I can’t see the point of a bike that can’t take a passenger, and to get through the MSVA test I need to fit passenger footpegs and some kind of hand hold if it’s registered as a two seater. I know I could just lie and say it’s only a single seater, forget about the grab rail and make the passenger hold on to me but I want to make it work properly. The footpegs are BMX stunt pegs. Also the grab rail stops you sliding off the back quite nicely whether you’re holding on to it or not.

I scored a Kerker exhaust can and link pipe cheap on ebay. The can is pretty beaten up, but with a bit of a spruce up it’ll look fine (did I say it was cheap?). I cut about 4 inches off the length to make it look more Kerker-ish.

I modified the link pipe to make it 2 into 1, before it was just a bit of curved pipe. I made the exhaust from a Ducati system I cut up. It looks pretty Heath Robinson now but when it’s painted black and the Kerker can is cleaned up with the name plate touched up and re-attached it’ll look  pretty good I think and very 80’s.

So the only clutch master cylinders I like the look of are Ducati ones. These match the brake master cylinder I have, although that’s from a Cagiva Mito, not a Ducati. However, Ducati Clutch MCs with remote reservoirs are at least £60, so I thought I’d  take the opportunity to set up a remote cable operated master cylinder instead, as it’s something I’ve wanted to try, and gives the cleanest possible handlebar without doing something stupid like a foot clutch (never!).

This one is from a scooter, to operate the front brake. Ducati dry clutches are heavy (if you run all 6 springs, my current bike runs four and doesn’t slip) and they are particular to master cylinder bore size. There’s a fine line between the clutch being super heavy, and not disengaging properly. Older Ducati MCs were a 13mm bore, and very heavy. Newer ones are 12mm and lighter. My current bike has a 1/2 inch (12.4mm) MC off a different make and it is light enough with only four of the six clutch springs but not amazingly light. I’d not like to get caught in heavy traffic with all six springs on there. Anyway, the bore size of this MC seems to be 11.5mm, which might be straying into too small territory, with clutch disengagement issues. Probably when it’s good and hot. We’ll see.

If these master cylinders work then great, they’re cheap and plentiful. The only other ones like this I could find were from 80’s BMW R models (expensive) or early Kawasaki Z900s or Z1s (unobtanium, or very at best very expensive).

So I decided that I’m too old to cope with another bike with no reserve. My current bike has a reserve but it’s so tiny it hardly stops spluttering before it starts again.

So I made a threaded bung, cut a hole in the tank and welded it in place. It should give a decent reserve, and I can make it larger by using a longer banjo bolt. I’ve got a twin tank in-line fuel tap that fits nicely in the side panel grommet hole you can see on the tank there.

Oil cooler fitted and plumbed in. It’s pretty tight at the engine to get the fittings and hose to clear the engine mount but it just fits. The cooler drain plug is pointing up now, as you can see, but I don’t think those get touched anyway.