rear fender at the same time. So with that, we lose turn signal and license plate. So we need new parts for that. So we're gonna be doing a side mount for the license plate over here. And we did keep in mind as we were going through in order in the rear lights that we didn't need a mounting point for those as well. So we are gonna be mounting those directly right off here and we don't have to have them bulky ones back on the back here. Sissy bar is gonna be lost so we'll get rid of that, modify that. And that's the bulk of the rear. So make sure you keep in mind as you're going through your project and you didn't overlook some of these steps when you do modify. Like I just said, with the tail light and the license plate because you do need to relocate that. And it's just not easy as bolting on. And obviously we need to run electrical wires and rewire that into the harness and that's gonna be a whole nother step that you can kind of process. And maybe think through that you can put in, internal piping that we do a lot on our fenders and that way you keep them snug and out of any area that could be rubbing on that tire as well. Another modification is the seat. And that's gonna be obviously a big, big change for us right off the bat having that new one on there. Fortunately with the new tank, we don't have to do any new mounts or modifications on there. It's just a direct bolt-on. Another area is, this horn is way too bulky for us. And it's sitting out there screaming, give me attention. So we're gonna be moving this guy right to the front up here of the bike and giving it a little bit more clear view right on those cylinders. As we go through this, you know that there may be time to time where you wanna change things up all the way through your design but do keep in mind that's time, that's money, and that's probably someone gonna be yelling at you in the back room too if you're spending all that money on this. So the planning process and going through what I'm discussing with you right now is huge. The better Sanjar with having that plan in place and following and sticking to it, kind of going through your build, you'll enjoy it and have people on the right side of you as well. So now that I discussed the new parts and the parts that will be modified, here's the fun part, is the chrome, powder coat, the paint, whatever you decide actually I should say, in getting into and with this bike, Dennis and I decided to do a black and for two reasons. Instead of going to paint, we went to powder-coat to help with our budget. So we could spend more money on some of the components that we wanna put on and put some more time to making those modifications and still get the look and feel that we wanted with that black. Now cafe racer overseas and even the new ones coming out now, and new ones meaning modified ones here, there's duller colors. You don't see too much bright and just screaming colors out there, like the neons with some of these bikes. So the black is a safe color for us to go with. And also getting these components powder-coated, we're drastically bringing down the budget amount and not worrying about putting thousands and thousands of dollars worth into paint. The other benefit to powder coat, it's super durable, super tough, and can take a lot of beating unlike some paint. As you can see on this tank here, there's some chips here and there. On powder coat likely won't happen. I'm not sure exactly what happened on this 'cause when we did purchase this was already here. I can only suspect that someone didn't mount their grips too well, their controls too well and just slammed right in there. That's something to keep in mind is keeping in focus if you're gonna do paint or powder coat. On this one what we're gonna be doing is, we're gonna take... I'm gonna work from the rear here. We're gonna have a new set of shocks on here, black tops and we're gonna take the swing arm, powder coat that black to match the frame. Our battery box, we're gonna keep the existing one. We were talking about getting a pre-drilled one but we're gonna keep this one, powder-coat that black as well. Considering that we're gonna be in the primary, put on that new Barnett clutch, we're gonna pop off Derby cover inspection cover and the actual primary and get that powder-coated black as well. And one area, big area on this bike that I didn't touch on yet is a new component being forward controls are gonna get moved to mid controls. So we did have to keep in mind that as we were gonna get this powder-coated black that we wanted to get a color to help accent that. Those mid controls that we'll be putting on, will be looking pretty slick on this one. We're gonna lose the cover on here. Like I said, we're gonna be mounting that towards the front. Our tank is gonna be black and still kind of in discussions of where to take the side panels and the recesses on there. Our entire front end, we're gonna help kind of break up some of this chrome. It's a big party of chrome up here. I mentioned earlier, the handlebars are gonna be black and also we have chrome levers, the grips, rises are gonna go black, triple trees are gonna go black. Headlight housing antrum and fork boots. And you could see the wear and tear on this one. What they do on the powder coat, they're gonna shoot it down real quick and then put a whole new cover on. So we're not gonna worry about any kind of corrosion coming back through as you would with potentially paint. And that's a big bulk of it. On the other side, we obviously actually have our case that we're gonna have pull off, put back on our exhaust. It's gonna be another thing that we're kind of exploring. Maybe even wrapping that exhaust as well with a new set. And then also the mid controls that will be over there as well. Those are the big items that we have on this. That oil tank cover will be one of the last areas. And then from that point, then you're good to go. Again, make sure you have that plan you have in place, that budget you have in place is still intact. And as you go through, continue to log and help yourself throughout the build and make sure you're just not losing traction on spending too much money here. There's second mortgages that can be pulled and marriages that can be broken by making too many fatal mistakes. So make sure you're staying on target with that.