BSA motorcycle inspired first build

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Little_Will

Little_Will

Joined
Sep 23, 2012
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Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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Hi everyone. My name's Will and I'm new to the forum. My intro has been posted and I'm now four weeks into my first rat rod build.
I came across this site by chance a couple of months ago and I'm so glad I did. I've been hugely inspired by what I've seen here to start my own build. It's such a great hobby to have :D .

First off, my main inspiration for my build is vintage BSA motorcycles (circa 1930). I grew up around vintage bikes. My Dads mates had Vincents, AJSs, Sunbeams, but my Dad was always a BSA man. He still owns a 1960 BSA Golden Flash as well as a Harley 883r. I love motorcycles but don't have a license to ride, so I wanted to build a pedal powered version :D

I knew this was gonna be a chop/weld/fabrication job from the start so bought myself a cheap frame I wouldn't feel guilty about cutting up :lol: . It also had to be small(ish) as I'm a bit on the short side :lol: . Plus it had to be steel so I could mig weld it. This is what I started with:
frame_1.jpg

It's obviously a ladies frame but it fitted my criteria, plus had a curved top tube I could cut out and flip
frame_2.jpg

Next I welded in another tube to allow me somewhere to fasten/hold the tank that'll come later. Plus I think it looks nicer :)
frame_3.jpg

Also, I wasn't happy with the look of the original dropouts so fabricated some new ones from plate steel
frame_4.jpg

I have a lot more photos but I'm four weeks behind in my build diary so I'm keeping it brief.

Will
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

kustomkulturebabe said:
Nice fabricating skills, looks pretty good so far! Anxious to see more pics :)
Click to expand...

Thanks! I worked as a welder/fabricator for a few years. Luckily I haven't forgotten what I learnt.

I'm in the process of uploading more pics from my phone. Just trying to group them all into some sort of order so I can make sense of them :lol:
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

I wanted to use fork struts on this build but they seem impossible to find over here in England. So I decided to make my own, as many on this forum have done before me. I used what I had available as I'm trying to recycle as much as possible. Some of the steel I'm using is from my old car parts. The steel for these struts is from a knackered car seat I stripped:

struts_1.jpg

struts_2.jpg

The struts fitted along with a fake 'paper' tank :lol:
fork_stuts.jpg

P.s I had to cut down the front forks as they were too long (they were vintage from an old 28" wheeled roadster). This also meant having to make new front dropouts
Will
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

kustomkulturebabe said:
Look awesome.. are you adding a springer forks to it? And are you building your own tank for it?
Click to expand...

I really had my heart set on springer forks but again, they're so hard to get over here. So I've now decided to have a shot at fabricating my own :lol: .The strut forks I made have now morphed into home made springers, but I'm not quite ready to post a pic yet.

Will
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

This is my favourite bit of this build so far:
paint_rings.jpg

I really wanted to use the metal from these paint can fasteners. I chuck these things out at work every week. In the end I settled on using them for fender stays:
fender_stays.jpg

fenderstay.jpg

I think they work quite well as they have a pressed steel profile to them?

Will
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Chips_Mahoy said:
Great job man.......can't wait to see it come together! 8)
Click to expand...

Thanks..me too! I've been cursing the thing all weekend, I just wasn't happy with how it's looking. The comments on this forum are very encouraging though :)
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

kustomkulturebabe said:
are you building your own tank for it?
Click to expand...

I am indeed :D . On Saturday I paid a visit to my local metal supermarket for some sheet steel. Unfortunately they were closed for stocktaking so I came home disappointed. Then I thought about these:
cills.jpg

They're a spare set of cills from my old Rover P6 which I don't really need, plus they're taking up space in my Dads garage.
I decided to use these for the tank as they already have a good usable profile to them, and as luck would have it they were about the right height:
cills_joined.jpg
cills_shaping.jpg

I chiselled in an overlapping lip to join the two pieces together
cills_profiling.jpg

They need more shaping to get them to look right but I'm quite happy with them so far. You can also see the springer forks I'm working on. There's still some more 'fettling' to do yet though
tank_fake.jpg
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Building something from nothing, that is the spirit. Nice work on all parts.
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Stop telling people this is your first rat rod... they will think you're lying. :mrgreen:

Amazing work, keep it coming.
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Really clean! I like the chunky tubes of that modern frame. This makes me want to do a klunker like that. What color is it going to be?
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Sweet to see the recycling of materials. Looks great. Imagination and vision.
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

OctopusHook said:
Really clean! I like the chunky tubes of that modern frame. This makes me want to do a klunker like that. What color is it going to be?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I wasn't sure about the frame at first. I thought it was too chunky, but now it's growing on me.

kustomkulturebabe said:
.. have you thought of a paint scheme yet?
Click to expand...

With regards to the paint scheme, I haven't settled on anything yet. I definitely want to add some cream accents though, to tie in those fat franks. At the moment i'm thinking black/cream?..british racing green/cream?..or red (burgundy)/cream? I already have my BSA decals which have gold in them, so I might also add some gold to the colour scheme?

bsa_decals.jpg


This chainwheel and the forks are the only BSA parts going into this build so far. So I feel a little cheeky badging it up as a BSA :lol:
bsachainwheel.jpg


Will
 
Re: My First ever rat rod build..now I'm hooked!

Here's a few shots of the suspension components being made:

springer_parts1.jpg

springer_parts2.jpg

spring.jpg

This is the spring I started with. I had to chop it to size and weld it. It's from a mini moto or something? Anyway..it was CHEAP on Ebay :D
shock.jpg


Will
 

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