New Shop Race Team?

A week or so back, I bought my girl a new (used) scoot.  She always bugged me for a vintage cafe, but I own Harley's.  Which means, all my free time gets used up keepin' those shitty bastards on the road.  Which equals absolutely zero time to build her a vintage cafe...

Enter the new (used) Ninja 250.  Picked it up for uber-cheap, it stops on a dime, and I have zero fear of her loopin' it over on herself, since it has about as much torque as your grandpa's golf cart.  But somehow Sean can still stand it up... my wheelie technique really sucks, cause I can only get the front wheel to lift and skim... none of Sean's up-and-ride-it style.  Whatever... I'll keep practicing.

I think we've decided that we both need to own one of these for ourselves.  They're actually pretty fun, since they don't weigh shit, they handle pretty decent, and it'll actually do 95mph on the freeway.  I may be too old to race for real, but I'd love to get this thing out and see what it'd do on the track... not quite as scary as runnin' superbike.

Out The Door.

Another late Friday night with another case of Modello Especial, and Jac is out the door with his 02 Sporty.  

New S&S Super E, new Thunderheader, new seat, new bars, new Pirelli's, and a little de-clusterfucking of the previous owner's "modifications".  More to come on this one, but it already feels exactly 137.5% better than when he brought it in.

Old school?

How's finding your parts and manuals on microfiche... authentic enough for you?  Cuff those jeans a little crisper, son.

Takin' it outside.

Our buddy Wes rolled by with a twelver, needed to make a few tweaks on his softtail.  Unfortunately, there's too many damn projects inside this week and we're out of lift space for the moment.  So we improvised.

Shaving Sean's legs.

Shaving Sean's legs is not quite as dirty-sexy as it sounds.  We're shaving his trees, too... try and make that one sound dirty.  The FXR is gettin' some love.

Research and Development.

For some time now we've tossed around the idea of building some low-dollar chops out of the XS650's we've got kickin' around the yard.  But, being Harley snobs for the most part, Sean and I didn't know if they were capable of producing enough of the "fun" factor to be worth the effort.

So we researched the issue.

1/2 a beer and the better part of a tire later, we've decided they might actually be worth it.

We do it all for science.

Keep your eyeballs peeled for more.

PROJECTS.

Made some good progress on the projects this weekend...

My Sporty's gettin' so close I can taste it, and Sean's FXR finally has some direction --- should be terrorizing again soon, after an almost 8 year hiatus.  

Goons of Doom will be rollin' again soon...

What we got.

The yard... hundreds of scoots to pull from.

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Salvage parts.  Two warehouses full of this stuff.  Tanks, seats, shocks, electrical, wheels, front ends, frames, complete motors... whatever you need, we probably have it.

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New and NOS parts.  We have tons of NOS parts/accessories in stock.  We keep some new product around, but if we don't have it in, we can most likely get it for you

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The Shop.  This is Grim Metal Worx.  This is the shop side of the warehouse, and this is where we build and wrench on the shit that we ride.  If you talk us into building something for you (i.e., if you pay us), this is where it'll happen.  This is also a great place to drink beer, if you're invited.

Inline 4's are heavy.

So Sean cheats when he's pulling 'em... work smarter, not harder.  Or something like that.

Baby steps.

Busy week, but not on the exciting projects...

Sean and I made a little progress on my narrowed tank, though.  We got the petcock dumped out and tacked up, and I'm makin' a little headway on salvaging my trashed PM hand controls, so...

Someday.

Soon.

Bike night, week 3, version 2.1 vol. 2.

Bike night went down twice this week... craziness.

Monday was mostly bitching about bailouts, but on Tuesday we actually got some shit done.  Although I didn't photograph any progress.  Luckily Jac rolled by and popped a few with my new 5D MKII.  And he brought hamburgers.  Thanks, Jac.

Sean and I had to debate wether my original tank would look better as a narrowed 1 piece tank or a 2 piece, flatside number.  The latter wins... more on that soon.

Checking flat-inity (technical term) so we can get the flat-sides cut...

Russian Nesting Tanks.  Very rare.

And, even more rare, the Narrowed Sportster Dung Beetle.  Watch out for these bastards.

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And, as for things that actually got done and not photographed?  Fuck it... nobody reads anyway.  We'll just have to get some photos up at some point, right?

State of the Onion.

There's exciting shit goin' down, but I haven't slept much, and my enthusiasm is severely lacking at the moment.

So here's the haps, delivered as dry and free-of-flair as I can muster;

- Sean's got the new inventory software, and he's keepin' steady pace at gettin' the salvage inventory up... if you need parts right now, your best bet is to contact him via email for a while... he's been locking the doors to keep the lurkers out --- no time to waste when you're makin' shit happen.  Need a CDI box for some obscure mid-80's Japanese pile of shit that you're restoring for your girlfriends brother?  We've probably got it.

- Grim Cycle Salvage T's are on the way --- I'll have 'em laid out and to the printer by Monday.  You wanna get into these... the new Grim Cycle Salvage logo is fucking sick, brought to you by our favorite designer/genius/user-of-fancy-words, Jory Dayne Hemmelgarn.

- Grim should officially be a dealer for a few new brands within the next week or so... let us know what new shit you need.  We'll get it.  And then we'll take your money.  Remember, we're more than another stinky junkyard - we're also fucking awesome.

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And, with all that said, we've got another Bike Night under the belt... here comes The Boring Report on this one;

I can't show too much from Sean's Super Mega Secret Bobber project... but he did make some headway on splittin' my old 3 gallon Sporty tank.  Recycling at it's finest... damn thing's been kickin' around for at least 6 years or so now.  I'm amazed it's not dented to shit.

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And on the other side of the shop, I spent my time drinkin' Red Stripe and tap-tap-tappin' out the lumps on my narrowed 2 gallon project.  She's gettin' close.

Once I got 'er tapped out, Sean laid down some tacks to hold my shit together...

...and sometime around 2am we got the flat base tacked on, too.  I love that totally flat base...

So Sean's goin' AWOL for the weekend.  Somethin' about driving to Madagascar to pick up a foot stool.  Seems worthless to me, but what do I know.  We'll see ya' Monday, fuckers.  And buck the fuck up, campers.