Timelapse videos tend to be a timeless pastime for many custom enthusiasts. Seeing the process of building a one-of-a-kind motorcycle is almost always just as good as seeing the completed product especially if both the bike and the video are as well-made as this.
Presenting this timelapse video from 46 Works, by Shiroh Nakajima. If you can already tell, this is not Nakajima’s first rodeo making a timelapse video with a BMW bike opened up on the operating table, so to speak. The last time we covered Nakajima’s work, he was concluding his 14-part series with a BMW R100RS.
This time, it is a BMW R100RT. Year model: 1982, the vintage tourer first got a full disassembly. Removing the huge barn door of a front fairing already did a lot to change the bike’s appearance, but there was more to be done. The subframe was edited first in order to slim out the tail and tidy things up a lot. Without the huge front fairing, the long rear end had to go. Nakajima went to work on the cutting, welding, mocking-up, and final assembly of the section all by hand.
Following that, it was time to give the wheels attention. Turning his attention to the front and rear rims, both of which looked worse for wear, Nakajima repainted the two rims to a nice gloss black to keep things fresh and looking like new.
Things get more interesting as the tank got a new fuel cap. Clearly, it wasn’t a bolt-on kit that was installed, but a custom job, and one that required welding.
After that, it’s your standard front-end rebuild, with a fork overhaul, steering head refresh, a new custom bracket for the headlight, and installing the front wheels. Apart from that, a new single-housing headlight was fitted along with the handlebars and the gauge cluster, and then a brake overhaul. The Bing carburetors also get a bit of love, and the last thing to go on before the big reveal is the rear wheel.
Once on, the big unveiling of the project, and even the way it sounds happens at around the last few minutes of the video, marking yet another vintage BMW project in the books for 46 Works.
