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My Ninja 250 Cafe Racer II ~ pics.

Mortifer

Well-known member
Joined
May 14, 2002
Location
SJ
Moto(s)
FJ-09
Name
Mike
I’ve missed the fun and sillyness riding my last 250 “Café racer”, so I decided to “build” another.

I picked up this 01 Ninja 250 at the beginning of Nov for $750, it was quite beat-on and neglected, but with only 3k miles it was a perfect candidate. It had been crashed a few times, so no upper fairings, it did come with a crashed café headlight though, a leaking gas tank, an extra set of rims and years of filth and grime…..so I got busy.

It did not come with the airbox, so I went with a single K&N pod filter, after playing with the jetting more times than I can remember, I can now pull into the garage and have the carb on the work bench in 4 minutes.

I repaired and bondo’d the leaking gas tank, Lubed all cables, moved/rewired battery and electrical, wired vapor, installed temp sender & speedo sender, cut seat & had it reupholstered, replaced brake fluid, modified rear reservoir, replaced fork oil, made license plate bracket, cut subframe, removed extra parts, painted a lot of things.

I still have some finishing touches to do like redo the vapor mount and replace the rashed headlight.
In all I’ve spent almost $600 in parts and couldn’t be happier. :ride


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Bringing it home, the work begins…


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The usual- strip it down, cut off all extra parts, rewire the battery, clean it up and start replacing parts…

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Here is my uncle taking it for a spin a few weeks ago, I liked this red/white paint job at first, but it just wasn’t right….
 
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The front fender was just too big, so I made it…smaller.


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So I redid the paint to something very meaningful to me. Here’s the finished paint job, I was unable to find lime green spray paint, this was the best I could do. It’s perfect.


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Wow. That definitely looks much better than when I last saw it in person! :thumbup
 
Very nice job.

How many pounds of crap would you guess you pulled off?
 
Very nice job.

How many pounds of crap would you guess you pulled off?

not sure what all the stock fairings weigh. I did weigh it on two bathroom scales and I believe it's around 320lbs with an almost full gas tank.
 
Awhile back I almost under took a similar cafe project with a wrecked ninja 250 but backed out. Your project has kinda re-inspired me a little. Oh man my wife is gonna hate you for that :twofinger, but seriously your bike turned out real nice congrats.
 
one small suggestion

use leather seat covering and change the color to that particular classy shade of green on the Moto Guzzi Griso (one of several color options).

And nice job!!

(I am an ex EX250 owner, classic series)
 
use leather seat covering and change the color to that particular classy shade of green on the Moto Guzzi Griso (one of several color options).

And nice job!!

(I am an ex EX250 owner, classic series)

Actually not a bad suggestion. I'll second it!
 
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