Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber... The Dead Are Walking

I've been toying with the idea of building a bike for with my stepson, Robbie. In Alabama you can get a motorcycle endorsement at 14 for a bike 250cc's or under. Robbie is 12 now, so I knew this was something that needed to happen right about now. He's been riding dirt all of his life and has even done some racing.
My bro Brandon (TwistedWheelz) called a few weeks back and said he had a line on a couple of bikes in a bike shop that could be had for a song. The idea was to get him a bike to build and I'd take the one he didn't want since it was a package deal. His bike turned out to be a 1979 Suzuki GS425(Eileen). The other one was the Rebel. At 250 cubic centimeters of fury it is just the right size for Robbie to cut his street teeth on. The plans right now are to pull it down to the frame and clean everything we need and hack off or throw away everything else. The bike is missing (ahem): tank, seat, coils, headlight, exhaust, guages, sprocket cover, key, and I'm sure there's more. The tires are flat and it looks like hammered poo right now, but the motor's free and the trannie shifts through. My wife came out to look at it and after a few seconds said "You spent 100 dollars on that?"
Perfect! Robbie's excited though, and I am too for whatever it's worth. Enough jabbering though, here are a couple of crappy camera phone pics to give y'all an idea of what I'm describing:

And here's the man himself sitting on his stallion(?) for the first time.

I threw an old sportie tank on it so it'd look more like a bike. We'll be purchasing a tank for it later (toaster tank anyone?).
And here's the direction we're going in right now...

except with a military theme. For now. I'll post more pics as soon as disassembly begins... maybe tonight.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Down right awesome... Kids these days need more challenge and a push. Including more responsibility... Building and riding will contribute to him growing up in a respectfully american way.

My son is 8. And I cant wait!

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

We can hope Louie! I'm really excited about the things he'll learn and I know that the time spent together turning wrenches and busting knuckles will be great. Plus the chicks are gonna dig the hell outta the 14 year old biker dude!

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Right on. 250 CC at 14, that is awesome, here we can have a whopping 49.9 cc at 14 then if you pass the test unlimited at 16, makes no sense. Anyway, nice score, these bikes are super easy to work on and there are thousands around for parts, so you should be able to score anything missing. Send him on an MSF course and he will be riding the same bike he is building.

Cheers,

I have a 5 year old who helps me out now and will get a 49.9 cc bike to build at about the same age. Unless we move somewhere he can start a little larger.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Cudos to you for being a good such a good Dad.

You should checkout "Shop as Soulcraft" by Matt Crawford. It's right in line with this sort of thing.. Kids now a days are being groomed to be knowledge workers vs. trade workers. And though I'm all for advancement and refinement there comes a point where you shell out/whore out your economy so much that the dome just ends up collapsing.

Gosh, imagine if that happened....... -sigh-

Anyways, off my soap box. We need more dudes doing what your doing to help keep kids plug'd into shit that matters not little tiny screens and MySpace.

J

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

very cool man! very cool!

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

thewingdpiston said:

Cudos to you for being a good such a good Dad.

You should checkout "Shop as Soulcraft" by Matt Crawford. It's right in line with this sort of thing.. Kids now a days are being groomed to be knowledge workers vs. trade workers. And though I'm all for advancement and refinement there comes a point where you shell out/whore out your economy so much that the dome just ends up collapsing.

Gosh, imagine if that happened....... -sigh-

Anyways, off my soap box. We need more dudes doing what your doing to help keep kids plug'd into shit that matters not little tiny screens and MySpace.

J

Click to expand...

Well said Jason!

I'll add: Awesome project. He'll learn skills that he can use the rest of his life.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Okay, we got some stuff done. It's a little slow going right now. I've been starting at the basics with Robbie's mechanic skills. Ya know: Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosie; Why the metric system is so much easier than standard; Why PB Breaker is our best friend; Why we can't just pull the engine first... It's been fun, he's like a captive audience for Professor Alex! So tonight we pulled off the fenders, battery box and a bunch of other little things. Man I thought that bike looked tiny before...
Here are some pics.
We haven't started cleaning yet... that will be lots of fun though.

Here's my youngest, Connor, givin his "When's gone be my time?" look.

And here are the Lowell bikes bedding down for the night.

Tomorrow looks like more of the same. Tonight I busted three knuckles and the little guy didn't even get a scrape
Beginner's Luck!

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

ha ha ha that is awesome! man, some the best times my dad and I spend together are wenchinig on bikes... well more when i was younger... now he sits back, drinks my beer and tells me what i am doing wrong or how he "used" to do this and that when i am building a bike... ah ha ha ha no matter what i do, i will admit, his ways are always easier, faster, and much cleaner! he is also my hardest credict and i love that (no i can not spell for shit)

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

I'm off work today (getiing directv hooked up... Screw Cable!) so I decided to do a little bit of breaking down. Robbie's not here, so I don't want to do too much... just some stuff we had talked about last night. I got the wiring harness out and the bars and blinkers off. I mocked up the bars that Robbie had picked out and I like them... question is will he? I really want to do more, but I already feel kind of bad for working on it without Rob here so I guess this is it till tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to strip this thing down to the frame so I can put Robbie on cleaning parts!
Here's a shot of the bars mocked up. The chrome is poo so they'll end up getting color (please let him say black!).

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

I would test the length of the controls and then chop those bars as short as possible, They look a little wide for that tiny scoot. It is hard to tell about bars in a pic though, so if they are comfortable for Robbie to ride it and don't look too wide in person then rock em!

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

you can always just use a pipe cutter and slice a inch or two off the ends, for a little guy that may look weird that wide, but the tank is not on so it is hard to judge

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

I think w/ controls attached, they'll look pretty normal, especially with the brake reservoir. Wide bars are not bad, especially for a beginner.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Yeah, he hasn't been on the bike since the bars went on, but if they look or feel weird to him, we'll cut them down. There's not very much to cut off though because of the controls and the bends in the bars. Maybe an inch or an inch and a half would work. But it's up to Robbie. My internet went down with my cable :'( So I won't be posting again until I get to work tomorrow.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

JRK5892 said:

ha ha ha that is awesome! man, some the best times my dad and I spend together are wenchinig on bikes... well more when i was younger... now he sits back, drinks my beer and tells me what i am doing wrong or how he "used" to do this and that when i am building a bike... ah ha ha ha no matter what i do, i will admit, his ways are always easier, faster, and much cleaner! he is also my hardest credict and i love that (no i can not spell for shit)

Click to expand...

I hear you an that one. "What are you doing son?" Was how a lecture started. Now he's all amazed that we are listening to his ideas. LOL

My little guy is 4 and loves going for rides on the bikes so when he gets old enough I'll be doing the same thing, hopefully he'll appreciate the bike a little more than just a way to show off the ladies.

Keep up the good work.

Jay

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Gotta give some props on this whole project. I WISH my Dad had done something like this when I was young. The quality time you guys are putting in on this will mean the world to him I'm sure.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Jay: Yeah, this is kind of one of those things that I always hoped I'd be able to do, and Robbie has already become extremely interested in this project. His work ethic has improved by leaps and bounds. He's never mentioned anything about showin off for the ladies. That's just me hoping that the bike will be some help in that department.
Big R: Thanks dude, This project has been nice so far. He's learning lots about bikes and wrenching and we're learning lots about each other.

Okay, update time! We've pulled the bike down to frame and motor. The motor will come out either tonight or tomorrow. We've also been doing a lot of cleaning. A lot... and by we I mean mostly me. But that's okay, cleaning up old dirty parts is one of my favorite parts of working on old bikes. There's something very zen about it. On to the pics!
Here she is All torn down and ready for motor removal.

Her are some of the chrome parts after wire wheel cleaning. The brake lever is halfway done and the shocks haven't been touched to show what it all started out looking like. I was amazed at how nice these things were under all of that surface rust.

Here are the handlebars halfway through cleaning so that you can see how rusty they were.

I found a velocity stack in my spare parts that fits the carb! Sweet!


I spent forever cleaning on the rear drum cover and it's still pretty rough. I'll be taking it to get blasted soon. Maybe that will help.

The next things on the cleaning list are the wheels and the swingarm... They've got a long way to go...


So that's it for now. The pile of parts is growing very large. I'm doing my best to keep everything together that goes together and I hope that helps with reassembly.

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Lookin good! Hes a lucky kid...

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Really cool that the two of you are doing this together. Might have him go back and tag everything with masking tape and marker. Even if you don't need it will help him learn what everything is and where it goes and how it works.

On that hub the clear coat has flaked and parts of the aluminum has oxidized. Hit it with a little oven cleaner and fine steel wool. Dont leave the oven cleaner on too long or it will start to eat away at the aluminum. The best option is to use Aluminum aircraft paint remover. Leave it sit for 5 minutes(or longer if needed) then use fine steel wool and soap and water to remove the paint remover.
Awesome job. Keep it up

--Troy

Re: 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build (The Rob Bob)

Thanks for the tip Troy. When I read that, I had one of those "duh" moments! Anyways I've got some of the aircraft stripper (Thanks Twisted) and I'll go to town on it tonight. Last night after I got back from Brandon's workshop, Robbie and I removed the motor! Man is that thing tiny. I've got it sitting on a table beside a cb350 motor and that 350 looks like a giant compared to the little rebel mill. I don't have pics yet but I'll upload some tomorrow along with the next update. That frame is crusty. We'll be cleaning it then prepping it for paint (appliance epoxy black) tonight. I've still got to grind off the tabs for the chain guard on the swing arm and clean it up, then it gets the paint as well. We'll probably relocate the battery to the front of the swingarm as the factory position had it hanging off the side like an afterthought. That's all for now. This is happening a slight bit faster than I had anticipated, but it'll probably slow down once we start putting it back together and trying to find out which parts are missing.