The Sorta Already Built 94 Miata Build Thread

[WizCaluya]

damn, that is one clean miata! great job!

[lucaslovemiata]

sooo sick man!

[coconutt]

Omg I'm drooling on the new wheels... And the car was already awesome.

[andybob]

Love everything about this. Especially like all the little fabrication for the seats, bike rack, and kayak rack.

Excited to see it on the new wheels.

[Dragula]

If you guys like fab, I might as well post up some stuff from my bike build too.

Should be a good intermission from the car.

So a while back I picked up this 72 Yamaha xs650 for I think 600 or 700 bucks. Pretty much just a rolling chassis, motor and a big box of parts.





The plan was to go hardtail straight off the bat since the previous owner hacked the stock shocks and rear frame pretty badly.
So first I prepped the frame for cutting by making a fixture to keep the downtube and lower motor mounts aligned.



I had bought a pre-made hardtail section from TC Bros and managed to win an ebay auction for an old Wassell tank for 79 bucks (hard to find for cheap). I think the tank is supposed to be off of some old 60/70s BSA.



Then out came the sawzall and off came the back of the frame.



And fitting up the rear section to the front.


Still had a little bit of trimming to do before it was all ready to go together.

Got everything tacked together and brought the frame to a good welder since I didn't trust my welds for structural stuff quite yet.
Cut all of the crappy looking sheetmetal out from the neck area which let me move the tank way up on the frame.





Rolling chassis done.

[Dragula]

I should probably mention I built this in the basement of a friends house I was renting a room in.

So anyways, I threw the motor, carbs and exhaust on for the hell of it and mounted up the tank.




Had to get creative with the upper motor mounts since the bolts were too wide and high to let me fit the tank properly. Had to grind bolt heads down and weld bolts to mounts here and there to make everything have enough clearance.





I wasn't a big fan of the way the exhaust looked with just the stock pipes dumping at the bottom so I bought some tubing and got to making my own. Going for the high pipes look.





Then I picked up a seat and headlight and mounted those up.





After a long wait due to travel and shipping issues, I finally got my mufflers and could finish up my exhaust. Also got an old Ford taillight and made a mount for that.





And then I made up some peg mounts, brake stay, mounted up the brake lever, made an electronics box out of an old west German gask mask container and made a battery box out of a small ammo box.

[Dragula]

Then I wired it up, took it all apart, took it out of the basement and painted it up and put it all back together again. I seems I kinda didn't take pictures of that whole process though...

Oh I ditched the terrible inverted bars and went with a set of drag bars on the risers that came with the bike.

Wheels were painted black, tank and fender were painted to match the ammo can.







Kickstart only so that can be a pain, but otherwise its a great bike. Surprisingly comfortable for a hardtail.

[Dragula]

Oh and here's a terrible video of it running.

[mrg7243]

Wow this is very inspiring

[Dragula]

Got the valvecover installed. I'm probably going to either trim or remove the timing cover to expose the other half of the cam gears. Engine bay needs a good cleaning too.

[andybob]

Nice overflow bottle.

Also, that bike is totally awesome. I'm not a bike person by any means, but I'd ride the shit outta that.

[Dragula]

Nice overflow bottle.

Also, that bike is totally awesome. I'm not a bike person by any means, but I'd ride the shit outta that.

Haha, thanks. It actually works out really well. Maybe someday I'll pick up some sort of brushed aluminum can but for now I'll keep trying to pick up that monster sponsorship.

The bike was a really fun winter project. Gotta keep those New England winter blues away somehow. What better way than to build a motorcycle in the basement.

[Dragula]

Pulled the middle timing belt cover off. Probably going to keep it this way after I do some cleaning in there.

[keeton]

Love it. This has got me really wanting a Miata.

[Dragula]

Love it. This has got me really wanting a Miata.

Thanks man, much appreciated. I just wish it was spring so I could go out and enjoy it.