Discuss style direction: streetbike, sportbike, enduro, bobber, café racer? Keep it original or go brat-style custom stripped-down – minimalist – rat rod vintage touches (like another bike project already in process and forever ongoing in the garage – so its more like therapy now and not even a bike anymore).

Decide on a direction and find a running bike on marketplace (countless hours searching and talking to people) until you find an older well taken care of Yamaha that is not too big or too small, can be easily worked on and has an engine with available parts and a frame that can be cut/chopped/welded and mixed with other bike parts and after aftermarket parts to give it a sleeker-than-stock stance and maybe tune up later. Start looking online and in bike magazines and bike and build forums for inspiration and collect pics.

The project: take a very well taken care of and garage stored stock 1990 Yamaha yx600 Radian and do the following to it:

Seat: Get rid of the original fairings and swap the stock stepped two-up seat for a sleek brown café-style solo seat with stitching to give the bike a more retro/custom look.

Frame: Trim the rear subframe to fit the new shorter seat and hidden brake light and weld in tabs to hold new metal side panels to really give the bike that café racer/brat-style feel.

Handlebars: Take off the original handlebars and swap them for lower handlebars with brown grips to give the bike a more aggressive riding position compared to the upright stock bars.

Tank & wiring: Rip off the old leaking tank that is a fire hazard but really is a uniquely designed tank and dig into the wiring. Run down brake, instrument cluster and headlight issues. Install new LED headlight with integrated turn signals, pop on some modern looking rear turn signals and mount a hidden 3rd brake light under the seat (after creating the light mount). Regret throwing out the tank instead of trying to save it and face the fact that now the original tank is gone and everyone wants an arm and a leg for a replacement one – find a new tank that is not original to the bike, but will will fit this frame. Wrap all the wiring in loom tape so we don’t have the exposed wiring and it doesn’t look like a rats nest.

Engine: Clean and rebuild the carbs because who doesn’t love doing this to the old 1990 inline 4 Yamaha engine carbs? New stator, and also replace the clutch plates because although this bike is jusy a hair under 600cc you can still get this bike up to speed very quickly and aggessively ride wheelies on this little piggy – so lets fix that slip.

Stock: Wheels, brakes, and forks are original YX600 hardware. Front brake caliper has been rebuilt. Keep the exhaust stock, but spend waaaaaay too much time and effort and WD-40 cans cleaning and polishing it because it was actually really well taken care of. Keep the rear twin-style shocks because we live in Michigan (our roads suck) and a hardtail setup is instant death and a mono-shock just would not fly with this setup.

Get to the point now where the weather is really nice, so you can roll it out and take pics of it before the new tank shows up and you start riding it very very late fall before the air gets ridiculously crisp, the snow hits the ground and it has to go back into the garage so you can keep adding stuff to it and tweak it over the winter.