Little Rat bike build up

**De-Ranged** · 9th January 2009, 08:48

Don't know if you guys would be interested in this, I've noticed there arn't many build style threads onsite, thought it may appeal, its a little project
Turning an old DR250 into a little Hard tail rat bike simlar to the 200cc version here
kikker5150 bikes
I've had my learners licence since they started the sceme never bothered doing anything with it becouse I was riding it was trail, yea well now that I'm going to build a rotory powered trike I sort of want a full licence so if I have to ride a 250 I'm gona have some fun getting there

The intent is a budget of no more than $1000 including cert and road costs I run a small engineering shop so building stuff is no problems, was planing on building the frame, and what ever else I can't find cheap or trade for, but I want to keep as much rat as possible

So far I have 1 and a half 87 DR 250's one motor goes but is blowing a fair bit of smoke and another thats been sitting with the tapit covers off for long enough to grow moss in there

but its got plenty of compresion fingers X'd its good enough inside to swop onto the smoky motor all that cost me 2 doz woodstock that I got for storring a mates parts truck at my shed

I've picked up a pair of steel gards that I'll mod and a rear brake light for $50 from the local wreaker

don't want to make to many trips there!! nice guy tho

Been a few yrs since I rode and I remember the 21" front wheel wasn't the best on road any comments do i ditch this in favor of a 19"
Any suggestions on where I can track down some old school indercators that are nice and small I want it legal but still with the stripped down bobber look of the old indians

Cheers Reece

**laserracer** · 9th January 2009, 09:01

Gonna be nice ..love the bobba look
ya gotta check out this site.. if ya like bobba's
www.jockeyjournal.com
go to ..the board..top of page ..have fun

**The Pastor** · 9th January 2009, 10:00

yeah man keep us posted, love the build threads, dont get enough of them!

**The Lone Rider** · 9th January 2009, 10:32

You can keep a thing going using Kiwibikers blog functions, as I do for work I do on my bike.

As for rat bike, you are doing exactly what I've been comtemplating doing if I could just find an old junker suitable in price and in build

**De-Ranged** · 12th January 2009, 18:38

Blogs

arghh yea I think I'll just post here don't know how to use them thing'ies
Right done a bit of homework and decided on the front wheel changing to a 19" with a 90/90 tyre on there it will be pretty much the same size as the rear and there are some cheap chinese ones on trademe unless some one wants to swop 2 21" rims for one 19" one

With the 19" it will give me a trail of around 5.6"s similar to the handling on a Harly softtail
Had a bit of time today, and a trike builder from the UK in the shop (Porky Trikes) he's over on holiday and bored and wanted to have a play in a shop so I had a day off and played with the bike and had a woody or two

Stripped the front forks, had a spare set that are for disk brakes opened them up to find they were full of brown rusty sludge so we stripped the drum brake set as well and picked the best bits, ordered a new set of seals no cheap way round this

but the stanchen (sp?) guides were worn on the disk forks (see first pic) a bit of hack and slash we managed to get the good ones out of the drum shocks
Then I decided to have a play with the tank.... a bit of trimming and I hit the number of pic's I'm allowed to post

**De-Ranged** · 12th January 2009, 18:53

and back for some more pics, used a flanging tool on the seams I could get too and tacked em in place.... this is where I finished

starting to take shape

Cheers Reece

**The Lone Rider** · 13th January 2009, 22:25

Originally Posted by De-Ranged

Blogs

arghh yea I think I'll just post here don't know how to use them thing'ies

The kiwibiker blogs run exactly the same as the message boards, except it is attached directly to your profile and shows as your specific blog.

In other words, when someone looks at your profile it will show up there to view. Posting in the blogs is the same interface as posting messages.

**De-Ranged** · 14th January 2009, 09:38

argh bugger it I've started here I'll leave it here... thanks for the heads up, might use that when I do the trike
Right got a chance to do some more on the toy yeasterday, Mocked up the bike just to get a feel for where every thing is going, didn't get a pic unfortunatly, lets just say it used alot of oil drums and what ever else came to hand so I could sit the rear wheel motor and front end in place

End result I decided to drop the forks down a bit so, through the forks in the lathe and cut 30mm off the end and cut some new threads so the caps will go in, left the internals alone so I've got a preload now

... a set of new seals from Suzuki $44 and on there advice some 30wt engine oil the travel has droped to 4 1/2" and is alot stiffer
Picked up the steel for the frame 5m of 25x1.6 ERW tube for the base front risers and rear legs and 1.1m of 38x1.6 ERW tube for the backbone $44
Just got to make some dies for the bender for these and I'll build the base frame
Got a bit of work to clear over the next couple of days so don't think there is gona be much action for a bit

Cost to date $143

Cheers Reece