'81 Z500 Café racer from Sweden

Independent rear suspension is fine on a car but a really bad idea on a motorcycle. You need to weld a tube between the cut off ends of the frame or your handling is going to be wonky as the two frame member and their respective shock mounts work against each other instead of staying aligned. Ed

Hey man, thx for the hint.

I have a tube ready to be bent into shape and welded in. I still need to cut off a bit more, this was just a rough cut to get the seat on.

Question: the back portion that I cut off isn't that sturdy tbh, does it really do all that much?

If you look closely, there is a crossmember about 3 inches forward of the shock mounts, it should take most of the forces.


Anyhow, I will weld in a tube, it won't pass the MOT without it

I would think that with that crossmember in front of the shock mounts the rear tube shouldn't need to be super beefy to keep things aligned. Ed

Happy holidays everyone!

If you like me have to work this week, here's an update to help relieve the pain a bit :whistle:

Some good progress have been made on the bike. Stuff have been removed, replaced and refitted which have brought an entire armada of new "issues" to solve. But hey, that's why we all do this right?


Remember all those mounting tabs for the stock seat? Now they're gone. Some alloy wheel paint on there just to stop corrosion, will do another hillbilly paintjob with a better matching color.



My new clip-ons arrived! YAY. Was a bit of a pain to get them mounted, but I now know in what order stuff need to go on. Those of you with 20/20 vision will spot something missing on the bike. I wanted to remove the passenger foot pegs since the new seat won't allow for any passenger, and to clean the back up a little. Upon removing the bolt that holds it and the silencer, the latter crashed to the floor in a hail of rust and old exhaust putty. Seems like it's rusted off completely in the forward mounting point, repaired with exhaust wrap and glue. Yikes!
Considering buying a 4-1 system now, was gonna replace both silencers before this happened. Will have to check if there's any material left to weld on a new one.


Here it is with new headlight brackets and all the other goodies.



Next job is making some kind of mounts for the new seat and modify it a bit to flow better with the tank. Some kind of tray will be built to hold all electronics that sat under the seat. I have to fabricate a mount for my new tach/speedo combo and I'm considering relocating the ignition lock, it won't fit good up on the triple tree any more.

Slowly but surely it's getting to a more complete state. Now it's not just cutting and taking stuff apart any more

/Lajning

Tyrell Corp wrote: Original paint on the tank? nice when they are not all filler and rust.

Those early slide carb motors have a nice midrange power, less 'cammy' than the later GPz monoshocks and good fun to ride.

What are you doing about sidepanels? I always liked the idea off cutting them horizontally- keeping the top swage line that works so well with the tank. or builded rounded bottom edges to match the tail bump?

Hi. Sorry for a very late reply, I forgot about it

The back half of the tank has been painted with a non matching color, and looks like rubbish. I've only really driven the bike 2 times, but it felt pretty good. It's winter here so I can't ride until late march/early april.

I won't keep the sidepanels. I will fabricate some sort of tray to fit under the new seat, this will hold all gadgets and gizmos including the smallest battery I can safely use. Some wires will have to be lengthened, but that's no biggie, I'm an electrician by trade