*** I'd first like to say that I originally wrote this build thread for a local car/motorcycle forum. Some of the jokes, pictures posted and things like that are directed towards that crowd and community. So I apologize if you don't understand some of the references, pictures or memes in this thread. However, I wanted this to be a fun read and build, so if you want some clarification on anything, just ask and I'll be glad to help!***
On to the show!
This story and build has turned out to be so unique and fun, it warrants being documented. This is my first time ever building something like this and taking the time to do so and I am very pleased with my results so far. So here is my "turn water into wine" story with a motorcycle that most people would have overlooked... but will most certainly be looking now.
[Feel free to skip this section; I felt the need to start from the very very beginning]
Before I jump into everything, let me give you some of my motorcycle background and experience. Back in 2009 I picked up my first motorcycle. It was a 1989 Yamaha FZR 600, a crotch rocket of course! I actually bought the bike from a member here for $700, picked it up not running and took it home. After some routine maintenance and replacing a bolt that grounds the stator to the bike (this was the real fix) the bike was running just fine. If you don't count the new battery I bought for it or my time to tear it down, clean the carbs, etc.. I spent less than $1 to get it running! Great success!
So I was off and hooked on motorcycles now. I am the second person in my ENTIRE family at this point to have owned a motorcycle… needless to say they all were 100% against it.
I consider myself a "color outside of the lines" person, so I pressed on. I kept the bike for a year and traded it off for a lifted truck.
To fast forward, I traded the lifted truck for a sandrail, sold the sandrail for $2,000 and jumped into my newest venture at the time, the stock market! Don’t get me wrong though, I definitely had some fun with this thing. It wasn’t extremely fast, it had a 4 speed manual trans and a 4 cyl Ford Pinto Engine in it. Still TONS of fun and I’ll definitely be strapping myself into another one of these!
Video of how this happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR9vHxMp8o0
I did pretty good trading for myself, cashed out and bought my first liter bike... a 1999 Honda CBR 919RR. Rode this for a while until I wrecked (scumbag gravel around a corner..), tore the bike down, bought the necessary parts for it annnnd sold it for $1000. Please ignore the flames, they weren’t my favorite either…
The guy that bought it had it up and running in 2 weeks. Good for him though; I had absolutely 0 knowledge on putting an engine back together from scratch. Why was the engine in pieces? I’ll tell yo! Somehow I miraculously cracked the crankcase on the bike on the opposite side of where the bike took all the damage from the wreck. Cool story. That was back in 2011, haven't owned a bike since :/.
Continuing on, as you can see… My experience ON bikes is there, but my experience working with them is pretty dismal. I’ve always been a huge fan of crotch rockets, the vanity of them and have really liked motorcycles in general, say minus a few of the ridiculous ones. Never wanted anything other than a rotch crocket until one day my buddy wanted to buy his first motorcycle and landed upon a pretty cool Café bike. He let me drive it home since we had no other way to get it home and I had to say, I loved it. Since then, I’ve really turned a liking to the more grungy looking bobbers, café bikes and choppers. Something about how unique and simple they are just draws me.
So now we come to the official beginning of the Wine to Water build. As you could probably tell, I also love to trade things. Craigslist is amazing for it. Trading up and around, trying new things and having different toys. Always a ton of fun and I know I’m not the only one out there that enjoys it just for the sake of doing it and the experience. Sure, I’ve turned a few profits from all of it, but the experience is priceless. So now we begin our story with my 1995 Lexus SC300 I also bought from a member here. The car isn’t important to this story, what is important however are the extra parts that came with the car are. In this instance, the extra pair of twin turbo’s for the 1JZGTE, which rests in my SC300! They came with the car; I had no use for them so I decided to throw them up on Craigslist to see what kind of offers I would get. Expected cash, but got something much more interesting.
I had a guy message me up and say he had a boat motor he would trade me straight for the two sets of turbo’s. I don’t own a boat… but it was spring time, he said it ran perfect, so I was optimistic. He showed up with a 1956 Johnson 7.5HP outboard motor, complete with compression tank. To my surprise, it was an honest Craigslister and it ran perfect… He said he traded a snowblower for it, didn’t need it and wanted the turbo’s for his car. Everything was on the up and up, so we traded! One problem though, this thing was ugly as balls.
I know, I know. We still haven’t even looked at the main character of this long story, but we’re getting there. So this boat motor is ugly. It looks like it has been sitting on the back of a duck hunting boat for years and has been neglected.. On the inside though, it was still the really cool OG copper color that the factory painted these things… So I got to searching and found what these are SUPPOSED to look like. I figured if I got it looking really good and close to OEM, it would be worth more (Thanks Pawn Stars..)
I’ve never “restored” anything before, so this was my virgin project and it turned out very well. I won’t show you all 20 pictures of it from start to finish, so just scroll back up, look at how it use to look and then scroll right on back down and check out how it looked when I finished
Much legit, so OEM. At this point, I still don’t have a boat…. What I do have though, is a 7.5hp (more than your Honda, pal) boat motor that runs perfect AND it’s spring time. So I threw this bad lad on old Gregslist to see what I’d get. After lots of stupid trade offers, I finally got my “water”. It was ugly, old and I had no real need or want for it because… well, I just didn’t. Whatever, still optimistic and I figured it might be fun for a little while, so why not! What is it?
1976 Kawasaki KE100 – 2 Stroke
In early June 2013, an older gentlemen called me, said he use to have a motor like the one I had and really wanted to trade. He said the motorcycle ran great but it wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at. All I cared about was that it ran; looks can be fixed easily. He transported it over to my house while I was on my lunch break and damn was he right, this thing was hideous. I hopped on it, kicked it 2-3 times, fired it up and went off down and throughout my neighborhood. For only being a 100cc 2-stroke, this thing has some get up and go; I was impressed. Here is where it gets funny… While talking to him and going over everything, he starts telling me about the boat motor he had like mine. He said his wasn’t nearly as good looking and he traded it for a snowblower… Hold up.. Yeah, this dude traded for his old boat motor back and he didn’t even know it! The irony! So anyway, he has his motor back and I now have the start to my new project. Here it is, isn’t it a beaut!?
Don’t understand the trade triangle that just happened? Well I’ll explain! No, you don’t get a fun picture… I have the turbo’s, I traded the turbo’s for the boat motor. The guy who traded me the boat motor for the turbo’s, traded his snowblower to get the boat motor in the first place. The dude he got the boat motor from traded me his motorcycle for his old boat motor. The guy that got his old boat motor back didn’t even recognize or realize it was his old boat motor in the first place.
Ok have a picture…
ANYWAY! So here is how I got the bike. Be sure to look at it with one eye so you don’t ruin them both…
Ohh heeii Lexus.
Ugly. This picture should feel right at home here at Xceed… mismatched fenders, parts and all.
(((NOTE. I copy and pasted my build thread from where I originally posted it on a local forum. The forum is called Xceedspeed. Some of the jokes you may read in this thread are directed at them and not you guys. If you don't quite understand something, ask and I'll explain!))) Moving on!
So we’ve got a blue front fender, yellow gas tank, black seat and a white busted rear fender with a black rear inner fender. I don’t even? My first initial thought for this bike was to do the same thing I did with my boat motor, restore it back to original. So I started to tear it down to clean and figure out what I was going to need.
Monster truck status suspension. That is to be expected though, because this motorcycle is originally an ENDURO!! I cleaned up the wheels and they shined up like new, so that was a plus. Tore the rest of the junk off and started looking at it. What I saw with that flat rack on the back where the seat sets, is what could be a Café bike. So I started thinking about what I could cut off, take off and do. So it came to me, I’d chop off all the unnecessary brackets and things off of the rear to make room for a café seat, I would clean the bike up, paint it if I had to, take the rear suspension off, hardtail it and cut the springs in the forks up front and slam this bike right to the ground. So I decided on that and ordered myself some parts!
Seat and handlebars came in and I was pretty anxious to do some test fitting. At this point, I had not finished my hardtail struts yet, but they were in the works. What I did for those was bought some thick solid steel rod, cut off the eyes of the stock shocks and welded them to the steel rod. Simple, easy and cheap way to lower the bike…. Not the most comfortable, but the purpose of this build wasn’t comfort! Even without the struts on the bike at this time, it still gave me a good idea of how the bike would sit. I still needed to chop some stuff off as well.. I was too excited to test fit to worry about the minor details. Also during the initial tear down above I cleaned up the wheels and I have to say, I was very surprised to see them all polished and looking new. Shames me to paint them, but I had it in my mind to do it anyway. I also took some sanding to the tank. Looking at the bike from a polished perspective, I think my next build might have to be a white and polished metal, I really dig the look. So here is a rough idea of what I thought I might want the bike to look like.
Sits pretty low and I loved it. The handlebars aren’t set how they traditionally would for this style of bike or the style that I was after, but I really enjoyed it at the time. Still can’t get over how shiny the wheels are for being factory. Also, I think the tires are the factory ones to… They are weather cracked to all hell, but have not leaked an ounce of air since I’ve owned the bike. Who knew?
Toys are fun.
It is really hard to put into perspective of how low this bike sits. You can clearly tell the bike is further up in the driveway than the Lexus and the seat is still under the door handle. LowLife.
Pressing on, I tore the bike down again for the second time and got the wheels, tank and my new struts ready for paint. Confidence was built up pretty good as I saw just how easy it was to tear the bike down and put it all back together again. I also started noticing that I would need to do some SERIOUS cleaning on this bike. Sooo many parts were caked with dirt and grime. So here we are, naked and looking like something out of a dump.
Struts as I mentioned before were pretty damn easy. Spent maybe $8 on them total and had a friend TIG weld them for me. They look very professional and after a coat of paint, they look like something you could buy. Pretty happy with the way they turned out. Also, installing fixed struts like these suck when you find out that your frame is bent ever so slightly. The first one is always easy, the second required a handful of persuasion… This bend in the frame will haunt me later.
Tank also got its first few coats. Yes, the gas tank is dented. I actually don’t even care. It adds a little character to the bike. It also still holds gas and is in overall great condition. Looks much much better than it ever did with that nasty yellow color. Also, don’t judge my petcock because it is in fact something bought from good ol’ Home Depot Racing. It’s actually become so much of a joke on the bike, it’ll probably remain on it.
On to painting the wheels. The color scheme for the bike was dubbed black and bronze. I would have went white on bronze, but I said to myself I was never going to tear this bike all the way down to paint EVERYTHING white, so black it was since the frame and everything else on the bike was black. I didn’t want to go overkill with the bronze though. The inspiration for the color scheme on the bike actually came from a Java Black STi. I always loved that color combo and I’ve also never seen too many black/bronze bikes, especially this style of bike. So the first thing to be painted in bronze were going to be my wheels. Never in my life do I ever want to do it this way again… Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other way say for taking off every spoke, painting them, then reinstalling all of them. So my process consisted of wrapping each and every spoke with painters tape where it meets the wheel. Then once those where all covered, I had to cover the rest of it up and the brakes. Oh yeah, don’t forget taping around the tires so you don’t get that pretty color on them either… Oh yeah, had to do this twice… SUPER fun. They turned out very nice though and I’m glad that is over with.
My spokes aren’t black yet! Calm down… I still wasn’t sure at this point on how exactly I was going to paint the spokes without ruining my pretty bronze wheels. Think tank time.
The bike sat like this for a long time after. I didn’t really do much to it for a few months later. Winter came, I moved and didn’t have the space anymore. So the bike got parked in my dining room J. Finally one day I got it back in me and decided I needed to get back to work on this thing, spring would be coming and I wanted to have a toy to play with. Especially since my SC300 isn’t anywhere near where I want it to be. So I started looking at the bike and wondering what I could start on. First thing that came to mind was a bronze chain to match the wheels, so I ordered one! Install was straight forward…. The chain also got me familiar with some very ugly areas on the bike. As you can see in the picture, the paint is terrible and everything is dirty. So It finally dawned on me that I needed to probably tear this thing down and paint the entire bike… Balls.. Wish I would have told myself I was going to do this in the first place, I would have went with my original white/bronze combo! Damn damn damn.. Chain looked awesome though. It isn’t the EXACT same shade as the wheels, but when the sun hits both the wheels and chain, it’s spot on. You also can see that I half ass painted the spokes on the wheels. I hand painted them just to get a feel for what it would look like. It was by no means permanent.
This picture kind of makes me laugh, because if I took the exact same picture of the bike as it rests now, it would be missing at least 3 things alone and would look 100 times better… Might have to do that!
My next big idea after the chain install was to do a major makeover on the bike. I decided to take the bike to my grandparents house for the weekend and knock out a bunch of stuff. My original idea was to do some touch up paint work, clean it up, mount my seat and finish any other little stuff I wanted to. That way, when I was done, all I had to do was install my exhaust, the electrical stuff and then be off and running! Yeah, so much for that plan…. I did however get it to my grandparents’ house!
I took it there with the engine out, which was super simple to do: 4 bolts and removed the carb which was 1 bolt/clamp. The whole reason of removing the engine was to clean the really nasty skid plate and to clean the engine up a little as it had some surface rust on the cast iron. You’ll also notice that I turned my handlebars around. No idea why I didn’t do that in the first place, I LOVE the way they sit now. You can also get a decent look at how the wheels look on the bike!
Remember when I said I’d never tear the bike fully down? Yep, I lied… cry about it! Once I started taking stuff off to clean, I said to hell with it, tore EVERYTHING off, got it all prepped to paint and made myself one big heaping mess in the garage too. While the bike was in his state, I also took it upon myself to cut off more from the back of the frame. I cut off about an inch or two, I also removed the chain guard, rear foot pegs and the bracket that held the old front fender on. So here we have a pile of KE100:
Gotta enjoy working in such a big space! After sanding everything down, I started to hang parts from the ceiling to paint up. Soooo glad I decided to do this, the bike looked so much better after some fresh paint on everything. Especially the frame, it had its fair share of surface rust, chips and nicks. While hanging you can see that I had cut off those brackets that sat on the back of the frame. The brackets used to hold on the fender I believe and also got in the way from my seat sitting the way I wanted it to.
You may or may not be able to tell, but I had parts hanging all over the damn place in the garage. EVERYTHING got painted. I did however tape off and leave the manufacturers sticker up front untouched and the way it looked when I got it. I wanted to leave SOMETHING on the bike totally original. Having a massive heater helps too… Had the garage up to 80 at some point; the Kalamazoo kicks out some BTU’s, man…
I’ll skip the rest of the details, but it mostly included painting and sanding, painting and sanding and more painting and sanding. I also decided to do my spokes the right way, so I taped off all my bronze and sprayed the spokes, brakes, sprockets and all of those components. Turned out awesome say for one thing…. When I peeled the tape off of the bronze, some of the bronze went with the tape…. Wasn’t too happy because that means painting these wheels AGAIN. Should have done better prep work, so that is my fault. Trying to figure out an easier way to paint the bronze back on. To this day, I still search a solution until the next update on the wheels.
So the moment you’ve all been waiting for… How the bike sits after all of this. I wish I could have a better reveal, but it has taken quite the transformation. Of course, I still need to do my exhaust at this point, some lights and mount and finish my seat, but you can still get a pretty good idea of how the bike is going to look! The custom rubber mallet kickstand isn’t permanent.
I’m hoping when I mount the seat, it will sit a little more flush on the back tire, but it doesn’t look too bad. Still not 100% sure how it’s going to be mounted… More or less worried about getting it to rest where it looks the best, is most comfortable for me and clears the tire. Got some work ahead of me for that!
Just to give you an idea of how low the bike is, here it is up against my grandpas 2014 F150.
Pretty small aye? I’m 6’ and the bike still looks pretty proportionate on me, so I can’t complain. Super nimble! Still not sure what I want to do with the engine covers. My guess is they’ll get painted black, but I was thinking of painting the little “Kawasaki” stamp in the same bronze the wheels are done in. More on that one if or when I get to it!
The next “big” installment of my build would be my seat. This part I wasn’t going to do myself because I know the seat can really make or break a bike build like this. So I dropped it off at a shop that does interior work and they told me it would be done in 1 week. All I wanted was black leather or something like it, with some decent cushion since the bike was hardtailed. I also asked for the seat to be velcro’d on so I could easily remove the cushion to mount it and what not…. 3 weeks later (nice timing, bro) I got the seat back and it looked phenomenal. The guy even velcro’d it on for me even after I said he didn’t have to! It’s very comfy and was just what I was looking for. The big question next is how I’m going to mount it. My original idea was just bolt it straight to the frame and call it good, but we’ll see how that turns out. I’ll probably have to shim it with my frame being slightly bent in the back. I would think my struts being the same length would pull the frame together, but it didn’t. Anyway, I want the seat mounted specifically for me, I also want it to fit flush over the tire and not sit too far back… Asking a lot! So here is the seat.
The seat itself is made of fiberglass by the way. Quality stuff and snagged it off of eBay for around $50 I think. Getting the seat covered made cost me $60, paint and everything has probably ran me $20 and the handlebars were around $50 as well I believe. So I’ve got roughly $200 into the bike, originally started out with an object worth $125 and I’d expect to sell this bike for quite a bit of money when it was done. Profit for sure, but I’m not going to sell it. I’ll probably build a few others and collect!
So the seat is done minus mounting which leaves me with exhaust, electrical and then getting the bike legal!
Should have probably mentioned this before. This bike never came with a title and was not road legal. Now you may be thinking: “Why take it with no title?”. Well my thoughts were 1. If I can’t get a title, I’ll just make it a little trail bomber again and ride it til it dies or 2. I get a title and turn it into a badass road bike. So off to the SoS with all the info I had and asked about a title. The lady searched it and found that the bike was no stolen and that it wasn’t even reported. So I’d actually be the original title owner. Woo! All I have to do is make sure the bike has a headlight with hi/lo, an exhaust, brake light, tail light, license plate light, good tires, 1 mirror on the left and a horn. Once I have all of that, I get it inspected by a police officer. Once it passes the visual inspection I can go apply for a title. Once I have the title in hand I can get my insurance for it, then a plate and we are legal beagle!
Back to the bike! My next big hurdle was the exhaust. I never liked the stock exhaust, I thought it looked too old. This is also the first two stroked I’ve owned and didn’t know too much about them. If you remember back to the way the bike looked before, you can see the stock exhaust clearly rides high and to the left… well I wanted my new exhaust to leave the head, go down to the right, under the skid plate, under the foot peg and dump out somewhere near the right strut. That was the idea at least until I learned that 2-strokes will run on half power without the proper exhaust. You think turbo’s are witchcraft? Well 2 stroke expansions chambers are on a whole different level of sorcery; sorcery that I wanted no part of!
So I decided to load the bike up in my truck and take it to a buddy’s garage so we could figure out what to do with the exhaust. Maybe mock something up? Maybe modify the stock exhaust? Who knows, I didn’t. So we took a look at it. We found that the ol ’76 factory exhaust was not only disgusting on the outside from me leaving it out (in my defense, I thought I’d never use it again), but it was full of gunk and nastiness on the inside. Which makes me wonder if that was the reason why the bike fouled plugs all the time?
Anyone else noticed that my Lexus finds its way to photobomb a bunch of my pictures with this bike? I think it wants the attention…
I guess I should have mentioned that too. The bike ran when I got it, it would just run a little choppy here and there and foul plugs out. I bought a carb rebuild kit to be on the safe side, but I think I found the culprit… the stupid exhaust. It was full of god who knows what. Our guess was asbestos lol
For shits and gigs, my buddy told me to throw the stock exhaust on the bike anyway, JUST to see how it looks. Lucky for me, I always put the spare bolts to things back in there place on a bike, just in case I want to use that space or bracket or whatever again. So I put the stock pipe back on and I have to say, I fell in love. The stock exhaust fit so well with the tank and seat and it just flowed! So that is where I’m at with that! We also decided to cut my stock kickstand down to fit the bike, so no more standing on cinderblocks or being held up by rubber mallets! I’m an idiot though and put the foot peg that kickstand attaches to on the wrong side, so the kickstand now faces the wrong way… details.
So without further aue, here is how the bike rests now. It is currently waiting on a stock exhaust from a new version of the bike and the rest of its electronics. The paint has since been scuffed in a few spots and I still need to touch up the wheels, seat and tank. I’ll be getting the bike road legal before doing any of that again. EVERY time I paint something, it gets messed up the next time I mess with the bike. Now I see why bike builders put everything together, take it all apart, paint it, put it all back together and then get it out of their hands before anything happens to it!
On to the show!
This story and build has turned out to be so unique and fun, it warrants being documented. This is my first time ever building something like this and taking the time to do so and I am very pleased with my results so far. So here is my "turn water into wine" story with a motorcycle that most people would have overlooked... but will most certainly be looking now.
[Feel free to skip this section; I felt the need to start from the very very beginning]
Before I jump into everything, let me give you some of my motorcycle background and experience. Back in 2009 I picked up my first motorcycle. It was a 1989 Yamaha FZR 600, a crotch rocket of course! I actually bought the bike from a member here for $700, picked it up not running and took it home. After some routine maintenance and replacing a bolt that grounds the stator to the bike (this was the real fix) the bike was running just fine. If you don't count the new battery I bought for it or my time to tear it down, clean the carbs, etc.. I spent less than $1 to get it running! Great success!
So I was off and hooked on motorcycles now. I am the second person in my ENTIRE family at this point to have owned a motorcycle… needless to say they all were 100% against it.
I consider myself a "color outside of the lines" person, so I pressed on. I kept the bike for a year and traded it off for a lifted truck.
To fast forward, I traded the lifted truck for a sandrail, sold the sandrail for $2,000 and jumped into my newest venture at the time, the stock market! Don’t get me wrong though, I definitely had some fun with this thing. It wasn’t extremely fast, it had a 4 speed manual trans and a 4 cyl Ford Pinto Engine in it. Still TONS of fun and I’ll definitely be strapping myself into another one of these!
Video of how this happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR9vHxMp8o0
I did pretty good trading for myself, cashed out and bought my first liter bike... a 1999 Honda CBR 919RR. Rode this for a while until I wrecked (scumbag gravel around a corner..), tore the bike down, bought the necessary parts for it annnnd sold it for $1000. Please ignore the flames, they weren’t my favorite either…
The guy that bought it had it up and running in 2 weeks. Good for him though; I had absolutely 0 knowledge on putting an engine back together from scratch. Why was the engine in pieces? I’ll tell yo! Somehow I miraculously cracked the crankcase on the bike on the opposite side of where the bike took all the damage from the wreck. Cool story. That was back in 2011, haven't owned a bike since :/.
Continuing on, as you can see… My experience ON bikes is there, but my experience working with them is pretty dismal. I’ve always been a huge fan of crotch rockets, the vanity of them and have really liked motorcycles in general, say minus a few of the ridiculous ones. Never wanted anything other than a rotch crocket until one day my buddy wanted to buy his first motorcycle and landed upon a pretty cool Café bike. He let me drive it home since we had no other way to get it home and I had to say, I loved it. Since then, I’ve really turned a liking to the more grungy looking bobbers, café bikes and choppers. Something about how unique and simple they are just draws me.
So now we come to the official beginning of the Wine to Water build. As you could probably tell, I also love to trade things. Craigslist is amazing for it. Trading up and around, trying new things and having different toys. Always a ton of fun and I know I’m not the only one out there that enjoys it just for the sake of doing it and the experience. Sure, I’ve turned a few profits from all of it, but the experience is priceless. So now we begin our story with my 1995 Lexus SC300 I also bought from a member here. The car isn’t important to this story, what is important however are the extra parts that came with the car are. In this instance, the extra pair of twin turbo’s for the 1JZGTE, which rests in my SC300! They came with the car; I had no use for them so I decided to throw them up on Craigslist to see what kind of offers I would get. Expected cash, but got something much more interesting.
I had a guy message me up and say he had a boat motor he would trade me straight for the two sets of turbo’s. I don’t own a boat… but it was spring time, he said it ran perfect, so I was optimistic. He showed up with a 1956 Johnson 7.5HP outboard motor, complete with compression tank. To my surprise, it was an honest Craigslister and it ran perfect… He said he traded a snowblower for it, didn’t need it and wanted the turbo’s for his car. Everything was on the up and up, so we traded! One problem though, this thing was ugly as balls.
I know, I know. We still haven’t even looked at the main character of this long story, but we’re getting there. So this boat motor is ugly. It looks like it has been sitting on the back of a duck hunting boat for years and has been neglected.. On the inside though, it was still the really cool OG copper color that the factory painted these things… So I got to searching and found what these are SUPPOSED to look like. I figured if I got it looking really good and close to OEM, it would be worth more (Thanks Pawn Stars..)
I’ve never “restored” anything before, so this was my virgin project and it turned out very well. I won’t show you all 20 pictures of it from start to finish, so just scroll back up, look at how it use to look and then scroll right on back down and check out how it looked when I finished
Much legit, so OEM. At this point, I still don’t have a boat…. What I do have though, is a 7.5hp (more than your Honda, pal) boat motor that runs perfect AND it’s spring time. So I threw this bad lad on old Gregslist to see what I’d get. After lots of stupid trade offers, I finally got my “water”. It was ugly, old and I had no real need or want for it because… well, I just didn’t. Whatever, still optimistic and I figured it might be fun for a little while, so why not! What is it?
1976 Kawasaki KE100 – 2 Stroke
In early June 2013, an older gentlemen called me, said he use to have a motor like the one I had and really wanted to trade. He said the motorcycle ran great but it wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at. All I cared about was that it ran; looks can be fixed easily. He transported it over to my house while I was on my lunch break and damn was he right, this thing was hideous. I hopped on it, kicked it 2-3 times, fired it up and went off down and throughout my neighborhood. For only being a 100cc 2-stroke, this thing has some get up and go; I was impressed. Here is where it gets funny… While talking to him and going over everything, he starts telling me about the boat motor he had like mine. He said his wasn’t nearly as good looking and he traded it for a snowblower… Hold up.. Yeah, this dude traded for his old boat motor back and he didn’t even know it! The irony! So anyway, he has his motor back and I now have the start to my new project. Here it is, isn’t it a beaut!?
Don’t understand the trade triangle that just happened? Well I’ll explain! No, you don’t get a fun picture… I have the turbo’s, I traded the turbo’s for the boat motor. The guy who traded me the boat motor for the turbo’s, traded his snowblower to get the boat motor in the first place. The dude he got the boat motor from traded me his motorcycle for his old boat motor. The guy that got his old boat motor back didn’t even recognize or realize it was his old boat motor in the first place.
Ok have a picture…
ANYWAY! So here is how I got the bike. Be sure to look at it with one eye so you don’t ruin them both…
Ohh heeii Lexus.
Ugly. This picture should feel right at home here at Xceed… mismatched fenders, parts and all.
(((NOTE. I copy and pasted my build thread from where I originally posted it on a local forum. The forum is called Xceedspeed. Some of the jokes you may read in this thread are directed at them and not you guys. If you don't quite understand something, ask and I'll explain!))) Moving on!
So we’ve got a blue front fender, yellow gas tank, black seat and a white busted rear fender with a black rear inner fender. I don’t even? My first initial thought for this bike was to do the same thing I did with my boat motor, restore it back to original. So I started to tear it down to clean and figure out what I was going to need.
Monster truck status suspension. That is to be expected though, because this motorcycle is originally an ENDURO!! I cleaned up the wheels and they shined up like new, so that was a plus. Tore the rest of the junk off and started looking at it. What I saw with that flat rack on the back where the seat sets, is what could be a Café bike. So I started thinking about what I could cut off, take off and do. So it came to me, I’d chop off all the unnecessary brackets and things off of the rear to make room for a café seat, I would clean the bike up, paint it if I had to, take the rear suspension off, hardtail it and cut the springs in the forks up front and slam this bike right to the ground. So I decided on that and ordered myself some parts!
Seat and handlebars came in and I was pretty anxious to do some test fitting. At this point, I had not finished my hardtail struts yet, but they were in the works. What I did for those was bought some thick solid steel rod, cut off the eyes of the stock shocks and welded them to the steel rod. Simple, easy and cheap way to lower the bike…. Not the most comfortable, but the purpose of this build wasn’t comfort! Even without the struts on the bike at this time, it still gave me a good idea of how the bike would sit. I still needed to chop some stuff off as well.. I was too excited to test fit to worry about the minor details. Also during the initial tear down above I cleaned up the wheels and I have to say, I was very surprised to see them all polished and looking new. Shames me to paint them, but I had it in my mind to do it anyway. I also took some sanding to the tank. Looking at the bike from a polished perspective, I think my next build might have to be a white and polished metal, I really dig the look. So here is a rough idea of what I thought I might want the bike to look like.
Sits pretty low and I loved it. The handlebars aren’t set how they traditionally would for this style of bike or the style that I was after, but I really enjoyed it at the time. Still can’t get over how shiny the wheels are for being factory. Also, I think the tires are the factory ones to… They are weather cracked to all hell, but have not leaked an ounce of air since I’ve owned the bike. Who knew?
Toys are fun.
It is really hard to put into perspective of how low this bike sits. You can clearly tell the bike is further up in the driveway than the Lexus and the seat is still under the door handle. LowLife.
Pressing on, I tore the bike down again for the second time and got the wheels, tank and my new struts ready for paint. Confidence was built up pretty good as I saw just how easy it was to tear the bike down and put it all back together again. I also started noticing that I would need to do some SERIOUS cleaning on this bike. Sooo many parts were caked with dirt and grime. So here we are, naked and looking like something out of a dump.
Struts as I mentioned before were pretty damn easy. Spent maybe $8 on them total and had a friend TIG weld them for me. They look very professional and after a coat of paint, they look like something you could buy. Pretty happy with the way they turned out. Also, installing fixed struts like these suck when you find out that your frame is bent ever so slightly. The first one is always easy, the second required a handful of persuasion… This bend in the frame will haunt me later.
Tank also got its first few coats. Yes, the gas tank is dented. I actually don’t even care. It adds a little character to the bike. It also still holds gas and is in overall great condition. Looks much much better than it ever did with that nasty yellow color. Also, don’t judge my petcock because it is in fact something bought from good ol’ Home Depot Racing. It’s actually become so much of a joke on the bike, it’ll probably remain on it.
On to painting the wheels. The color scheme for the bike was dubbed black and bronze. I would have went white on bronze, but I said to myself I was never going to tear this bike all the way down to paint EVERYTHING white, so black it was since the frame and everything else on the bike was black. I didn’t want to go overkill with the bronze though. The inspiration for the color scheme on the bike actually came from a Java Black STi. I always loved that color combo and I’ve also never seen too many black/bronze bikes, especially this style of bike. So the first thing to be painted in bronze were going to be my wheels. Never in my life do I ever want to do it this way again… Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other way say for taking off every spoke, painting them, then reinstalling all of them. So my process consisted of wrapping each and every spoke with painters tape where it meets the wheel. Then once those where all covered, I had to cover the rest of it up and the brakes. Oh yeah, don’t forget taping around the tires so you don’t get that pretty color on them either… Oh yeah, had to do this twice… SUPER fun. They turned out very nice though and I’m glad that is over with.
My spokes aren’t black yet! Calm down… I still wasn’t sure at this point on how exactly I was going to paint the spokes without ruining my pretty bronze wheels. Think tank time.
The bike sat like this for a long time after. I didn’t really do much to it for a few months later. Winter came, I moved and didn’t have the space anymore. So the bike got parked in my dining room J. Finally one day I got it back in me and decided I needed to get back to work on this thing, spring would be coming and I wanted to have a toy to play with. Especially since my SC300 isn’t anywhere near where I want it to be. So I started looking at the bike and wondering what I could start on. First thing that came to mind was a bronze chain to match the wheels, so I ordered one! Install was straight forward…. The chain also got me familiar with some very ugly areas on the bike. As you can see in the picture, the paint is terrible and everything is dirty. So It finally dawned on me that I needed to probably tear this thing down and paint the entire bike… Balls.. Wish I would have told myself I was going to do this in the first place, I would have went with my original white/bronze combo! Damn damn damn.. Chain looked awesome though. It isn’t the EXACT same shade as the wheels, but when the sun hits both the wheels and chain, it’s spot on. You also can see that I half ass painted the spokes on the wheels. I hand painted them just to get a feel for what it would look like. It was by no means permanent.
This picture kind of makes me laugh, because if I took the exact same picture of the bike as it rests now, it would be missing at least 3 things alone and would look 100 times better… Might have to do that!
My next big idea after the chain install was to do a major makeover on the bike. I decided to take the bike to my grandparents house for the weekend and knock out a bunch of stuff. My original idea was to do some touch up paint work, clean it up, mount my seat and finish any other little stuff I wanted to. That way, when I was done, all I had to do was install my exhaust, the electrical stuff and then be off and running! Yeah, so much for that plan…. I did however get it to my grandparents’ house!
I took it there with the engine out, which was super simple to do: 4 bolts and removed the carb which was 1 bolt/clamp. The whole reason of removing the engine was to clean the really nasty skid plate and to clean the engine up a little as it had some surface rust on the cast iron. You’ll also notice that I turned my handlebars around. No idea why I didn’t do that in the first place, I LOVE the way they sit now. You can also get a decent look at how the wheels look on the bike!
Remember when I said I’d never tear the bike fully down? Yep, I lied… cry about it! Once I started taking stuff off to clean, I said to hell with it, tore EVERYTHING off, got it all prepped to paint and made myself one big heaping mess in the garage too. While the bike was in his state, I also took it upon myself to cut off more from the back of the frame. I cut off about an inch or two, I also removed the chain guard, rear foot pegs and the bracket that held the old front fender on. So here we have a pile of KE100:
Gotta enjoy working in such a big space! After sanding everything down, I started to hang parts from the ceiling to paint up. Soooo glad I decided to do this, the bike looked so much better after some fresh paint on everything. Especially the frame, it had its fair share of surface rust, chips and nicks. While hanging you can see that I had cut off those brackets that sat on the back of the frame. The brackets used to hold on the fender I believe and also got in the way from my seat sitting the way I wanted it to.
You may or may not be able to tell, but I had parts hanging all over the damn place in the garage. EVERYTHING got painted. I did however tape off and leave the manufacturers sticker up front untouched and the way it looked when I got it. I wanted to leave SOMETHING on the bike totally original. Having a massive heater helps too… Had the garage up to 80 at some point; the Kalamazoo kicks out some BTU’s, man…
I’ll skip the rest of the details, but it mostly included painting and sanding, painting and sanding and more painting and sanding. I also decided to do my spokes the right way, so I taped off all my bronze and sprayed the spokes, brakes, sprockets and all of those components. Turned out awesome say for one thing…. When I peeled the tape off of the bronze, some of the bronze went with the tape…. Wasn’t too happy because that means painting these wheels AGAIN. Should have done better prep work, so that is my fault. Trying to figure out an easier way to paint the bronze back on. To this day, I still search a solution until the next update on the wheels.
So the moment you’ve all been waiting for… How the bike sits after all of this. I wish I could have a better reveal, but it has taken quite the transformation. Of course, I still need to do my exhaust at this point, some lights and mount and finish my seat, but you can still get a pretty good idea of how the bike is going to look! The custom rubber mallet kickstand isn’t permanent.
I’m hoping when I mount the seat, it will sit a little more flush on the back tire, but it doesn’t look too bad. Still not 100% sure how it’s going to be mounted… More or less worried about getting it to rest where it looks the best, is most comfortable for me and clears the tire. Got some work ahead of me for that!
Just to give you an idea of how low the bike is, here it is up against my grandpas 2014 F150.
Pretty small aye? I’m 6’ and the bike still looks pretty proportionate on me, so I can’t complain. Super nimble! Still not sure what I want to do with the engine covers. My guess is they’ll get painted black, but I was thinking of painting the little “Kawasaki” stamp in the same bronze the wheels are done in. More on that one if or when I get to it!
The next “big” installment of my build would be my seat. This part I wasn’t going to do myself because I know the seat can really make or break a bike build like this. So I dropped it off at a shop that does interior work and they told me it would be done in 1 week. All I wanted was black leather or something like it, with some decent cushion since the bike was hardtailed. I also asked for the seat to be velcro’d on so I could easily remove the cushion to mount it and what not…. 3 weeks later (nice timing, bro) I got the seat back and it looked phenomenal. The guy even velcro’d it on for me even after I said he didn’t have to! It’s very comfy and was just what I was looking for. The big question next is how I’m going to mount it. My original idea was just bolt it straight to the frame and call it good, but we’ll see how that turns out. I’ll probably have to shim it with my frame being slightly bent in the back. I would think my struts being the same length would pull the frame together, but it didn’t. Anyway, I want the seat mounted specifically for me, I also want it to fit flush over the tire and not sit too far back… Asking a lot! So here is the seat.
The seat itself is made of fiberglass by the way. Quality stuff and snagged it off of eBay for around $50 I think. Getting the seat covered made cost me $60, paint and everything has probably ran me $20 and the handlebars were around $50 as well I believe. So I’ve got roughly $200 into the bike, originally started out with an object worth $125 and I’d expect to sell this bike for quite a bit of money when it was done. Profit for sure, but I’m not going to sell it. I’ll probably build a few others and collect!
So the seat is done minus mounting which leaves me with exhaust, electrical and then getting the bike legal!
Should have probably mentioned this before. This bike never came with a title and was not road legal. Now you may be thinking: “Why take it with no title?”. Well my thoughts were 1. If I can’t get a title, I’ll just make it a little trail bomber again and ride it til it dies or 2. I get a title and turn it into a badass road bike. So off to the SoS with all the info I had and asked about a title. The lady searched it and found that the bike was no stolen and that it wasn’t even reported. So I’d actually be the original title owner. Woo! All I have to do is make sure the bike has a headlight with hi/lo, an exhaust, brake light, tail light, license plate light, good tires, 1 mirror on the left and a horn. Once I have all of that, I get it inspected by a police officer. Once it passes the visual inspection I can go apply for a title. Once I have the title in hand I can get my insurance for it, then a plate and we are legal beagle!
Back to the bike! My next big hurdle was the exhaust. I never liked the stock exhaust, I thought it looked too old. This is also the first two stroked I’ve owned and didn’t know too much about them. If you remember back to the way the bike looked before, you can see the stock exhaust clearly rides high and to the left… well I wanted my new exhaust to leave the head, go down to the right, under the skid plate, under the foot peg and dump out somewhere near the right strut. That was the idea at least until I learned that 2-strokes will run on half power without the proper exhaust. You think turbo’s are witchcraft? Well 2 stroke expansions chambers are on a whole different level of sorcery; sorcery that I wanted no part of!
So I decided to load the bike up in my truck and take it to a buddy’s garage so we could figure out what to do with the exhaust. Maybe mock something up? Maybe modify the stock exhaust? Who knows, I didn’t. So we took a look at it. We found that the ol ’76 factory exhaust was not only disgusting on the outside from me leaving it out (in my defense, I thought I’d never use it again), but it was full of gunk and nastiness on the inside. Which makes me wonder if that was the reason why the bike fouled plugs all the time?
Anyone else noticed that my Lexus finds its way to photobomb a bunch of my pictures with this bike? I think it wants the attention…
I guess I should have mentioned that too. The bike ran when I got it, it would just run a little choppy here and there and foul plugs out. I bought a carb rebuild kit to be on the safe side, but I think I found the culprit… the stupid exhaust. It was full of god who knows what. Our guess was asbestos lol
For shits and gigs, my buddy told me to throw the stock exhaust on the bike anyway, JUST to see how it looks. Lucky for me, I always put the spare bolts to things back in there place on a bike, just in case I want to use that space or bracket or whatever again. So I put the stock pipe back on and I have to say, I fell in love. The stock exhaust fit so well with the tank and seat and it just flowed! So that is where I’m at with that! We also decided to cut my stock kickstand down to fit the bike, so no more standing on cinderblocks or being held up by rubber mallets! I’m an idiot though and put the foot peg that kickstand attaches to on the wrong side, so the kickstand now faces the wrong way… details.
So without further aue, here is how the bike rests now. It is currently waiting on a stock exhaust from a new version of the bike and the rest of its electronics. The paint has since been scuffed in a few spots and I still need to touch up the wheels, seat and tank. I’ll be getting the bike road legal before doing any of that again. EVERY time I paint something, it gets messed up the next time I mess with the bike. Now I see why bike builders put everything together, take it all apart, paint it, put it all back together and then get it out of their hands before anything happens to it!
