Hi all.

Thought I'd join up and show you the project bike I'm building for my wife.

Don't know if any of you are aware of the 'wrenchmonkee's'? http://www.wrenchmonkees.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Laid my hands on a G plate 400 bandit from that there ebay and it is going to get the wrenchmonkee/cafe racer treatment over the next months. Spoked 17" wheels (from a supermoto), single front brake, lowered flat track seat unit, heat wrapped and painted exhaust, lower clip ons, generally stripped of all uneccesary gubbins and then given a satin black paint job...possibly with gold shelby stripes to match the talon hubs on the moto wheels.

This is the bike just after we got it home when I tried a set of my spare moto wheels (I race moto's) in to see what they looked like on the bike..





This is after I've taken an angle grinder to the seat sub frame to remove the back 3rd and with the flat track seat unit resting on it. I'm going to cut and re-weld the sub frame to get the top rails parallel with the ground so the seat unit is lower and flatter and I'll trim the seat unit to make it shorter so the tail is closer to the axle line. The DRZ moto wheels are resting in place, I'm machining the spacers/fitting smaller bearings to suit the bandit axles and will start sussing out front and rear brake options once this is done. Renthal are making a custom sprocket in 525 size to suit the DRZ PCD.





Once the wheels and brakes are done I'll chop and weld the seat frame.

More to follow..

Quite like the spoked wheels, shuold look nice when its done.

Completely forgot to update this thread.

Anyway, it's finished.....apart from replacing the engine covers - 'cos they are are held together by a combination of epoxy, the carbon fibre covers and lots of optimism and they weep oil - and machining some longer suspension linkage side plates to lower the rear as my missus is a little vertically challenged and cannot ride it safely.

Spent a couple of hours on the dyno this afternoon just checking the fuelling and playing with the needle clip positions - it's making a reasonable 44.6bhp and 21lb/ft with a K&N air filter on a dynapro dyno (so add about 10% to those numbers for dynojet dyno numbers) and revs up nicely. It rides nicely and sounds good - thanks to a severe lack of packing in the silencer.

Bike as overall project look good to me but I quite don't like the tail. It looks like something is wrong with it. I know. It's not wide enough and makes the bike look a bit childish but that's only my opinion

0G0R3K-15 wrote:Bike as overall project look good to me but I quite don't like the tail. It looks like something is wrong with it. I know. It's not wide enough and makes the bike look a bit childish but that's only my opinion

I'll be honest with you (as the chances of my missus reading this are pretty much zero) I also think the seat unit is too small but she-who-must-be-obeyed was adamant that was how she wanted it - her influence was how small they are on the Buells's - and it's her bike.....I just built it to her instructions.

I've got a spare, uncut, flat track seat unit and I might have a go at making a slightly less extreme seat and see whether she can be persuaded......

There's nothing wrong with the bike itself but I presonally don't like the sea, although someone else may like it and I understand it :)

This any better?