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CURRENT PROJECTS: What is Bar working on now?


BAR'S PROJECT IN HONOUR OF A FRIEND

JOHN BALL'S ELR REPLICA RACER TRIBUTE BUILD

Story and Build by Bar Hodgson

Part 2

Rear Set brackets and shortened rear brake pedal Both the left and right side footrest brackets have been converted to rear set by relocating the foot pegs back 4" for the rider position and painting the brackets black. I have shortened the rear brake lever by 4" to accommodate the new rear set position and I must also re-position the left side shifter by adding linkage to correctly re-position 4" further back.

Great news... Connery says John Ball's original Kawasaki 'Enkei' wheels have now been repainted in light gold, replacing the original KZ black, and sent me a photo of the finished wheels.

wheels have now been repainted in light gold, replacing the original KZ black
This was a difficult job for John necessitating a great amount of masking to keep the new gold paint off the polished rim overhangs and machined surfaces on the cast spoke edges of the Enkei wheels. The factory deliberately had the Enkei wheels painted with a very light gold so that visually the gold would not overpower the polished alloy silver rim colour. Keeping in mind that this is a street bike project this now duplicates quite accurately the visual effect of the ELR Factory wheels' colour and treatment produced in late 1981.

The good news just keeps coming!

John Connery Custom Paint painted bodywork for the ELR Bar is building

Connery's sent me through a photo of my newest '82 ELR Project's finished complete paint job. What's that you say? Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that at the same time as I was building the John Ball Tribute '81 Eddie Lawson racer replica, I had started building a parallel project using a 1982 GPZ1100 B2 and it has been coming along quite nicely. Watch for this new project under Current Projects page in the near future.




Kawasaki has a long history with the ELR. The stunning ELR look just won't go away and every now and then gets revived by Kawasaki with another incarnation, including the ZRX series produced in the late 90's and early 2000's. Our webmaster, Andrea, had this very bike for a good many years as her daily rider/track day bike. Read her shortened story below.

Andrea's ZRX1100

I fell in love with the look of the ZRX1100 at the 1999 Motorcycle SUPERSHOW... it was before I worked for Bar, when I was attending the show as a motorcyclist, not as staff. Look at the expression on my face, clearly I was quite smitten.
Andrea on a ZRX1100 at the 1999 SUPERSHOW
Andrea Riding her ZRX1100 in street gear From that dreamy moment at the motorcycle show to the reality of riding the ZRX was an adventure.

I've written a few articles on the subject in my website, you can read more technical details here: http://www.dirtygirlmotorracing.com/zrx/index.html and the Love Story version is here: http://www.dirtygirlmotorracing.com/articles/love.html


Photo Credit: Owen Sinnott





Back to Part 1 - Back to the Projects Page




Built by Bar - the decal Bar Hodgson put on all bikes and engines he built for customers
Back in the 60s when Bar was building engines and custom bikes for customers of his "Bar's Custom Motorcycles" shop on Gerrard Street East in Toronto each engine and bike would sport the decal 'Built by Bar'. Some of those engines are still around.

All photos by Hedy Hodgson unless otherwise noted.



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