Betty #1

THE "DUB" BUILD

I saw my first W650 in a tiny Kawasaki dealer in Regina, Saskatchewan in 2002.  I had just dropped my '94 ZX6E Ninja off to have the carbs cleaned and I spotted the "DUB" in the showroom.  Like most W650s in North America she hadn't sold.  

Fast forward six years and in 2008 after havin run a number of 636 Ninjas over the past four years I was in the market for another bike.  I was finally out of University and back in Vancouver,  B.C.  As luck would have it I found this Betty on Craiglist for a decent price.

The first thing on the chopping block was the seat. The previous owner had a Corbin Gunfighter and Lady seat mounted.  While the seat was comfy it definitely wasn't the look I had in mind, plus it weighed a ton.  Now given that only a handful of DUBs were ever sold in North America, there isn't what you would call much of an after market here for her.  So I had slim pickings trying to locate a seat.  Thankfully the DUB has a cult following everywhere else and I was able to locate a seat in Japan until I could build a solo seat of my own.  In place of the monstrosity of a seat we installed this feather light Nitorheads seat care of  Motobike.jp.

After swapping the seat we turned our attention to cutting some more fat off the "DUB" and removed the factory chrome fenders and mounted these blacked out short fenders from Oscar in Japan.  We also removed the factory turn signals and brake light and replaced them with smaller and lighter units from POSH.

After swapping out the fenders we stripped down the gas tank and painted it black to match the fenders.  We also tossed the handle bar and mounted clip-ons and a polished top yoke care of Peyton Place in Japan.

The top yoke is a sweet one piece polished aluminum number, which cleans up the controls with the new clip-ons mounted.

 With the new racier stance up front, the next step was to mount custom Silverstone exhaust care of Silverneck to give the DUB a better sound and more mid-range punch.

To cut some more weight and just cause I hated the cluttered appearance they created, we removed Kawasaki's Clean Air system and mounted these OEM caps off the '99 Japanese version of the W650.  Not only did it clean up the look of the DUBs motor but it also helped solve the annoying exhaust popping on deceleration.  The parts are available from Consolidated Motor Spares in the Netherlands. 

I was toying with the idea of mounting a café fairing on the DUB one evening.  Above is what I came up with after a couple hours of playing on the laptop.  In the image you can also see I cut off the centre stand, which we will eventual get to.

Sorry for the grainy picture, I still had my Blackberry at this time.  Well anyways, like I was saying I had been toying with the idea of mounting an upper fairing on the DUB for some time now.  As luck would have it, I found one on Ebay from a seller in Vietnam, while I was at a work conference in Las Vegas.  My lovely fiancée, at the time, was kind enough to place the winning bid, and after only a few weeks I had the fairing and got it mounted. 

Got the fairing mounted just days before our wedding.  Not wanting to miss the chance to get in a ride and to get some professional photos, I rode the bike thru the drizzle on that chilly April morning.

I rode the entire way with my fingers crossed and praying that the rain would subside and as you can see in these pics, thankfully the sun burnt thru.  My wife, as always, looked gorgeous and the bike looked pretty wicked only half way complete.

The tail light and matching turn-signals are flat black numbers from POSH.  Fool proof wiring and amazing fit and finish, these little beauties are a huge improvement over the stock parts.

On the ride back from the wedding I discovered a minor problem with the fairing setup.  Turns out the unit I got off ebay came with a 6 volt headlight.  Needless to say by the time I got back to Vancouver the bulb was fried.  Should've checked the voltage prior to installation, live and learn.

After the headlight fiasco, I decide to ditch the fairing for now and reverted back to the 7'' 12 volt unit we had sitting around the shop.  Unlike the stock plastic chrome unit, this headlight had a steel bucket in flat black to match the aforementioned brake and turn signals.

Only trouble now with the headlight is I snapped one of the cheap white metal headlight brackets we picked up off ebay.  I guess its true what they say, "you get what you pay for".  I macgyvered the bracket so its holding for now, but we need to find an alternate soon. 

Spiegler sells these LSL brackets for various fork sizes including the DUBs 39mm tubes. Time to off load some parts to earn the necessary coin.  Anyone need some stock DUB parts???

Instead of getting new headlight brackets we chose to replace the entire headlight with a 5 3/4'' bottom mount unit we got off eBay. Sourced a bottom bracket from Webike.  The smaller headlight lightens up the entire front end.

In addition, we went for a slightly more upright riding position, by replacing the clip-ons with a superbike 7/8'' handler bar and white grips.  We also finally sourced a new front tyre which we should get mounted shortly.

Pictures to follow.