It begins!

Mackenzie's project RV300 started today. It started by stripping the essentials ready for the bigger engine installing and fabrication for the nest day. The stripping was mostly done by Mackenzie himself (with a lot of stares/help from Luke and his boss Danny!), of course with his limited knowledge a lot of educated guess work was involved!

The seat, tank, side panels and battery box were removed first.

 

Next up to remove was the airbox, carb, exhaust and shock absorber.

 

Finally the wee power lump was removed.

Stay tuned for the next post, it gets real technical and interesting. Mackenzie brings the new engine in for fitting!

The start of Mackenzie's first custom

The summer was meant to be fruitful for the CC boys, what with the build of their first bike, they hoped to finish it and sell it to raise money for tools, parts and another bike. Yet unforeseen problems arose in the CC headquarters. Because of these unfortunate series of events, Luke decided to present Mackenzie with the opportunity to complete his project by putting aside the GT and getting him some time with his bike in Luke's workplace workshop.
    This projects consists of Mackenzie's Suzuki Van Van 125cc on which he passed his restricted licence on. Yet after becoming accustom to the teeny 12bhp, Mackenzie longed for more power and his first custom bike. While keeping costs low and sourcing and purchasing parts over the period of a year, he built his arsenal of parts up until the time would come.

Mackenzie's modifications hope to include the following:
- Top end rebuilt, 90' GN 250 engine with 300cc big bore kit
- Custom 92' GN 250 tank
- New custom Brat style (which would mean a rear frame hack)
- Air cone filters
- Clean handlebars and toggle switches (handlebars would only have indicators and starter button)
- Barrel grips
- Headlight switch and horn button would be on top of the headlamp unit (like and old BSA)
- All wiring to be simplified and hidden
- Idiot lights gone
- Possible ignition move to under seat
- Possible fat front
- Frame/handlebars/swing arm/forks/yokes/rims/hubs/spokes to be powder coated matte black
- Custom high wrapped exhaust
- Bullet indicators
- Possible inverted levers

Progress will start tomorrow, and it will all be shown step by step!

Absence In the Shed

At Cockney Customs HQ theyve had to admit a temparary absence due to a two reasons. Firstly with both Luke and Mackenzie working full time, the number of avaliable work hours at The Shed have been dropped to a sad amount. To add salt to the wound a vital peice of fabrication equipment has been plagued with brokenness. Rest In Peices two well-used welders.
   With these factors in place, the first patient to recive the CC treatment has been put on hold untill, like most projects, funds, resources and time are plentiful.

Bike Exif

The inspiration and ideas for builds has to come from somewhere, usually its from magazines such as Back Street Heroes and websites such as bikeexif.com and pipeburn.com. Bike Exif website features customs bikes from all over the world and every few days the site finds a new build and has an article about the bike and its builder. Thousands of people troll throught the website everyday admiring the new builds. Bike Exif also holds a facebook page where they post even more features on bikes and other bike related items. A few days ago the Bike Exif facebook page held a Project & Garage competition in which builders send a picture and a small article on themselves and bike. Well Character only came second!! After a day on whining, Mackenzie finally caved into Luke and posted a picture of the shed and Character to Bike Exif.

The boys were over the moon and told everyone and anyone. Not bad for first timers eh? Even got some likes, comments and shares!

Seat Pan

To much suprise, the CC boys accomplished what they actually planned to do, yet to be honest it was after much thought and fart arseing about.
Setting out to make a seat pan it was planned to attempt to make a lightweight fibre pan, but neither thought to act and order any material .. . So it was to be made out of thin steel, yet there was none left .. . Then walking past it every shed session Luke saw some seat pan material!!

Chequer Plating!! Good ol' ali chequer plating.

Lightweight, flexible and pretty cool looking it was perfect. It was measured, cut out then cut some more (never measure twice, cut once in the CC house) and angled to accomidate the rear frames stylish lip.

All to do now is to fit it with a hinge system and get it covered.

Handlebars

Today we got hold of some handlebars. The bars are originally from a KTM, unsure of the exact model. The bars are start at 28mm in the middle and fat out to 22mm giving it a more of a fat look. They are quite wide but it will hopefully give the bike better handleing, it will be a fun town bike that screams to be thrown around the London traffic after all! As the GT orginally had clipons, clamps were bought and drilled into the top yoke.

The bars give the bike the more heavy shouldered and meaty look.

It should give responsive handling too.

Next up the seat pan. Hopefully .. .

Building materials

Building bikes is always fun, regardless of material or size or age. When clearing out some old junk, a box of old knex was stumble upon, and like the kid he once was Mackenzie went building!

Andddd ... .. .

The Knex Chopper was born!!!