Submitted by Chris Calton, a Bevelheads lister from the UK. Obviously a work in progress but if the bodywork is any indication, it'll be huge step up from your average Monza Jr! I hope to receive progress reports as he moves along with it. Click on the pics for a larger view.

Chris said this about the project:

I bought the bare bones of a Monza Jr. last year with no real clear vision of what I wanted to do with it. I left it for a few months before finally deciding that what I wanted was a cafe racer / Moto Giro type bike with a single seat and the minimum of clutter. The decision was made easier by the fact that I was given the contact details of a guy who makes complete sets of bodywork to a very high quality and at reasonable cost. 

I then managed to acquire another 160 from eBay for a song with a view to making one good one and selling on the rest. This idea got modified when a friend of mine and fellow Ducati nut offered to build me up a good motor in return for my spare parts so that he could build himself up a standardish bike. Once we had stripped down both motors it became clear that we would have one engine in ok condition and one that needed quite a lot of work and money to make good. 

At this point luck intervened again when my friend managed to pick up another engine at the Netley Marsh Eurojumble. From his cursory inspection he reported that it looked to be in reasonable condition and we managed to haggle the vendor down from his original asking price. When we got the engine back home and stripped it down it became apparent that it had done very little work and was in A1 condition, merely needing cosmetic refinishing.

With the engine now sorted I have turned my attention to the cycle parts. An early decision was made that both sets of front forks I had were in poor condition and would be difficult to refurbish. I managed to buy a brand new set of 32mm Marzocchi front forks intended for a disc braked bike. This isn't a problem as I will use the holes for the caliper mounts to attach the brake plate torque arm to.

The next problem to overcome was that the head bearings did not match with the fork stem and I am none to fond of cup and cone races anyway. Luckily I have a small Myford lathe and I have overcome this problem by machining up new bearing holders to take standard size taper roller bearings out of stainless steel. I've now completed these and I'm quite happy with them. Once I have mounted the yokes (triple clamps in the states?) there will be quite a bit of steering stem protruding but I intend to make up a friction damper that will fit over this and tidy that area up.

The next thing to consider was the front brake. I wanted a twin leading shoe setup but didn't want to spend a fortune on it as this was meant to be a budget rebuild. I found what I wanted whilst looking on eBay. A guy had a tls front hub from a Jawa/CZ twin for sale and I was the only bidder. I had to make top hat sleeves for the forks, wheel spacers and a front spindle but the end result will look pretty good once the hub is cleaned up, the linkage is re-plated and the rim laced on.

The whole project has received a massive boost with the arrival of my bodywork. The pictures do not begin to show how exquisitely gorgeous that tank and seat unit look and the quality of them is exceptional. The next job for me to tackle is removing all the surplus frame lugs and sorting out some mounts for the seat unit and rear splashguard. I've negotiated myself a couple of 18 inch alloy rims so I'm hopeful that I can have a rolling chassis sometime over the Christmas holidays.

I still have a fair bit of work to do but I think that achieving rolling chassis status will be a huge psychological step and will spur me on to get the bike finished and on the road.