The Rat - SpyGuy's Redneck-Style Cagllari/Daytona

[SpyGuy]

"The Rat" (a work in progress)

Background: Bike originally started off as a half-fairing 47cc Cagllari/Daytona. Purchased on craigslist.com for $80.00, previous owner had apparently used the bike as an offroad dirt bike. Front fairing was missing, seat and tank section was cracked in half behind tank and at end of seat - entire rear section missing. So begins the tale of my NF (no fairing) Cagllari, "The Rat"......

I decided when I bought this bike that I was not going to restore it to original condition. Instead, the plan was to play with it, see what fun a goofy things I could modify on the bike, yet still have a perfectly functional bike to ride. Below is a list of the modifications currently on this bike, with more to come. *** NOTE: this is NOT meant to be a serious race bike - this bike was built "redneck-style" for fun.**

SPECIFICATIONS AND MODIFICATIONS:
Gas Tank:
Hard-mounted to frame with brackets. Gas cap has been modified with a breather filter made from an in-tank gas filter. Gas tank was originally hard-mounted to frame using a hose clamp, which is visible in earlier pictures of the bike.

Seat:
Seat is glued down on piece of sheet metal, cut to fit shape of seat. Seat is supported by section of cut-down office keyboard track, and bolted to frame using the original holes. There is also a section of heavy-gauge wire mesh filling in the open area between the seat and the tank.

Air cleaner:
Air cleaner is an Altoids Chocolate-Covered Cinnamon Mints box. The box has been drilled multiple times to allow air flow, and a piece of window screen wrapped in pantyhose protects the carburetor venturi. Oh, and the red gasket in the picture is from a toilet tank. (A second air cleaner, not on the bike, is made from an electric socket junction box.)

Gas filter:
A cut-down Volkswagon gasoline filter makes sure that the carburetor stays clean.

Muffler/exhaust:
An empty DuPont paint spraycan was modified for the exhaust by cutting off the bottom of the can. Tinsnips were used to enlarge the opening on the top of the can to fit over the front ring of the stock muffler, while the bottom of the can was cut to accept the stock muffler end cap. It is held on by the original spring and cotter pin.

Footpegs:
Footpegs are Mongoose BMX stunt pegs mounted on tapped original studs. This was a previous owner modification.

MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES:

Dremel wrench killswitch cover: A spare wrench was bent and screwed down under the original-style killswitch, so I wouldn't accidentally bump it while riding.

Duct Tape on front brake cable: Oh yes ... it can't be a true ratbike without duct tape! For now, a strip of silver duct tape is holding the front brake cable to the fork leg. (I cheated - there's also a zip tie underneath it!)

72 Jet: Biggest jet I could run in the bike, since the new Altoids air cleaner was letting in a LOT of air. Am considering boring original jet out to 74 or even a 76.

Triple reed mod: One of the members of pocketbikeplanet.com (davation) came up with a simple yet VERY effective way of making a cheap reed mod for tha Cagllari/Daytona by layering two reeds together. The mod was created by leaving one reed completely stock, and cutting the other to resemble a Black Widow reed. They work just as well as a Black Widow setup, and costs about a third of the price.

Gearing: currently 7/68. Future change will be either 64th or 62th rear sprocket.

To be continued ....

[SpyGuy]

More pictures

[minimotorider]

Thats an awesome ride man.

Here ya go!

[SpyGuy]

LMAO !! Thanks! "I would like to accept this award today by thanking everyone who has looked at and laughed at my bike ...." I'm also on your TPB site, btw ...

Seriously, though, the whole reason behind the bike was to rebuild it in a way that would be functional and fun and NOT kill any of the performance of the bike. Okay, yes, it looks funny - that was the point!! The spraycan mod was something I'd seen several guys do on another site, and since my exhaust pipe was broken, anyway, why not go ahead and redo it? (I originally wanted a WD-40 can on there, but didn't have any empty ones laying around.) Once I got that on there, I started looking around and thinking, "What other fun and goofy things can I do to this bike without decreasing performance or totally messing it up?" The Altoids can air cleaner not only works, but works VERY well - I actually had to rejet to something HUGE just to handle all the extra air coming in. I drilled the original main jet out to something like a 74 or a 76, so one of my next tests will be to try running that jet in the bike, and seeing how it works. Gas filter? Had a spare for my car, figured it would be a lot better than that Briggs&Stratton lawnmower filter I had ..... I have one of the original-style killswitches that is screwed into a hole drilled in the handlebars (how many guys have one of those?), and I needed a way to protect it from accidentally being hit, so a spare dremel wrench was bent 90 degrees and screwed down under the killswitch. Despite the way the bike looks, it performs quite well.

If you could have seen the mess the bike was in when I got it, you wouldn't believe it was the same bike. It was literally a basket case - the previos owner had used it like a dirt bike, and had beaten the hell out of it. The bars had been drilled for self-tapping screws because the original bolts were stripped (idiot didn't even bother making sure the handlebar angles matched before drilling), the exhaust was bent in about three different directions, the engine would barely turn over - I think the guy was running straight gas in it or something - the wheels were flat, the fairings (what was left of them) were destroyed, the rear brakes weren't working, the front brakes worked but not real well .... it took a long time for me to get the bike repaired to the point where it was rideable again. About the only good thing was that the frame was fairly straight, and the engine turned over.

Like I said, The Rat was built for fun. It's not a "serious" race bike - I have another HF Cag for that purpose. This one is something to goof around with, try out silly and funny things, and basically was built the way it is to make people laugh. I don't have to have a high-dollar bike with a custom-built motor and 32 layers of clearcoat over a thousand-dollar chameleon paint job (not that I wouldn't LIKE one, mind you, but not everyone can afford something like that)... just give me a decent running engine, a couple of wheels to put the power on the ground, and a three-dollar can of flat black primer. While everyone else is buffing their Blatas, GP's, and BZM's to mirror shines and polishing all that chrome, I'll be out riding.