I had been toying around with the idea of building a cafe racer type bike but with dual sport tires for a while. I am from the rock crawling/Jeep scene, had a sports bike in college, am handy with mechanical things and am comfortable fabricating complex things from scratch.
I ran across a great deal on a 1989 Yamaha Radian yx600. Runs fairly well. 13k miles. Clean title. A little road rash on the right side, but nothing serious. Paid $500.
I wanted something fun to scoot around town on. Nothing serious. I wanted to keep it somewhat budget friendly. I have a clear idea of what I want to build.
Bike was delivered this Friday. I tore into it this weekend and am feeling good about its direction so far. I'm no motorcycle expert so some things I've had to Google, but mostly I just decide on a plan and start unbolting stuff until I figure it out on my own.
This weekend I:
Swapped in a new battery
Changed out rectangular light for a round Kc
Cut of most of the rear frame and tabs
Uninstalled unnecessary plastic crap
Started building a small flat seat
Built a new fuse box under seat
Moved ignition boxes around
Painted fuel tank
Removed mufflers
Removed ghetto turn signals
Removed rear passenger pegs
And generally cleaned it up.
I'm going to add foam to the seat base then wrap it in an old brown Carhart canvas jacket. Will sew baffles (or whatever they're called) into it.
I still need to swap out the handlebar for something flatter.
Going to throw some ww2 style white star decals on the sides of the tank.
Will either wrap or paint the remaining exhaust.
The bigger projects that are currently out of my knowledge depth are rejetting the carbs after I add pods and lowering the front end a bit.
I also want to put on some aggressive dual sport tires but having 16" wheels is limiting my options. Wondering how much of a pita is would be to swap to a bigger wheel so I can pick the tires I want instead of settling on what's available.
I would love any input or ideas.
I'll try to post the photos in order of the build, starting with before I got it.
Sent from my SM-G935V using DO THE TON mobile app
I ran across a great deal on a 1989 Yamaha Radian yx600. Runs fairly well. 13k miles. Clean title. A little road rash on the right side, but nothing serious. Paid $500.
I wanted something fun to scoot around town on. Nothing serious. I wanted to keep it somewhat budget friendly. I have a clear idea of what I want to build.
Bike was delivered this Friday. I tore into it this weekend and am feeling good about its direction so far. I'm no motorcycle expert so some things I've had to Google, but mostly I just decide on a plan and start unbolting stuff until I figure it out on my own.
This weekend I:
Swapped in a new battery
Changed out rectangular light for a round Kc
Cut of most of the rear frame and tabs
Uninstalled unnecessary plastic crap
Started building a small flat seat
Built a new fuse box under seat
Moved ignition boxes around
Painted fuel tank
Removed mufflers
Removed ghetto turn signals
Removed rear passenger pegs
And generally cleaned it up.
I'm going to add foam to the seat base then wrap it in an old brown Carhart canvas jacket. Will sew baffles (or whatever they're called) into it.
I still need to swap out the handlebar for something flatter.
Going to throw some ww2 style white star decals on the sides of the tank.
Will either wrap or paint the remaining exhaust.
The bigger projects that are currently out of my knowledge depth are rejetting the carbs after I add pods and lowering the front end a bit.
I also want to put on some aggressive dual sport tires but having 16" wheels is limiting my options. Wondering how much of a pita is would be to swap to a bigger wheel so I can pick the tires I want instead of settling on what's available.
I would love any input or ideas.
I'll try to post the photos in order of the build, starting with before I got it.
Sent from my SM-G935V using DO THE TON mobile app
