Disassembly

Obviously, before something can be good, it has to be mighty bad! So I have stripped down my bike, by removing the seat, the fenders, the upper fork bridge and so on. The front wheel has come off as well, due to a crash in Sweden some years ago.

So I sent the wheel to my mechanic and his contact is fixing it these days. The rear wheel will have to come off as well, given the fact that I have just bought myself some new tyres - Firestone Deluxe Champion aka. the classic cafe racer tyres.

These look very cool, I think, and will give my Ducati a nice old school feel.

Anyways, the old front light has come off as well, along with the instruments.

So the bike has really been stripped down to it's toes. It has maybe taken me one-two hours to disassemble it, but it will definately take up a lot of extra time to put it back together again with the new parts and so on.

I will also replace the part of the wiring that I can, so that I have also disassembled. I hate cords, so I figured that if I could hide some of them, that would be excellent. So now, the fuse box, which was earlier located on the rear fender, will be located underneath the tank, with all it's cords and so on. Plus all the cords from the instruments in the front, will be hidden under the tank, and just a few cords will be visible, leading to the head light and speedometer.

New parts

So I went to this place in Copenhagen, called wrenchmonkees - see their bikes at www.wrenchmonkees.com
They make some awesome looking bikes, if you ask me, and my build will be much inspired by their bikes.

Their workshop and showroom, has a nice touch to it, and they are very polite and helpful in there. Of course, I did not go only to browse bikes, but I went there primarily to buy some parts for my project. More precisely, I bought a new head light, a new rear fender, a new rear light and a new speedometer, with lamps inside it for Neutral, Oil, Blinker and High Beam. Very nice little device.

Moreover, I bought three meters of some sort of woven mesh to cover the new wiring for the new lights and so on. It is very nice looking, as you can see on this example underneath.

Yes, what to look for?! It is the two black woven meshes in the left side of the picture, in between the two bars. It looks very nice, I think.

Of course, I will need a whole lot more for this build, like new tyres, and a new seat also. More about that later.

Update

So here's an update! It has been roughly two years and a half, I can see. Things have changed, ideas have come and gone, and now I am ready to sacrifice my old Pantah for this build.

Since my last post, my Pantah has gotten a new engine, because the old one got torn up. And I literally mean torn up. The piston of the top cylinder had disintegrated and smashed up the cylinder. That explained the "funny" metallic sound coming from the cylinder, like a nut was being thrown around in the combustion chamber.

Luckily, the mechanic had some good contacts, and fixed me up with a 1983 650 ccm Pantah engine, which of course fitted right into the frame. The mileage of the engine was unknown, but it's interior was good looking, the mechanic said. We were rolling again.

From a crash in the forests of Sweden, my front wheel was bent out of shape, and therefore it had to be straitened out. One of the fork legs was also damaged, but it was replaceable. The front wheel was not. Two times a guy tried to straighten it out without luck, and right now, it is at the mechanic who is pricier, but have straighten it out before.

So with those little things being fixed, I am now ready to proceed with my blog here, to show you in pictures and words how my Pantah Cafe Racer is going to look.