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My good friend, Claudio, wanted a SF2 built
like the one he had as a younger man in Italy. This was to include clip ons,
rearsets
and solo seat. ”No sweat” I said. So, he brought me a donor bike he’d
found on ebay from an estate.
It turned out to be much rougher than the
description. Claudio was less than pleased. I saw a challenge.
So here’s the
story on 750*16555.
First off it needs to be taken apart. As
soon as I pulled the seat, my eyes starting rolling.
Seems the rear hoop had
broken on both sides and someone’s idea of a fix was to weld
some threaded rod
on top of each break and paint it black. There were more surprises later.
With it completely disassembled I turned to
fixing the frame. I removed the threaded rod, cleaned up the previous welds,
then cut the rear hoop at the breaks. I then prepared a set of sleeves to fit
inside the tubes and scarfed the joint back together
finishing by grinding the
welds smooth so no evidence of the repair could be seen.
Then the frame was
sandblasted to bare metal, primed and painted with a gloss black urethane.
I did
the rear fork, side stand, center stand and tool box at the same time.
While the frame cured I turned my attention to rebuilding the forks and refinishing the yokes.
To fit the clip ons I shortened the headlamp ears a like amount and assembled the front end. Then I set it aside.
Next I needed to take care of the wheels. Tires and tubes are removed and disposed of then the wheels are disassembled.
Rims and hubs are polished. Stainless spokes are fitted.
The front hub required drilling out the spoke holes just enough to fit the larger diameter spokes.
Spokes are laid out in the correct pattern.
Rim is fitted next and fit into a fixture to true.
Then new Pirellis are mounted and balanced
Rear fork gets new bushes and suspension is fitted to chassis along with wiring harness, rear set plates and other little bits.
A set of European clocks are also fitted.
Engine gets a complete overhaul
and is fitted to the chassis.
Before long it is a roller, brake hydraulics
are refreshed,
the rest of the electrical is sorted and it is on to the
bodywork.
The original tank is stripped to bare metal revealing the next surprise.
There is 19mm of filler on one side and 13mm filler on the other.
In a literal sense this tank has been down the road.
It gets tossed in the loft for another day.
Claudio finds a beauty of a straight tank from Germany
resplendent in a slick
gloss black with smoothed over badges.
The tank gets stripped to find a very
nicely welded patch to fill the badge opening.
There goes another on in the
loft.
As the saying goes, third time is the charm.
A perfect tank is found stripped and primed.
Then it is painted along with the side covers, also refinished from bare metal.
Not bad for outdoors. The bugs don’t go for the darker colors as bad as the bright ones.
Seat is next. A rough solo seat is secured and striped of paint to see what needs to be done.
A few odd holes and a notch are repaired.
Now it is ready for primer and paint.
After color it is ready for foam and fitting a cover.
It is also time to fabricate a new bit of stainless trim
Machine is finally sorted and finished.
Well, after some use out West for the first NALOC rally where Piero picked this machine as his favorite twin.
Claudio observed how the seat was a bit short of padding so fresh foam was cut to fit a reproduction cover.
He later decided the seat should be a satin black as original so it was refinished, again.
Claudio has since decided to go back to original with bars and pegs and repaint, again, the bodywork.
This time sprayed in a light metallic green. But that’s another story.
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