Four months later and still two steps forward, one step back, caused mainly by the change from the air-cooled Honda Rebel engine to the water-cooled Suzuki Skywave (Burgman) engine, transmission and rear suspension, entailing a lot of chopping and changing to add part of the Skywave frame as an integral frame-member.

Peering into the engine compartment. The donor Skywave was fitted with a ginormous after-market exhaust, which is probably also very loud. Budget permitting, I might want to swap it out at some point.

Once all that was complete and the engine package fitted, the next problem was electrics, not Haruyama-san’s strong point. Being water-cooled, the Skywave has an electric fan and more temperature and other sensors than the very basic Honda Rebel, so Haruyama-san needs some help. His go-to electrics man is busy (and a 3-wheeler hack-up of dubious legality is probably a low priority) so Haruyama-san has given up for now and got back to panel beating.

The first rough out of the rear shroud has started – now we need to see if we can find a rear lamp that can be tailored into the rear of the hump.

Things still a bit wonky, and a better view of the huge exhaust pipe.