Bandit 400 to Cafe Racer

I'm in the process of turning a standard 93 reg Bandit 400 into a modern take on the cafe racer. Lots of bits in mid process at the moment and no photo's, but, I'm getting the camera out tommorow so I'll post them up hopefully over the weekend. I have just fitted some new handle bars this evening, but as this has to be a very low budget project I was originally a bit stuck on replacements.A week or so ago I flipped the original bars ( Renthal medium rise street bars) over to see how dropped bars would look, but found the switch gear was fouling the tank and it wouldn't hit the steering lock. Also I found it very painful on my wrists. With this in mind I thought more along the lines of flat bars, still low looking but less harsh on the wrists. As luck would have it I managed to pick up some off cut of 7/8th mild steel tube (1 meter) and with the help of a mate who restores Moggy Minors, we put a very shallow bend in either side of center, so I now have a comfortable drop position and have cut the bars to length that allows switch gear clearence etc. They are possibly a bit wider than I would have liked but when I have more money and time I may be able to replce the brake reservior with a remote one allowing better clearence.

Anyway pics to follow soon along with updates!

Have a look around for a Brembo radial master cylinder, there are alot about, check out supermoto websites as they use them alot, great looking with great increase in brake performance.

Here's a pic of the said bars!





As you can see pretty tight for room in my garage!

I'v gotmore photo's of components to come, just got to upload to photobucket first!

Heres some more components and work in progress...



Seat hump showing paint job theme..



front cowling mid spray..

tail unit part sprayed but needs old stickers removing then final red respray.

As I ride this bike everyday to and from work as well as for pleasure some jobs need to be done in parts and as time allows. The tail section of the bike needs sorting, I've laminated up some blank fibreglass panels to make a tail tidy und new undertray but need to be able to take the bike off the road for a couple of days before I can commence cutting and fitting. I'm trying to fabricate as many parts as i can so the originals can be kept for selling purposes ( if that day ever arises) so cutting originals is noy an option though would make the job loads easier and quicker!

Also last night I managed to grab a quick half hour in the garage and cut the new bars down by a further inch on each side, they were too wide on test riding but I managed to tease the controls further up the bars without compramising thier effectiveness!

Some pics of progress so far:







And how it started..



My boss is away very soon so hopefully I can get on with fabricating the undertray and tail tidy, to neaten up the back end.

Seems most of the pics have dissapeared so I'm going to post up some new updated photo's rather than find and re post the old out of date photo's. Started to do it but got a bit long winded!

looks quite good, are they oil cooled those engines? could you get a smaller radiator & hide it behind the bit of frame at the front which the engine fastens to nr cyl head, i'd paint that bit of frame black to hide it a bit. imo thats the problem with modern bikes, the wrap around frame don't look too good as a cafe racer. you could always get one of those 60\70's top fairings which might hide all that modern stuff might look better with clip ons, or could you just invert the bars you have. its quite a nice looking engine with those fins. mike.

mike151 wrote:

looks quite good, are they oil cooled those engines? could you get a smaller radiator & hide it behind the bit of frame at the front which the engine fastens to nr cyl head, i'd paint that bit of frame black to hide it a bit. imo thats the problem with modern bikes, the wrap around frame don't look too good as a cafe racer. you could always get one of those 60\70's top fairings which might hide all that modern stuff might look better with clip ons, or could you just invert the bars you have. its quite a nice looking engine with those fins. mike.

Its water cooled, unlike the Bandits that followed and everything is crammed in pretty tight already so not much can be done with the rad unfortunately. The bars shown are self made with a small drop, I tried inverting the exsisting Renthals but I had problems with steering lock clearence and the angle put a real strain on my wrists, so I'm working on some more bars with a slightly steeper drop but still easy on the wrists.

Still got lots to do though, wheels need re spraying as does the Exhaust, its got stainless steel headers but they have discoloured quite badly so I'm going to spray them flat black all over. Want to put new front disc on and braided hoses. the tank and front mudguard need th stripe sprayed on, fork lowers sanded back to get the marks off and then re laquered. Im also in the process of frabricating from fibreglass a rear no. plate hanger and undertray.

These are the tail and nose fairing final spray..



Its not in the picture but I'v added a Black Sheene style seven on the white stripe of the nose cowl.

Heres a couple of pics of the tail plastics pre re spray and prepped for spray, I'v yet to photograph the finished job yet but it looks tidy!

it looks cool i cant wait to see it when its done

also i am surprised at home much it looks like a ducati monster

I have a Bandit 400 and i want to turn it into a Cafe Racer but with a Rounded Rear on it. Do you think this is possible and do you know what happened to this one?