El Guapo - Assembly Begins

I'm always amazed how many tools and parts get strewn across the floor during a relatively easy 45 minutes of working on a motorcycle. Oh well, time to clean the garage anyways! Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a few more parts on, so I can roll the bike outside and snap a better photo.

El Guapo - Sneak Peak

My phone camera washed out the photo, but as you can see below the frame was sprayed a glorious shade of orange. I've also managed to prep and spray most of the small brackets and other little items, like the kick stand, footpegs, rear hub stay etc. Most of the hard work is ahead of me, as I need to do some finish work on the fenders and tank. Which means sanding. My least favorite job.

El Guapo - Final Mock-Up

I better post these photos before I forget, because El Guapo has already been stripped back down to bare parts. I'm hoping to get some finish work done Saturday, and possibly spray some primer Sunday.

The only new thing on the bike is the exhaust heat shield, and it has since been modified courtesy the sheet metal brake at work:

All new cables and levers/perches:

El Guapo - More Exhaust Fabrication

I spent the morning out in the garage working on the exhaust. I made great progress, in fact I finished it up, save for some final cleaning up and a wrapping.

Roughly 8 cut and bends in total make up the full exhaust:

The rear portion of exhaust bends inward, to clear the shock. This keeps everything nice and tidy:

Rear mount it tucked up under the seat:

El Guapo - Exhaust Fabrication

I wandered out to the garage this evening, pomegranate mead in hand, and decided to start fabbing up the exhaust on El Guapo. I literally had zero stock exhaust parts for any of these S90/CL90 bikes this is based on, so I have to fab everything up from the header flange on back.

I'm doing a high pipe, like any good scrambler should have. So far I've used a piece of precurved pipe from an old mop bucket handle that broke at work, to a scrap header pipe from a CB160 that was damaged, to a large washer that was drilled and cut down to act as the flange.

It is a little hard to see in my fuzzy cell phone pic, but the header and uppipe are in place. Those are the most difficult items, since they have the tightest radius bends. I need to grab some 1" thin-walled conduit for the rear portion of the exhaust, which will make a bend in and around the rear shock, to keep things nice and tight to the body. I'll likely use a muffler that came on a cheap ebay XR50 exhaust I bought to use for parts on the Trials bike.

As you can see from the mess, it takes a lots of parts and tools for this portion of the fab work.

El Guapo - Fenders

I made up fenders for El Guapo over the past two days. I really liked the shape and size of the plastic front fender on the Hodaka, so I decided to use that as a mold, and run some fiberglass. I had just enough cloth to do just that.

rushing on the last bit of resin:

Side view showing both front and rear fenders mounted:

Quick shot of the front fender mounted. It only took about 10 minutes to get it trimmed into shape, and sanded:

Now I must shower off the fiberglass dust.

El Guapo - Rear Shocks

A set of Honda XR250 Twinshock rear shocks, all cleaned up and painted for El Guapo. These have a 16" eye-to-eye length, and a nice spring rate. They also have fantastic rebound valving.

El Guapo - Seat Pan

I was able to modify a stock CL90 seat pan to fit El Guapo. Since the Hodaka fuel tank is longer, I was trying to get something to fit to the length I wanted. As it happened, the stock CL90 seat pan was easy to shorten up front, kust long enough for the rear shock cutouts to fit, and the rear pan mount bolts to line up.

Starting to look like a bike!

El Guapo - Rear Tire Mounted

I managed to get the rear tire mounted tonight, using the cool living room as my garage. These bigger tires are a bit more difficult to get on the wheel, so I used lots of tire lube (soap and water mix) and my incredible strength. The only thing missing was a headband.

I brought out the big guns:

mmm, so knobby:

Close to the ride height I want:

I found a set of shocks from a Honda XR250 twinshock. 16" eye-to-eye measurement, with found spring preload adjustments via a little c-clip under the lower spring seat. Excellent condition, with tons of rebound dampening. They just need some paint:

El Guapo - Rear Tire

One of the many reasons I love those crazy orientals. Tires named "Goldenboy."

El Guapo - Rear wheel

I was up and going first thing this morning, to take advantage of morning temperatures. I built several brackets to mount the seat, cleaned up the rear wheel spokes and nipples, and polished up the hub and wheel rim. After a late brunch, I settled in on the couch and watched some Indycars while I assembled the rear wheel. The stars were aligned, as this was the most true wheel I have ever assembled. I simply didn't need to do any truing at all. I just got everything snug, and it was spot on.

Wheels for El Guapo

I needed a wider rear wheel rim for El Guapo, and I found a local selling some on ebay. I ended up purchasing an Aluminum DID 2.15x18 rim, and picking it up from him. He has a little side biz selling parts for 1970s big bore Euro dirt bikes. He commented that the market is big oversees for these bikes. And because of that, he tends not to worry about the smaller parts that a guy like me covets. So by the time I left his place, he told me to take some extra chrome wheel rims, and a pair of shocks for free.

He invited me out afterwork or on a weekend day to grab more parts. He said it would just go to the scrap yard, so anything in that pile over there you can have. There was lots of stuff in that pile.

My bounty:

El Guapo - More Mockup

Hodaka!!?!?!?? That's right, a Hodaka SL250 Thunderdog fuel tank. I found this bad boy on Ebay for a meager price, and it showed up today. As mentioned during the intro of El Guapo, I really wanted a beefy, blocky looking tank. And this bad boy does the job. It is substantially bigger than the original CL90 tank, and comes with plain sides. As in knee pads, no badges, no chrome pieces. Just a nice big area for some custom paint work.

Just a quick mock-up of a seat, trying to get an idea how long to make it, and what shape looks good:

I shortened the seat, then added a luggage rack from a Honda C100, and a little scrap piece of back fender from a Yamaha GT80, just to get a profile view:

Just an idea to see what a hard case looks like on the back:


These shots also give me an idea of what I want my rear ride height to be. It looks like my rear shock need to be around 15-16" from eye to eye. Unfortunately, I don't have any shocks that length, and most small bikes shocks are shorter by a couple inches. I've done a little research, and some XR250 twin shocks seems to be in that range. That would let me avoid spending $200 on new shocks.

And remember, the rear tire will be getting quite a bit bigger. Likely a 3.5x18, instead of the little 2.75x18 on there now.

El Guapo - Wheel and Frame Mockup V1

This is when I start posting pictures of the bike as I put more stuff on it. It doesn't look like a motorcycle yet, but just use your imagination. I was really pleased to find that a 21" front wheel off an SL125 would fit. I'll be mounting a much chunkier rear tire, likely a 3.5"x18, so the rear will be more balanced. I'll also need longer rear shocks, something about ttthhiiissss much longer.

El Guapo - Parts Deliveries

Two of several parts deliveries have been made this week for El Guapo. Including...

A pair of front fork boots and an engine gasket set, courtesy of Classic Scooter Parts. I placed the order on Sunday, and they arrived Monday. Fantastic service.

Then today, this awesome package arrived. It looked like something Mr. A would pack up, since it was pieced together from about five pieces of cardboard.

Busting out the big guns to open it:

Hooray! A complete front wheel assembly from a Honda SL125. 21" front diameter wheel, instead of an 18" The chrome wheels is flawless, and the hub is fantastic. The 2.75x21 Bridgestone tire might even prove useable.

I'm hoping to get two more top end engine seals in later this week, then I can see about getting the motor pack together. I might even see about mocking up the frame for some measurements.

El Guapo Concept

El Guapo Begins

Since the Miyata is nearly finished, and I've been bored, I decided to start another little bike project. I've had this grand plan to create a 1960s Scrambler. Some knobby tires, high-mount exhaust, taller suspension etc. I happen to have a handful of Honda S90/CL90 parts bikes, so I grabbed one of them and stripped it down. He will be called "El Guapo" from now on.

I had several complete engines to start with, and tore this down in about thirty minutes. Everything is quite clean, with no rust or scouring in the cylinder. Even the valves and cylinder head look great.

These bikes have an interesting pressed steel frame, that mounts the horizontal OHC Honda motor. One of the keys to getting the right look, is finding a proper tank. I have both S90 and CL90 tanks, as shown below.

CL90 tank. I like this overall shape, I just want the tank to be a bit bulkier:

The S90 tank is more rounded, and more cafe looking, especially with the chrome side covers:

I also had this Bridgestone 90 Mountain tank sitting on the shelf.


I need to do up some sketches of what I'm looking for. Then I can start scouring ebay for a suitable tank.

Chris H.