Zephyr 550 cafe-racer kit (reversible).

In the end of August 2021 first two kits were ready and dispatched to people who ordered them.

The one with the brown seat went to France.

 

 

Another one, with black seat, was sent to Germany. Usually I provide a tail primed and ready for painting. Painted tail is a rare exception. For one thing, it takes more time and effort, while for another I couldn’t guarantee 100% color fitment. Even using the same receipt and materials from the same manufacturer (but likely from different batches) two different painters may get two quite different results. But I have to admit that a painted tail looks much more fancy than a primed one.

 

 

Let's take a closer look at components. Here is how the seat looks from the side of the frame. Original seats are cast from plastic and have protrusion in front  that comes under the tank when the seat is installed. These parts couldn't be reproduced in fiberglass in one piece with a seat base. So I make them from aluminum. At first I cut them by hand, but later I started to order them to be CNC shaped. This means that CNC does basic work, like cutting the outline of a part from a plate and marking holes through which part will be mounted to the fiberglass base. This simplifies my work a lot. I only have to finish the part, cut the thread in holes, then mount the part fixing it with four Allen screws (button head with collar). I apply thread locking fluid on screws and then remove sockets with countersink   drill bit so screw heads start looking like rivet heads. Lock hooks are of my own design and as all other components (except for the front aluminum plate and license plate holder) are made of stainless steel. They are laser cut and bent by one of my subcontractors according to my blueprints.

 

 

 

Next unit of kit is the license plate holder. Luckily, points for rear fender mount on Zephyr 750 and Zephyr 550 are positioned similarly, so plate holders I designed for Zephyr 750 fit Zephyr 550.  License plate holder consists of three laser cut and bent steel parts. These parts then are to be welded together by plug welding (welding through holes).

 


License plate holder holds not only a number plate, but also a tail. For this it is equipped with two welded nuts (to make the process of tail installation easy). After welding I sandpaper parts and give them to local powder coating shop.







 

After this I equip holders with license plate lights (starting from 2020  with EC-approved lights).

 

 

Initially I provided only one type of holder with an angle of license plate according to my design. But then one client asked me if I could make a holder with a steeper angle that would correspond to German technical regulations. He provided me with information and I made a license plate holder with adjusted plate position for him.

He was the same guy that offered a shelter for my family and Oksana once war came to Ukraine. He shared his house with them and made their stay comfortable. I could only hope that one day I'll meet him (as well as some of you guys) in person so I could shake hands and say my thanks.
 

But let's return from dreams about a bright future to these kits of mine...
 
Next unit is the tail. It's made of fiberglass and its mold consists of two parts. Thus,  there is a small "seam" tail in place of mould' halves contact. Therefore, I provide tails primed and ready to paint. Some time ago my first subcontractor in paint works decided to change his occupation so at some point the style of tail' primer finish became different.

 

 

As I already mentioned, the tail for Zephyr 550 is in fact an adaptation of Zephyr 750 tail, which I designed in 2015.  When I was working on the Zephyr 750 tail model, I designed it to fit original front mounts. However, I had to work out rear mounting points from scratch. I decided it had to be mounted to license plate holder and thought out  next rear ears of next design:

 

For one thing, such design makes construction rigid, for another - screw heads and washers are hidden in those deepenings.  I also decided that the rear tail has to be mounted to the plate through rubbers.

The last unit of kit is the tail light. And again, tail lights for Zephyr 550 and Zephyr 750 are identical, so one may say that both kits are standardized as much as possible.  Initially, when the first Zephyr 750 kit was made) I equipped kits with tail lights of my own design. Here are photos of some of that tail lights:

 

 

The housings I made from square aluminum pipe (polished), glass frames were laser cut from stainless steel and  I cut "glasses" from car tail lights and then polished them. Some brass and stainless steel hardware were used for assembling. I packed them with bright LED car daytime running lights. My tail lights looked great and I equipped kits with them from 2016 till summer 2018.  However, the downside of such a design was the enormous number of man-hours spent on tail light manufacturing. Also, my tail lights weren't E-approved.

So I started searching for alternative lights and in 2018 I at last found what I needed: E-approved bright LED lights that I could integrate in the design of my kits. I designed a new mount and new frame that could be laser cut from stainless steel.




 
It isn't that simple with these tail lights, since I have to import them from Australia. However, even as  the final price (high delivery price  and custom duties) per tail light is quite high and their design is angular, their advantages beat all downsides:

• they are very bright,
• they are completely waterproof,
• the amount of man-hours I have to put in one tail light dropped drastically.

Original tail light connector housing has no part number, however, I found compatible connector housing so tail lights are "plug-and-play"

 

 

With  all lights E-approved, license plate holder of correct angle it so happened that owners of kits in Germany reported that they passed TUV. Though their motorcycles were registered as "single seaters" as the length of my seats is less than 60cm allowed for two persons (also  my seats have no passenger belts).

I went to your site. I wish you great success. Be well.

Well, it turned out that time is more pressing than I thought. So instead of putting another couple of posts about the project I am forced to jump right to its latest page.  At some point I and Oksana decided to go further with the Zephyr 550/400 project and make modified Zephyr as we see it. However, I couldn't repaint the tank and side covers of  the Zephyr 400 that stands in my workshop since it's not mine. So I bought a spare tank for this purpose. Photos on ebay-kleinanzeigen showed that it had some dents, but the price was fair and the seller was easy to reach by email, so I wrote to him and bought the tank with direct delivery to Ukraine. When the tank arrived I found out that photos taken at right angles under right light may hide a  lot.  In my case it was a large dent that I didn't recognize in photos. It wasn't the mother of all dents, but close to it.


 

 

 

 

On the bright side, the insides of the tank looked like new.

 

So I decided that  this tank is a good reason to work out methods to remove dent from inside without scratching the tank from inside. I tried a couple of ideas, but they failed. Then I found a solution. It was simple: lead for "hammer"  and copper for its handle. Lead is easy to melt and shape and it is heavy. Copper pipe is easy to bend so one could reach in all corners of tank insides. Both copper and lead are softer than steel. If it would be possible with a tank of such a complicated configuration like this (wide tunnel, tight corners and an overflow pipe that goes diagonally from fuel cap neck to right rear corner of the tank) it would be possible with most other tanks.  So I gradually work out configuration of hummers, from round billets to cylindrical ones. I cut a thread in a copper pipe and  fixed round heads  with bolts. In cylindrical heads I drilled holes, cut the thread and screwed threaded rods (studs) into them.   Cylindrical attachments are more universal: both butts and sides may be used for hammering.
 
Sorry for such a short description of these tools.


 

 

 

Result of work.