Beach cruiser build

I did pick up a second set of rims to mount some street tires to and do an easy swap.

I plan to mainly ride in beach sand with this ( the reason for the knobs). An it’s small one lane back county roads to the beach.

If I want to go for a long ride, I’ll swap wheels.

Thanks for confirming that knobs are terrible on road. Atleast I know I’m not crazy haha.

I was just looking through this whole thread (love the build btw), and was looking at your tires. Look like some I've ran in the past. I had Shinko 244's and they were pretty damn good on road, and on the trail, handled rain OK but definitely slipped around. That said the tread style pattern is pretty useless in sand. I have some wrecks under my belt to vouch for that haha If you're going to be swapping wheels check out the motoz tractionator desert. Rounded profile so shouldn't be TOO bad on the road but the knobs down the center have significant gaps between them which will definitely help you out in the sand.
 
I’ll check em out. We do have a huge sand dune reserve here that would be fun to drive (taken my old jeep out there a few times).

Sand is pretty wet and hard packed so it’s not terrible to drive in. It’s wide open and I won’t be doin any jumps haha. Just gettin down the coast to explore surf spots.
 
Soo absolutely no response from niche cycles about the bent kick start. Multiple emails sent.

I’ll try and track down an original.

As for the bike itself goes… gurgles off the line… backfires on deceleration.

My current jetting

180 main
6f9 needle
20 pilot
2.5 slide
159 p6 needle jet

- it seems rich down below and lean up top. I havnt ridden it enough to get a good color off the line so what I think is a gurgle from being rich, it may be lean down low as well.

I’ve ordered some 190 mains so I’ll see if that helps. I’ll first drop my needle a slot and see if it improves the take off, if not I’ll raise it. See what each does for me.

Beyond that it seems like quite a solid set up.

- on a side note, anyone ever run knobbys on the street. They seem a bit “trackie” as they have quite a soft square edge. Done really roll over like a street tire. Quite an upright ride. - I have had em through the back field at my place(pretty much loose sand) and they handle quite well.
I run Pirelli Scorpion MT which are a block tread. They are good on road in the dry. And offer decent traction in the loose. Can’t comment on mileage as it’s a Sunny Sunday ride.
 
My TX650A has Bridgestone Trailwing TW42 rear and whatever the matching front is. I bought the bike this way almost 3 years ago and am looking forward to changing them to a street tire. They were new when I got it so I didn't change them. Really LOUD after about 50 mph.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20220413-062129_Gallery.jpg
    Screenshot_20220413-062129_Gallery.jpg
    257.4 KB · Views: 74
My TX650A has Bridgestone Trailwing TW42 rear and whatever the matching front is. I bought the bike this way almost 3 years ago and am looking forward to changing them to a street tire. They were new when I got it so I didn't change them. Really LOUD after about 50 mph.

The trail wings are known as the "death wings" to the DRZ400 crowd. They were definitely not a good time in the dirt. Lol
 
Indeed they are. I had them new on my DR650 and they were pretty lousy. I upgraded to a Dunlop D606 on the rear and kept the front, now about to change them out to Shinko 805/804, like a Kenda big block.
View attachment 211895
How do you like that dr??

I was just about to buy one when the pile of parts that ultimately became this bike popped up for sale. So I built something instead.

I’m just over 2k into this all in so I’ll see what it can do, if it doesn’t cut the mustard it’ll get street tires and I’ll search our a DR.
 
My DR is great on the twisties, dirt roads, trails, small highways, but not so great on the big open highway. Its only about 365 lbs so gets blown around a bit. I've put about 10500 km on it since new in summer 2020. I'm 200 lbs plus gear and still need to upgrade the stock suspension, but I keep spending most of my motorbike loot on a certain older Yamaha...
All in all, I'm super happy with it. I can still do forest trails with friends on WR250s, and sort of keep up with buddies on their 800 and 1200 cc adventure bikes when on the roads. Best of all, no computer. All of my friends with newer tech bikes spend big bucks on dealership maintenance.
 
Soo I’ve landed at a 195 main and a 35 pilot with 1 turn out on the screw.

I havnt quite got enough time on it to get a solid plug color but it seems to run strong but I’m not really trying to push it.

I did try to rev it out once and it seemed like it didn’t wanna move past 6,500rpm - but I didn’t really hold the throttle and push. It just seemed to have a bit of a pulling power drop off.

Any ideas???
 
Well, you need a few tries at it to know for sure, but I'd try going up 1 on the mains and see if it gets better or worse. Assuming you were at WOT and 6500.... that's all on the mains.
 
Yes, definitely got some fiddling to do. I started at a 180 on the mains - now at a 195.

It’s almost like a power curve drop off.

Didn’t know if that was typical with a larger wide open pipe.

I’m not sure if it’s something I can “push through” or not. Didn’t want to sit on the throttle and hold it being a fresh motor.

Didn’t seem like a stumble or bogging, just a drop off.
 
Took a 50mile putt around the back roads today and another 10 on the sand at the beach.

I can confirm the tires aren’t the greatest on the sand but did ok. Probably best at 25-30mph. Under that they wanted to slide around a bit.

As for my carb issue, it seems that it’s a flat spot between 4700-6000 rpm (at about 1/2-3/4 throttle), then it kicks back in an pulls strong if I continue to open the throttle. It’s like a little stumble.

I also think my clutch may be slipping a bit when I really give it some juice. Revs but power doesn’t seem to reach the back wheel, this only happened after pushing it a few times so I know it’s not the carb.

Gonna mess with the clutch a bit to see if I can get more bite out of it. I’ve got Barnett friction plates and “heavy duty” Vesrah springs.
 
Picked up a new (old) kickstart lever from DogBunny.

Why do people even bother making a “reproduction” part of its that inferior?? Total waste of time and resources.

Literally kick the bike over less than 15 times.

3FAEE2D6-968F-4FB4-B43E-C1CF512C4B4B.jpeg
2C71706B-67BA-4093-BC2C-F9B76DDC67AE.jpeg


- readjusted my clutch as well but havnt been able to take it out for a ride yet.

I may be in the market for one of @gggGary super clutches.
 
Took it for a spin and It seems my clutch issue may be figured out but before I was able to get the oil hot and see if it would slip, I noticed the fruits of my shake down drive the other week.

Heard a death rattle and my heart skipped a beat! You think of every worst case, and that it’s back to square one cause the motors blown (no matter how many you’ve built). At least those are my initial thoughts haha.

Coast to an idle and well… that doesn’t look right! Haha.


2F13136F-B502-4601-B952-BA1C108290D2.jpeg


Once I got home I also noticed that she is trying to pull off the whole Triumph thing a little too much!

FDD94D36-5172-4175-BAB2-C4BB909A9F4C.jpeg


Clutch rod seal is leaking. It’s new, but it’s leaking. Another easy one.

And while looking under the bike I see this…

DDC3D51D-A32B-4859-B4ED-35904AA8EB37.jpeg


Double checked all my other ones and they were still tight.

Everything else seemed to be still firmly in place.

Shake down test complete haha.

Get it all sorted and try to test my clutch adjustment again.
 
Back
Top