The Background

Social media can be a very positive thing for a small business - chances are you’re reading this because you’ve seen us on instagram or facebook…and that’s how Jamie from Smith & Son Custom Motorcycles found us too!

Back in the Summer of 2018, a message from Jamie popped into my DMs asking if we’d be interested in collaborating on a custom motorcycle build. I’d seen some of Jamie’s previous builds at Kickback, online and in Built mag, so I knew the quality of his work and was super excited…albeit a little unsure of what he would propose and whether we could make it work for both of us!

Skip ahead a few weeks later and we were trading at the NSRA Hot Rod Drags at Santa Pod. Jamie rode over to meet me there and we talked about ideas for the bike, and what we both hoped to achieve through the collaboration - we discovered we followed a lot of the same builders on social media and loved the traditional old school stuff coming out of Japan from folks like Heiwa. And we were both focussed on raising awareness of our respective brands by building something beautiful and genuinely custom, rather than a typical Bonneville bolt on build (as nice as they can be). We also agreed that we wanted the build to be worthy of being featured on BikeExif, and would target the Bike Shed London show to launch the bike - both of those goals meant that the build would have to be top notch! But Bike Shed was just 6 months away, and Jamie could only work at night as he has a full time job and family commitments…

…the race was on!

The Build

I was pretty easy about the base bike for the build, and Jamie was keen to use something from the Japanese domestic market (JDM) which would have modern, reliable engineering, but old school traditional features like drum brakes and a kick start - so, added to the fact they have a strong custom cult following, the Yamaha SR400 made perfect sense.

Jamie sourced one from Tokyo through a London importer and, while we waited for our ship to come in, we spent our time chatting about colour schemes and details like the whitewalls, low stance and achieving an over all super clean simple look.

The bike was on dry land in late Jan 2019, but it was early Feb when Jamie got his hands on it…so just about 3 and a bit months until Bike Shed!

Lopped and Dropped

As soon as the little Yam was in Jamie’s workshop the grinder came out and the rear loop was lopped off. The frame was de-lugged and new mudguard mounts were made to fit the Motone rear fender, which was cut to style. Jamie made the mounts adjustable so the fender can be moved to re-align to the rear wheel following chain adjustment - because he pays attention to clever details like that!

A new section was welded in under the seat to hold the bespoke battery box which also contains the ignition switch, coil, CDI and a reg/rec mounted underneath to keep tiny pack of electrics cool.

Up front the top yoke was cut to remove the ignition switch and clock mounts, and the original rubber mounts were removed and replaced with solid after the yoke machining.

The stock forks were stripped, rebuilt and lowered by 80mm.

Wheels are stock, but have been stripped and rebuilt with stainless spokes by SFX Wheels in Wolverhampton, and the rims were powder coated black.

Bars are Norman Hyde, with Biltwell grips and standard switch gear - but with wiring carefully routed through the top yoke and bars to keep the front end as clean as possible.

Jamie fabricated a neat one-off basket for the speedo out of stainless, which is mounted on the fork leg.

The exhaust was hand made using welded pre-formed bends, the welds were smoothed and brush finished. A Danmoto conical silencer was modified to suit.

Round the other side, Jamie fabricated a one-off side mounted number plate holder, which is mounted on lugs welded welded to the swing arm and is illuminated by a Motone Eldorado rear light.

The 400 engine is stock, but has been vapour blasted and has a braided camshaft oil line. The original CV carb was replaced with a Mikuni VM34 which breaths through a custom stainless velocity stack, shaped to clear the frame.

The squat stance at the back was achieved by lowering the bike 100mm, fitting Harley short shocks.

Seat is a custom one-off steel pan fabricated by Jamie, and covered in black leather by Nostalgia Upholstery in Peterborough.

Massive thanks to all the following suppliers who helped to make the bike such a success…

• Motoedit in Huntingdon who supplied the awesome Shinko whitewalls and did the vapour blasting

• Nostalgia Upholstery in Peterborough who covered the seat

• Ian at Bulldog Bodyshop in Hockwold for the cracking paint

• Classic Coatings in Grantham for the powder coat

• SFX Wheels in Wolverhampton for the wheel work