So after a few months of knocking around on a rigid bandit 6 I realised I really missed the speed of a bigger bike. The way forward; FJ1200 RIGID. I’ve been tinkering for a couple of years but this is my first full bike build.

I picked up the frame a week ago from Stockton-on-Tees after Dan spotted it on ebay.

I picked up this little gem 2 days later from Northallerton – bloody sods law I was 20 miles away picking up the frame a couple of days before. The bike run great and only had 33,000 miles on it so should last a little while.

A few hours in and we was ready to drop the engine.

Simples! All the rods holding the engine in place knocked through with ease….except the one we spent 20 minutes on before we realised it was an allen bolt 😉 For a 1987 bike it was impressive to only find 1 rounded off bolt.

Not in bad shape, no fins missing and pretty good compression. in definite need of a good clean and re-blacking.

After playing around with a couple of sets of forks I’ve gone with a set of KTM500’s

I’ve gone with an R6 back wheel but not sure on the front yet. Going to have a look for something a bit closer.