31 March 2015 - It's alive! (Cape Town Cafe Racer)

She starts!

Oscar's done a lot to the engine since I took this video - balancing things, adjusting valves, and other stuff I don't understand and wasn't involved in. He's been reading a lot of Snowbum's unbelievably detailed articles to brush up on some rusty areas. 

There's not that much left to do on her now. We're still busy shaping the tank, after which we need to spray. We bought a second hand compressor from Cash Converters for that. 

The alternator hasn't been charging the battery and Oscar's figured out that it's due to a faulty voltage regulator so we've ordered that from BMW and are awaiting delivery. 

Footpegs from speedmotoco.com have finally arrived!

Timeless

Fixing a leak in the drive shaft

Body filling this tank is the bane of my life

Bonus Selfie:

I got my transformer helmet and present you with a selfie model shoot below:

Not a typical Cafe Racer style helmet. Much more awesome. 

18 March 2015 - The Engine is in! (Cape Town Cafe Racer)

It's been almost a month since my last update!

The big news is that the engine is finally back in the bike where it belongs! In fact maybe even more exciting news is that the missing washer has been found! It was in the sump as we suspected - after we wrongly suspected (read "hoped") it was in the timing chain/sprocket chamber.

We've done quite a bit of work on the engine since we got it back from vapour blasting - we removed and cleaned the heads, replaced all the gaskets and o-rings, replaced the oil filter, replaced the head covers with peanut covers. Oil pressure sensor has been replaced. Sump removed and cleaned.

The missing washer and the engine being worked on

We also got our Ultrabatt last week! I can't believe how small it is compared to the original battery. Oscar's busy making a sexy bracket for it. 

Old vs. New

We've done a hell of a lot over the last few weeks, but I'm too tired to think/write about it so I'm just going to post some pics. If I'm feeling a bit more energetic later I'll add some more. 

Engine Before

Engine After (top cover missing)

Here's a photo of us with our helmets. I sent my gigantic one back - I'm going to get a Transformer helmet instead:

Human bobblehead

Please drop us a line if you have an questions, comments or suggestions for our Cape Town cafe racer conversion.

Cheers

Sean.