After 5 years or so… this one finally made it off the shelves and back into action.
It’s done! BRG BMW R75/5
Tag Archives: custom
Finished Bridgestone 175 Hurricane Scrambler photos
This bike is a blast to ride. Fast and zippy for a small bike but next to a real motorcycle, you realize how slow you are going! The restoration took about a year. I had help rebuilding the engine and transmission. A friend Adam helped me weld the bump onto the seat. Chrome, powder coat and paint were all locally sourced. Custom YSS shocks. Assembled by me. The only bummer is that I could not find the correct street Bridgestone tires to put on the bike.
Bridgestone 175HS custom progress photos
Back from powder coat.
Back from powder coat.
Clean carbs
I sourced this engine build to a guy who builds Yamaha RD’s and such. Fingers crossed it works.
Painter went all out… all i needed was the rear dome painted. I’m not complaining. It looks amazing. The tank looks killer. Photos of that to come
Upholstery complete.
Exhaust hanger brackets made
Fingers crossed this exhaust works. It is from a 1930’s R12 BMW. I had a larger inlet welded to mate with the R75 headers. I hope they do not restrict power in any way or make the tuning of the engine difficult.
The headers and mufflers connect OK and luckily the brackets on the mufflers line up pretty close to the exhaust hanger area on the R75/5 frame.
To connect the muffler to the frame, I had to make some custom brackets to attach the muffler.
I made a test set out of aluminum and everything worked out OK. My holes were slightly off but I corrected for that later.
Here is the test fit.
I took my brackets and a pocket full of cash to a local welding and machine shop. He replicated my brackets with stainless steal and put the holes in the correct place as per my instructions.
Stainless steel should withstand the heat, elements and keep its shape. I worried that the aluminum brackets I made would not do any of the above.
Here is the bracket attached to the frame:
There isn’t much room to work with in there but with the right nuts and bolts, everything went to together just fine. 
One step closer to starting this baby up!
Custom Battery cables
Due to relocating the battery I had to make some custom battery cables. One has to run from battery (located in the tail section of the seat) to the starter and the negative cable will most likely ground on the transmission near the shifter instead of at the speedometer cable.
I bought some #4 Welding cable. It is a nice and thick gauge wire, and flexible.
I stripped the wire and found a few different sized terminals. This terminal end will connect to the battery.
Pre-Crimping. FWIW, this crimper is really heavy and cumbersome but works pretty good.
Crimped:
Cleaned up with Heat Shrink covering.
In addition to the positive wire that connects to the starter, I made a small positive lead to connect to the main harness positive lead. I used the same crimper and it came out great.
Attaching Cafe seat pan to tail section
When i got the seat pan and the tail piece(see previous post), I immediately began to wonder how to mount the two together. BMW’s R100S seat and cowl is a great design and works well with the hinges. But this is a Short Wheel Base model and we are going with the fiberglass tail piece. The tail piece mounts to the subframe through the saddle mount bag loop at the rear of the subframe and a small ‘tang’ that goes into the main frame tube.
The suggestions I got for mounting the seat pan to the tail piece were:
Velcro
Industrial Velcro
Upholstery with snaps (no thanks)
And then finally… i found out about Well Nuts. BINGO!
Well nuts seem perfect because they act as a thin rubber buffer between the to parts. Also when you tighten them they pull the pan snug onto the tail piece.
To do the job, you are going to need about
– 7 Well Nuts
– 6/32 screws to match the Well Nuts – about .75 inches long
– Fender washers for the Screws
– and a 5/32 and 5/16 drill bit.
Well Nuts purchased at the local hardware store (who has lots of my money):
Screws (I went with Stainless Steel):
Fender Washers:
The first step was to mark 3 holes to mount the rear of the seat pan to the tail piece.
The holes are drilled with the 5/32 bit. Just big enough to get my screws through.
The Well Nuts in the photo will eventually live in the seat pan.
Then snug up the upholstered seat onto the tail piece as best you can, and mark through the holes.
I started by drilling holes into the seat pan with the 5/32 bit. BE CAREFUL. DRILL SLOW. If you ram the drill bit through the seat pan, it will go through the other side and ruin the upholstery.
After i drilled the holes in the seat pan, i mounted it to the seat and ran screws through the tail and into the pan to make sure they lined up.
i then widened the holes with the 5/16 bit. AGAIN. DRILL SLOW AND CAREFULLY. 
Time to insert the Well Nuts into the rear of the seat pan:
Now that the seat pan is attached to the tail piece, I marked 4 additional holes for some extra reinforcement.
NOTE: Make sure these holes do not conflict with the subframe cross member that contains the fender mounting bracket. 
With the seat pan attached, I drilled (5/32 bit) carefully and slowly though the tail piece straight through the seat pan. i did this for all 4 holes so they would match perfectly. 
I then widened the holes on the seat pan ONLY with the 5/16 bit:
All done. 7 screws all lined up. Seat pan is securely attached to the tail section. 
