A good mate of mine Pete (actually the bloke who bought the Churchill) is in the market for a new bike... I built another bike... but I wasn't happy with it, it's a great little performer, but he wanted something he could potter about with his bird on the back and also something with power and practicality....

Here's a picture of the bike I originally built for him but wasn't satisfied that it met his requirements (so it went to C-milk who can appreciate its performance orientated stance and handling).

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I happened to be wrenching on this bike at my local bike shop when I saw a GN125 clone stripped down for fixing and it clicked... This is the bike I want to build for Pete, it's bigger, more comfortable, safer and much better for carrying a passenger.

So... enter the piece of shit canvass:

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It runs.. but that's not important since I'm going to toss the engine anyway...

Why did I choose this rusty piece of crap? Well simply because the frame is salvageable, it has a new tank, the rear tyre is newish... and well because it's the right shape....

The first thing to do was to get rid of all the rust on the frame... this was done using a wire-brush attached to a grinder... I managed to also remove several layers of skin off of my one hand in the process (pain is for the weak).

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After removing every bit of offending rust (there was a lot)... I had to turn my attention to that awful swingarm:

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It was completely rusted through... and the swingarm bolt was rusted in place... I had to cut the bugger out with a grinder...

Coming up... things start to look better

- SerpentZA (youtube.com/serpentza)