Hello,
I've been a yammy man for a long time, since my first 350YPVS back in the very early nineties, I've built countless specials over the years and more recently I've been working through my bucket list, buying tired but low mileage cosmetically challenged bikes and restoring them back to mint original perfection, doing everything myself in my domestic garage, fabrication, plating, painting everything.
I've always loved the unloved underdog, nothing better than stuffing an underpowered bike past a wobbly sunday barstool racer on his 'superbike'
So I'd been half looking for a SZR660, they've always interested me, a nice single in a small light good handling chassis, the potential is there, just that Belgarda made a dogs breakfast of packaging it.
Then a bike popped up on ebay, yeah the fairing was fitted all wrong and looked awkward but it already had a few desirable bits for the special I already had visualised and more importantly was much cheaper than the overpriced original bikes that dreamers on ebay seem to think are desirable.
As soon as it arrived it was stripped and the project started....
First up get that fairing off and suddenly it looked much lighter
The look I'm going for is naked, stripped down, lightweight - taking styling cues from the SDR200 and R-1Z, now the seat unit looked way too big as well so that came off as well, and then the engine came out and it was much lighter
Few hours later and I was down to the starting point of a bare frame. I have a TIG but have never done any ally work so this was the chance to learn.....