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

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Yeah, He's a huge Beatles fan, which is one of the first twinklings I got that this boy was gonna be okay. Besides that it's his scoot, and his to name. The way things have been going though, I wouldn't be surprised if this name gets changed twelve times between now and completion!
As a side note, We're also going to disassemble the carb at some point so Rob (and I) can see how it works and clean it up to match that pretty new v-stack. We're also going to start prepping the motor for paint(just the jugs in black and maybe little accents, the rest is going to get blasted and left raw). As Soon as the frame and engine are painted we're going to start putting things back together. Then things will get exciting.

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Looking for opinions/suggestions for the tank. The frame is single back-bone, but the back bone is pretty thick (the tunnel on a sporty tank is about 1/4 inch too narrow). So far Rob likes the idea of a toaster tank, and I found a few that would fit with some mounting mods. Then there is the possibility of using an aluminum tank since we have been (and will continue) using so much raw aluminum. This is what I was thinking, but with black accenting or panels or whatever Robbie decides:

It's a suzuki 175 tank and they're all over ebay pretty cheap.
The next option that I like is an xs400 tank. It's got a nice low line to it. Here's an example from ebay. These are also fairly cheap and abundant.

What do you guys think? Any other suggestions? It's got to be cheap. I'm only into this for a hundred bucks so far and would like a nice low build total when the bike's done.

 

[VonYinzer]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Hey man... We have a Yamaha tank sitting in the garage thats similar to the black one there that came off of a 76 xs500. I dont know what its originally from, but its mint (and even has some wolf stickers on it, ya actual wolves... ). Ill see if my buddy wants to donate it. We were going to give it to a friend to practice pin striping on, but he hasnt come to get it. Been sitting on a shelf for months.

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Dude that would be super solid! My first cafe seat was made from a 73tx500 tank, and how I wish I had not cut that thing up!

 

[VonYinzer]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Ill talk to him today and see whats up...

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

The other day I was taking Eileen's rearsets to sand blast for Twisted and I picked up a few things for Eleanor. I got the valve cover and the shocks. The shocks came unbelievably clean, while the valve cover had some deep oxidation that didn't come out. My plan is to sand the bad spots out of the valve cover and blast it again. We were planning on leaving the vlave cover raw while painting the jugs black. If this doesn't work out we'll have to reconsider that and maybe go with a different motor scheme.
The shocks are so nice that we're going to have to reconsider taking them apart and painting them..

Here's the valve cover:

And the frame is almost ready for paint. If the humidity is right Rob and I will try to paint it this afternoon:

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Project's been a hold for a minute now, but we finally got some more done. I took the swingarm over to tWisted's workshop to grind the tabs off of it this morning. Then sanded the swingarm and patched some rough spots with filler. We then taped off a few areas and cleaned the swingarm with acetone. After giving that time to dissolve it was go time for the appliance epoxy (I can't thank Joe enough for introducing this stuff to me way back... it's the shit.) black. The swingarm is still curing. Also yesterday we sanded down the drum brake stabilizer bar and shot it with the appliance epoxy. Here are some pics:
Here's the swingarm all nasty.

Here she is sanded, cleaned and waiting on the paint.

And here she hangs curing.

Here's the drum stabilizer arm sanded.

And painted.

So this thing is moving pretty slowly right now. That's okay though, because Robbie won't turn 14 for another year and a half, and we should be done way before then (fingers crossed). Hopefully sometime this week we can get the frame sprayed. After that it's time to start spending money. We've got to buy a sprocket cover, a few screws that are missing, exhaust, coils, caliper, tank (the xs tank von yinzer mentioned earlier isn't going to work), shifter and linkage, probably new pegs, grips, spark plugs, and brake lever. I'm sure I missed some stuff...
More to come soon(?)

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Congrats to you and Robbie for doing this build together! I will be following along. I saw he was originally thinking of OD Green and thought I knew where this was going but you never mentioned it.
Have you see n the Rebel kit photos on www.bluecollarbobbers.com ? They make kits to turn modern Bikes into Bobbers and their pics of the Rebel kitted parts might give you guys some ideas on your build...

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

That's kind of the direction we're going but with a much more severely bobbed rear fender, different bars, way more black, and much cooler. Thanks for the pic dude, it'll help Rob visualize this color.

 

[thompsonmx100]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

This build is very cool Alex. Its cool you are two are working together. You guys should build a soda blaster together then do that carb with it. It would be a nice creative project. Show him you dont always have to buy tools to get the job done. Nor do you need to have access to a blaster. Sounds like you have a good plan I'm sure yer having fun. Keep it up.

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Yeah thompson we're gonna do the soda blaster! I've been looking at the thread about it for a while and I'm definately in!
Okay it's been a while but Robbie finally got excited about the bike again today! Bout Damned Time! I refuse to work on it without him there(aside from little stuff) because then it becomes my project instead of ours. And it'll only trully be his when he can look at every bolt and remember tightening it! We suspended the frame with an old piece of teak wood and some wires and got her all cleaned up again. I've already prepped this frame twice and suffered from false starts so the prep was fairly simple. Then we got to spraying her. Robbie did a good bit of the spray work himself and he did pretty good! I was quite proud standing back listening to Deadbolt jam on the stereo and watching Rob lay paint on his frame. After we got it sprayed we each grabbed a side of the wood and carried the frame inside of the garage to cure. Here's a pick of her hanging and drying.

I also had a pleasant surprise this week from my wife. I had put a sprocket cover for a 2005 rebel on watch on our ebay account and my wife bought it and didn't tell me. I wasn't sure if it would fit, but Honda didn't do much changing on these motors and everything lines up on the 85 engine. The finish was entirely too pretty for the rest of the motor, so I took it to work and blasted the shit out of it. I also did some more blasting on the valve cover to get rid of the deep oxidization. Here's a shot of the two blasted parts back on the motor.

Next we're going to drain the oil out of the motor and remove the other covers to get blasted. The jugs will be black. And Robbie is still dead set on silver and black for the tins. And that's okay with me because it's what he wants (for now).
I also did some cleaning on my garage this weekend so I'll throw a shot up because I'm very proud.

 

[VonYinzer]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Looking great man! Hes a lucky kid.

 

[JRK5892]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

ok.... so now that the frame is black, and off the bike do some old school tricks to it... stripe it... stripe the frame! him just run some masking tape down the lenght of the down tubes, and exposed parts and use some paint and hand stripe it, you can get striping brushes really cheap at hobby stores. would give it his own personal touch the masking tape will ensure his lines are strait, or personally i would do a ribon style strip... to give you an idea her is one of my dads old chops, look at the frame under the seat you can really see what i am talking about, the whole frame in that, do it even in flat black or whatever color he is going to paint the bike, will really tie it in to the tins and give him something he can do with out you there and get creative with it on his own.
maybe even script eleanore rigby down the tubes or something

 

[JuanKi]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

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.

Congrats to you and Robbie for doing this build together! I will be following along. I saw he was originally thinking of OD Green and thought I knew where this was going but you never mentioned it.
Have you see n the Rebel kit photos on www.bluecollarbobbers.com ? They make kits to turn modern Bikes into Bobbers and their pics of the Rebel kitted parts might give you guys some ideas on your build...

That is actually one of the possible color schemes I'd like to go with my bike whenever I start my project

Here's another bike with similar colors:

Will be following you guys too!

 

[JRK5892]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

that last one is a softail frame with a dyna swing arm... pretty wild!

 

[thompsonmx100]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Well I'm glad to hear y'all are working on this bike again. I was wondering what was up with it. The soda blaster is simple I made a cabinet out of a rubbermaid container with holes on the side cut an old sweatshirt up and made gloves for it. It still gets everywhere but less so with the cabinet. Its looking good keep it up.

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Hell yeah Joe! We're definately going to stripe the frame. Don't know why I didn't think of that! I'm up in the air over hand striping versus the stick on strips though. Rob could work on the stick on stuff by himself, but I'd have to be there for the paint on striping. I gotta go with the paint on though... He'll learn more, and so will I. I was thinking flat black and flat silver stripes, but I'll have to run that by Rob.
Robbie has since decided against the drab green but I'll have to show him these pics to make sure it's not what he wants.

Thanks for the kind words guys. Rob reads the thread after every update and it always makes his day to read the stuff y'all say.

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Robbie had seen a headlight I had a long time ago, and he's been saying that he wanted that headlight for his bike. The only problem I had was that I had no idea where the headlight was. So today I went digging through my rubbermaid containers of parts. Wouldn't you know it was in the bottom container! It's a headlight from Twisted's brother's old harley chopper. It got tossed and replaced a few years back because of the rust on it, and hoarder that I am I was like "Don't throw that away!". So I looked it over today and the chrome on the bucket is okay, but the rest needs to be blasted and painted... May even blast and paint the bucket too... I dunno.
Here's the headlight:

In my digging I found another bucket that is almost identical with the exception of a red idiot light in the top of it. I don't know which bucket to use.

Anyway I took the headlight apart for blasting so here's a pic of everything. The chrome on the idiot light bucket is much further gone than the original.

So the question for y'all is which bucket? And the other question is if we use the one without the idiot light, should I blast away the good chrome? Robbie and I are undecided on whether to go with a painted bucket or not. So input will be greatly appreciated. Keep in mind that the ring and the visor have to be blasted and painted as the chrome is too crusty to save. Either way I'm excited about finding this headlight. It's going to look especially sweet and the best part is it's free! So far I've got $112.00 in this bike and it looks like it may come in under the $500 estimate. Tires are the thing that will probably put us over. We gots to have white walls... and they cost major cheddar.

 

[jay_kent]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

You've kinda got the best of both worlds there. Blast the chrome and paint the one with the idiot light. If possible I'd switch it out with a blue LED in a chrome bezel for a high beam indicator, or keep the chrome one and use as is. Depending on the color scheme a little bling maybe what's needed to finish it off.

Just my .02

 

[Deviant1]

Re: Eleanor Rigby : 1985 Rebel 250 Bobber Build

Jay your .02 is right in line with mine. That's what we'll do! And I also love the high beam indicator. There's only the lens on the crusty bucket now, the light mounts are broken. I'd have to replace it either way and the high beam indicator will come in more handy than an oil light. It'll be the only idiot light on the bike. Thanks Jay, seems like you're always droppin some seriously useful insight.