Old bikes are abundant everywhere and we see them on our roads and at rallies. Most of them are in a fair condition and some are bearly running. There are the odd exceptions where a old bike is brought back to live in all its glory, but unfortonately these are not always in abundance.
In the month of Febuary 2007 I was fortunate (or unfortonate depending on your view) to get a call from a friend who is cleaning garage. He had a little project that he never really started and this project was left out in the weather for about 2 years. He collected parts from an old bike to rebuild it but never got round to it. As he knew I was keen on bike he gave me a ring and I quickly arranged a small Nissan 1400 pickup bakkie to go and collect this "project".
We got there and we where taken to where the stuff was we where to pick up ... What a nightmare! There where boxes and boxes of spares and parts. The boxes where falling apart because of the rain it had endured and there was alot of water everywhere. Your first reaction would be, "Ok, so we take this to which dump".
The motor was more or less ok and there where a few things missing on it which I was later to find in between the boxes. The back end of the little bakkie sagged alot as we loaded the stuff and you could really see it was taking a bit of strain from the HUGE load.
The motor the day after we picked it up. As you can see, it is in a bit of a sorry looking state.
The next few weekends where spend sorting through the parts. There was alot of parts that had to be chucked away since they where is a bad rusted state and there was not really a way to get them into a state where they are servicable. I am sure if I where to have casings and another se of barrles I could have build another motor.
Alot of parts! Somewhere there must be a bike!
Getting what is serviceable clean and ready so we can get started.
After everything was cleaned and sorted we started putting things together. Here is where we started.
We first got the frame, forks (which where in their component pieces and not very "together"), and rear swing arm together. As the bike is a shaft drive the rear swing arm has quite a bit of bearings and seals that go into it's assembly. We got the motor cleaned up and ready to be sprayed with engine enamel.
All clean and ready to spray
After about 4 weekends the motor was sprayed, the frame was sprayed, the rear swing arm assembled, and most of the parts ready to go in. So here is where we where then.
Since then we have put the motor in the frame and tested most of the electical systems as well as started the bike. The Starter motor is causing hassels so that will be stripped and reconditioned (will post pics of the disassembled starter) the bike has a kick start but why do you want to kick start an 850 when a button will work so much nicer. The project is now nearing a stage where it is looking like a bike. Now it is push to finish the technical then we can get started on the more cosmetic side and get this bike to really stand out in a croud!
