Austin Cafe Racer Blood, Sweat, Tears and Grease
Categories: cafe racer

Though this is a temporary location, I am very happy with how clean it looks. I started by splitting the plastic wire harness housing behind the bucket before it entered the clubman bars. I pulled the black/white wire and one of the black wires out of the bars and out of the plastic housing. I then slid some heat shrink wrapping over the wires, cut them down to size, soldered them to a mini toggle switch and mounted in them in the nearest hole I could find, the headlight bracket.

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Split harness.

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View from top. Nice short wires, neatly heat shrink wrapped and mounted.

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It doesn’t look bad, and it’s not terribly awkward. I have something in mind for the future, but for now it will do. Tomorrow morning I’m adding a switch for the headlight (on/off) and mounting it somewhere away from the bars, that will leave me with just the starter switch to deal with which will remain near the throttle.

Categories: cafe racer

They’re nice and all, but they’re just too bulky. Ultimately, I’m going to install some clip-ons, drop the headlight bucket a few inches and buy new mini gauges, so the old fork ears have to come off and to do that I have to remove the forks. To remove the forks I have to lift the front end to get the tire off.

1. Place bike on center stand
2. Tie down rear end so front end props up.
3. Remove front tire.

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Two bolts underneath each fork. Easy peasy.
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Next, remove top two fork bolts and loosen the four bolts that clamp the forks down on the upper and lower triple trees.

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Slide forks out from the bottom.

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Now just pop these old guys off.

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Replace with shiny new ones.

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