Got an email from Jay thanking bikerMetric for our ongoing support and sending some info on his latest build, “The Phantom”. We’ve featured Jay a few times, originally in June 2015, when he came to us as a 21 year old builder from Vadodara, Gujarat, India who built this sweet little ride:
Jay shared his story with us, along with his Bajaj Avenger bobber and his Bajaj Pulsar custom. We’ll come back to those later. For now, here’s some Jay sent in on his latest built, “The Phantom”:
This time we got a Bajaj Pulsar 180 DTSI as a donor bike. I stripped it down totally and started working on a new design to turn it into a softail bobber.
In the beginning I kept on visualizing the shape of tank and finally I opted a peanut bobber tank. After fabricating the tank and the front portion of the frame I started working on rear suspension & swing arm for the bobber look I was going for. I made few models of swing arm from cardboard to visualize the overall look of the bike. Then fabricated the final swing arm which is good in strength and which will suit the overall look.
Being a sheet metal fabricator I decided to give some attractive sheet metal touches to the bike which led me to make a front headlight cowl. I handcrafted the front cowl from flat sheet metal. It holds a 5 inch DRL headlight which looks great with the cowl.
The wiring of bike is quite hidden below the tank. The CDI unit & regulator rectifier unit of the motorcycle are well organized in metal boxes. Battery is also placed in metal box in the centre of frame. The seat is comfortably cushioned and covered with light brown leather material with some lines stitched into it for design.
This time I didn’t fit a K&N high performance air filter direct to the carburetor. Instead I made a bend pipe holding the air filter which is made from 6 different metal pieces & got a chrome treatment which shines & works perfectly.
Meanwhile, the exhaust was handmade using glass wool packed mufflers, which sounds & performs well. The clutch cover and magnet cover got a buffing treatment while other parts of the engine got black paint treatment. The clutch cover also got engraved with J&D Custom’s logo on it.
The handlebar is made from metal pipe to get the most comfortable position. It also has a tiny chrome rear view mirror, which is very appealing.
Now the story comes to last stage of paintwork. My client wants to name it “The Phantom”, after his favorite comic character. We decided to paint using the character as a theme. “The Phantom” wears a dark blue outfit, so we finished the blue & black combination of colors with some shiny chrome & buffed parts. The upper portion of the tank covers the name of the bike.
J&D Custom Co.
Founder & Builder – Jay D. Patel
www.jdcustomco.com
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