UK Cafe Racer Build Thread

Well Happy New Year to everyone!

Seeing as last night was my last night on the drink til 1st February i went a bit overboard ;)

However, i pottered around in the shed this afternoon and made up a couple of little bracket to hold the coil and tacked them onto the frame. I'll weld them properly when I get the frame upside down.



I thought I would canvass opinion on the location of the rear caliper - on the top or on the bottom???

The top, I think possibly looks better, however the routing of the brake line will be right out the back of the swingarm and the brake stay will be tight running behind the shock. On the bottom, the brake line and brake stay will be straight forward, however I'm not sure that it looks good ??





And as it stands today :)

 
Happy New Year. Bike really coming along nicely. Like the look of the bottom mounted caliper. A light weight wave rotor would look good with it. The drilled looks good also. :cheers:
 
Thanks Scabber. I would like to find one that fits at a decent price :). I have plumbed for this one so far but if one comes along ..... ;)
Thanks for your opinion on the caliper too
 
Hey Paul, Happy New Year my friend!:)
I like the look of the caliper on the topside,but I can see what your talking about with the routing and it might get a little busy looking up there too with the line and stay. It doesn't look bad at all on the bottom. I'd say whatever is more convenient for you.
 
Today I continued working on mounting the rear caliper. In order to do that I had to make a completely new hanger. I started out with some 10mm aluminium plate.



I marked out the dimensions required for the caliper to clear the disc and the relevant hole centres to carry the caliper itself and of course, to receive the axle. To make it look at little better on the eye (and to save weight ;) ) I marked out two areas to be removed in the centre.



After trial fitting, it turned out, as I expected, there was a 3mm offset reqiured, which need a subtle bending of the hanger. The two caliper holes and the stay mount hole were all tapped out to 10mm and 8mm respectively.

Once I was happy with it and the caliper cleared the disc equally either side, it got a buff up on the wheel.



I had some bar ends and some aluminium round bar, so I decided to make the brake stay rod. Fairly simple, I drilled and tapped either end to M8, around 30mm in each end, cut some stainless threaded stud to 45mm and screwed each bar end on. Then a quick once over on the buffing wheel. To attach the other end of the rod to the swing arm, I cut a small bracket from 5mm steel and tapped to M8.



All on and done. I'll weld the bracket up properly when I get the swingarm off.





Popped the carbs on and made up a new throttle cable. Here it is as of this evening :)



 
Paul,
You have got a nice clean set up on the rear brake, I love the calliper's, I have them on mine. I like the front end as well, are they R6 legs and did you keep the yokes and with just the XS neck pressed in

Leslie
 
Hi Leslie, thank you. The front end is from a '99 R1. I kept the R1 yokes and pressed in the XS650 stem. A little fiddly but not too bad. There's a bit about it earlier on in the thread.
 
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