So I thought I'd share my little project here to see what you guys thought of it. Picked up this one for $350 from a guy who rescued it from the junkyard! It was quite a mess when i got it, spray paint everywhere (looked like some teenage summer project that didnt pan out...) dirt and rust in every imaginable spot. Tank was rusted out and not useable and it had no carb! Put a Ducati tank on it and a cafe racer seat. Painted everything, powdercoated wheels, polished sidecases, new piston and rings and magura handlebars and grips. After a little electrical fiddling she started up nicely. Still need a muffler though( who knew a 125 could be that loud... haha). Still working on making her roadworthy, shouldn't be much longer.
1969 Aermacchi-Harley Davidson 125cc Rapido Cafe Racer
- Thread starter CAD_MOTO
- Start date
pacomotorstuff
Coast to Coast
Love the Rapido! Saw a few of them being MX'ed back in the day - pretty rapid little bike for the time. Somewhere in the mountain of old books in my "office", I may still have a hop-up article for your bike. If I can find it, I can either scan and email you or else photocopy and mail. Among other things, it had full dimensions for an expansion chamber. If I remember rightly (and I may not) , Dick O'brien, who was the Director of Racing for HD at the time, was instrumental in the article. As far as the noise, you can fabricate or buy an add-on silencer that is pretty effective at cutting the noise to something tolerable. Email me at pacomotorstuff@cogeco.ca if you're interested.
Again, great build!
Regards,
Pat Cowan,
Pacomotorstuff
Again, great build!
Regards,
Pat Cowan,
Pacomotorstuff
VonYinzer
Over 10,000 Posts
Beautiful bike man! Very well done!!!
Give this a look see: http://www.datafan.com/TunersHandbook/2-strokefiltered.html
May help ya get the most out of the little guy.
Give this a look see: http://www.datafan.com/TunersHandbook/2-strokefiltered.html
May help ya get the most out of the little guy.
Hot Rod Troy
Coast to Coast
Absofrigginlutley awsome bike. A neighbor of mine is restoring one to original. On the outside anyway. 
thought i'd update you guys on my homemade exhaust for the rapido. based it on specs provided to me by pacomotorstuff (thank you!), used this cool program called cone layout to print out templates. cut and rolled them myself with .40 inch stainless steel and had my friend weld them up
enjoy
enjoy
crazypj said:Weird coincidence, I was working on a 1954 Harley Hummer bottom end the other night,
That's based on the 1940's DKW.
BSA swaped blueprints around but HD didn't.
Is that a development of Hummer?
Looks like a 'left hand' Bantam
PJ
now that you mention it PJ... it does look like a bantam... interesting.
As far as I know, aermacchi based the rapido engine on a racing prototype with the same displacement that put out twice the horsepower so it was mostly their design but I'm sure it was influenced by other companies designs. If you look at the two stroke egg shaped engines that ossa, bultaco, gilera and others built, they all look quite alike on the outside at least.
stainless steel exhaust guard i've been working on... stainless is hard to drill...
stainless steel exhaust guard i've been working on... stainless is hard to drill...
