Yamaha R6 Front End Swap on VIRAGO Café Racer

what's going on guys i'm tristan duran if you're new here welcome to my channel if you've been here before well welcome back this is my yamaha virago that i'm building as a cafe racer and one of the main thing you do on a cafe racer is to lower the front end i'm not a fan of the oem forks very thin very long big handlebars on top not a fan of that style so i have a complete yamaha r6 front end to put on the bike and i say complete because i finally received my lower triple clamp in good condition to put on the front end and do the conversion it's gonna be a great look on the bike so today we can do the conversion we're gonna put the yamaha r6 front end on the bike and i wanna show you what i've got so that's the lower triple clamp i'm gonna put on the bike this one is good it has good steering stops here and there they're straight not bent or cracked like the one i had before so i'm happy with this one and you can tell i have a stem on this one and i have a stem next to it that's the oem yamaha r6 stem that was taken out of the triple clamp and this one is a conversion stem that was pressed in the triple clamp for the virago frame to put a yamaha r6 front end on the varago frame the difference between the two if i put them at the same height at the bottom right here is the length of those stems you can tell there is maybe an inch difference between the two and that's the only difference that's why you need a conversion stem when you go with an r6 front end on a virago frame because the neck of the frame on a virago is longer so the bearings are further apart and on the yamaha r6 it's shorter that's more compact on a super sport bike right and the company that makes those stem is cognito moto i am not affiliated with them but i really like what they're doing i think they make a great product so that's the reason why i talk about them in this video and i'm gonna link them in the description of the video so that is good and that could go on the bike but i'm looking at it and i'm like i'm not a fan of that clear coat that's kind of yellowish that yamaha puts on a triple clamp i want to have that mat so i'm gonna send it down paint it black have some matte clear coat on it and when i'm doing that i'm going to do the same on that upper triple clamp which by the way looks horrendous right here i feel like the guy who had the bike before the the r6 bike uh just did some quick five minute dremel sending on it and it's horrendous it looks awful so i'm gonna have to correct that make it really smooth and flat and i'm gonna send it down everywhere just to make sure the new paint is really gripping on it i'm gonna paint everything clear coat let it cure when that's done i can put the bearing on the stem and put everything on the bike [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] i'm a simple manager [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] i'm a simple man [Music] all right so i'm done with the painting of the triple clamps i'm going to let it cure and meanwhile what i'm going to do is i'm going to take the front end the original front end of the virago off of the frame this way when the yamaha r6 front end is ready to go on the bike i can just bolt it on so [Music] all right so the front end is out of the bike what i'm gonna do now is remove the bearings from the neck of the frame uh [Applause] we're looking pretty good now i removed the old bearing races from the frame i put the new ones i greased everything up that's the reason why i protect it here because i don't want any dust to go on that grease it's all ready to be assembled when the front end is ready to go on the frame the frame is ready for the front end so i'm gonna go have a look at the upper and lower triple clamps i think they cured and i'm gonna remove the masking tape all the plugs i put on it when that's all ready we can put that thing on the frame [Music] yep [Music] yep i think it's beautiful now what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna put the bearing race on the stem [Music] and that's perfect look at this super smooth but i've got a problem now yeah my steering stops on the lower triple clamp are not catching on the steering stop on the frame if you go above yeah you can tell so yeah that was not planned i need to weld on steel i need to learn that because i have never done it before i'm gonna weld an extension right here on the frame i'm not gonna touch the lower triple clamp it's cast aluminum i'm not gonna touch that but i'm gonna weld on this a little extension so i guess that's the next part of the project let's go [Music] ha ha [Music] [Music] so that's what i was waiting for i got coupons in steel to experiment tea welding on carbon steel before i go on the frame i got some filler wire for steel and in that pack that i purchased i also have some aluminum feeder wire and i have some aluminum coupons not gonna use that today i'm just gonna do steel just so you guys know i bought that from weld metals online and this is a great website because it's pretty cheap and even though i only have 600 subscribers on my youtube channel they were nice enough to give a coupon code a 10 discount if you use tristan10 and it's going to be linked in the description of the video you'll have 10 discount on anything you buy from that website so what i'm going to do is i'm going to set myself up for our steel coupons and that feeder wire i'm going to choose a size and then we're going to go ahead and do some welding see how it is and then we can move on to the frame so let's weld [Music] read the world [Music] [Music] wait wait wait i don't have gas the organ wasn't coming that was closed so oh wow [Music] wow so this is so much easier than aluminum uh i feel like i'm gonna go on the frame so easy um so i'm gonna remove the paint where i want to weld on the frame prepare what i want to weld on the frame and just and just go ahead and weld let's go [Music] so [Music] quick update everything goes really well i'm kind of surprised so i cut a few parts in the coupons in the steel coupons that i had and you saw me right before that i welded two little parts together so that's what we have right here so now it's one part and this is gonna go on the frame to make an extension right there yeah it should be it should be like this when it's welded and then my steering stops on the lower triple clamp are finally gonna catch on this and the first thinking that i had was i'm gonna weld this right here first so i'm gonna have that part that you see right there on the frame and then to make it even more stronger to to make it stronger i'm gonna have this one on top of it that i'm gonna weld as well right here so imagine i got the two parts right here and then this part right on top of it and now i'm thinking it's overkill it's gonna look stupid to have so much for just a steering stop so i don't think i'm gonna use this one but i'm gonna weld the the small part right there and if my welding is good if i'm satisfied with the look of my world i'll be done with it so let's go ahead and weld [Music] so very satisfied with the result i went twice on top that's the reason why you see a pretty big world on the top right here and it seems very very strong what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna protect the frame because now i want to paint [Music] and the paint is cured so what i can do now is put the lower triple clamp with the stem on the frame check if the steering stops work well if everything looks good i can put the entire front end finally on that frame [Music] now [Music] thinking of uh baby sit here thinking of you baby so and the front end is on the bike and it looks so aggressive i love it i'm so happy i took the r6 front end for this one i didn't know i didn't know how he would look like and this is exactly what it is right now super happy with that there's one thing though i didn't expect to have such a low throat on the bike so now when it's on the kickstand which is the case right here when you look from the front do you see how straight the bike is it's about to fall it is very unstable so what i'm gonna have to do because that front end lowered the bike so much is i'm gonna have to shorten the kickstand do some welding when that's done then it's gonna be stable and i'm gonna have to work on the headlight all the connections all the electricity here on the front end gonna put the throttle the switch right here i'm gonna have to put the ignition switch as well and put the switch for the blinkers and for the headlights and the taillight right here put the clutch lever so a lot of things to finish up that front end and this is going to be on the next video i did a lot today i really want to close here so if you want to see me finishing that bike you should consider subscribing to the channel activate your bell notification this way you know when i post a new video i see you in the next one and meantime keep building you

Channel: Tristan Durand Builds

Views: 8,217

Rating: 4.9835391 out of 5

Keywords: Yamaha R6 Front End Swap on VIRAGO Café Racer, front end conversion cafe racer, inverted forks on yamaha virago, yamaha virago xv750 cafe racer, frame modification for cafe racer, how to swap a motorcycle front end, steering stop modification motorcycle frame, motorcycle front end swap tutorial, how to put inverted forks on old bike, motorcycle frame tig welding, how to lower front end of cafe racer, big brakes on cafe racer, frame welding on cafe racer build, cafe racer build

Id: QpvD56gN0Ow

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 29 2020