Well if you could be bothered to read part one of my story of why modifying is not for the faint hearted, you will of read that the Scrambler has already gone through several incarnations. Coming up are several more. Well what do you expect from someone that spends a great deal of time looking at modified Triumph, much to my employers annoyance.
The winters had not been kind to the Scrambler with the frame now showing plenty of surface corrosion in hard to reach places. The Swing arm literally rattled with the rust inside. When I had originally sent the frame to be painted silver. I had asked the painter if he could clean up any corrosion he found, something he had not done, choosing to simply spray a very thin coating of silver over the frame and not very well at that. In the six years of tinkering I have learned a few lessons about modifying, one key thing was to try and do as much of the work you can yourself, third parties will often stitch you up at their earliest convenience. Another was to check any work undertaken by third parties before you stump up the cash, a lesson I was to learn to much greater effect a little later.
It was 2012 when I decided to modify the bike for a third time. The Scrambler had been sitting in the shed for a winter and the frame wasn’t looking any better than when I had put it away six or so months before, in fact the bike looked a bloody mess, and being a little OCD with this sort of thing something had to be done.
I stripped the bike down again one Saturday afternoon, taking note of what needed to be done, I boxed and labeled everything up and when back indoors, not taking another look at the bike for another couple of months. When I came to look at the Scrambler again, it looked very sorry for itself in my shed in a thousand pieces. But now I knew what I wanted to do. This time I wanted the Scrambler to look totally different. I had an idea to make the Scrambler resemble something that might of been ridden by a motorcycle stunt rider, brightly coloured, lightweight and loud as hell, a dirt bike, but a showy one! I also wanted the bike to be chopped, as this build needed to be all or nothing.
I found a guy locally to me who would undertake the work for a reasonable price. I dropped the frame off and several weeks later I picked up my much lighter frame, as well as a few bits that had been chopped off, including the rear peg mounts and side cover brackets. The frame looked the bloody business. The quality of welding was excellent.
I parted with my hard earned cash and retuned home to plan the next stage of the build. While the frame had been away I had not sat idle. To make sure the bike looked perfect I sent the engine bolts and anything else could find to be re-zinced. The engine also received a little attention with the crankcase receiving a coat of silver paint and the stock lacquered side cover and crank cover being sent off to be polished to a high sheen.
Next up was to get the frame painted…RED….. I sourced a local painter who appeared at first to be more than capable of this simple task. He dropped the frame back to me several weeks later, it looked bloody amazing! The frame sat in the cozy warm lounge for several weeks over the winter period as it was very cold outside. Meanwhile I collected all the parts together to build up the finished bike.
I also decided to strip all the paint off the petrol tank and buff it up, with an idea to go with a brushed alloy look. The original air-box eliminator form New Bonneville also got the same treatment as did the brake lever clamps and anything else that was black. I purchased a generic alloy mudguard from a local store, this was going to complete the look of the ‘Johnny Dare’ Jump Bike! – I was really happy the way the bike was starting to come together, I was getting excited!. 
It was a sunny weekend that I decided to start the rebuild…. I had recently moved house and the new place had a very nice one car garage which I had set up at the perfect place to put the bike back together. The newly painted engine was already sitting on the motorcycle jack, and it was an easy task to lower the frame onto the engine and bolt it in place.
I was very careful not to chip the paint on assembly, covering up or taping over areas the may get scratch. However this didn’t seem to help…. that beautiful bright red paint came off no matter how carful I was, it didn’t just come off a little, it came off in chunks, with the biggest being about 3inches long! FUCKING NIGHTMARE!. the so called painter was mortified that his work was so easily chipped offering to repaint the fame for free. (no shit Sherlock)
This ended up being a bloody waste of time, with the second attempt being no better than the first, infact a hell of a lot worse! This so called painter then did a runner with my £250, never to be seen again! – To say I was pissed off is an understatement….. Build three had come to an abrupt end….I was so fucked off I didn’t want to continue….I was done…. and it was getting cold again! So I went inside to to open the garage doors again for another month!
Part three tomorrow..
