Annnnd......I'm Spent!!!

Well, it's been about a year and nine months since I started the build. It's no officially over. Words can no express how tired I am right now. Over the past two weeks all I've lived, breathed, dreamt, and spoke about has been finishing the bike. Well, I put over 70 miles on her today. Here she is in all her glory. My nasty, loud, foul smelling, evil bitch. GOD I LOVE HER!!!

Thank you all for the support. However, I do have to point out to the fat man two doors down. When you see me struggling to start at 36 year old motorcycle I've spent the last 21 months working on, shouting "Buy a Harley, Buy a Harley" is not appreciated you blabbering baboon. You sir can go get promiscuous with a rabid raccoon!!!

Her maiden voyage was not ALL grins however. She had several wiring gremlins, a kick start that wouldn't engage in the middle of traffic after I stalled her out, my ass went numb after about 15 minutes on the highway, and I think I might possibly be deaf. But her faults aside she's one wild ass ride. Hope to see you all out there. Drive safe!!!

Almost there!!!

Alright, Alright, Alright!!! Some of you have been pestering me for an update. Here it is. Yes I know I might have skipped a couple of crucial steps of the build in this blog. You'll just have to find it in your hearts to forgive me. It's too damn nice out to sitting in and writting a blog when I need to get shit done on the bike. IT'S GO TIME!!!

Left side of the bike.

Right side of the bike.

There's your update. Just waiting on a piece or two more to finish drying. Hopefully I'll see you all out on the roads soon enough.

License Plate and Tail Light Mount

On a random side-note. I think Harry Potter got buried in my yard that last snow storm.

Been shopping around for a Tail Light/License Plate mounting-thing-a-ma-jig for the bike. All the ones I saw that I liked were $150 plus. In hindsight I now know why. But the hell with it. Was a fun project to undertake. Okay, so lets start by buying the trailer tail-light from VIP down the road a piece.

First thing first. Cut off that ugly ass trailer mount that came with it. Done.

Next, buy some 16ga. steel from Home Depot, make a card board template and trace it onto said steel. Done.

Next, cut out said template with a jig saw. Make sure you AT LEAST get two metal splinters from the 100's of thousands that were created during the process. If you didn't then you're freaking doing it wrong. Done.

Next spend more minutes than you wanted to using various grinders and files to make that shape a finished product without sharp edges. Done

Drill all appropriate holes in the template and the trailer stop light. Then bend the top piece to a 30 degree angle and mount everything to see how it turned out so far. Done.

Find a random piece of 10ga. steel lieing around the shop and using poor man's lay out die (read that as Sharpie), various washers, rulers, scratch out the template for the bracket that will stiffen and mount the template previous cut out. Done.

Go at this new piece with the jig saw and make sure you get a least a few more metal splinters. Like the previous part, if you don't get a few you're doing it wrong. Drill some holes. Done. 

Take a block of steel, a vice, and a BFG (read big fucking hammer) and process to beat the ever loving piss out of the bracket until the two ears are bent 90 degrees. Done

Alright, at this point I got a little excited and forgot to take some photos. Needless to say you now need to spend a lot of time welding the two previous parts together, filling in any holes or craters created during welding (damn TIG welding can get frustrating at times to a novice), and sandblasting the part pretty and this is what you come out with. Done, Done, and Done.

Now, mount the brake light and license plate to the bracket. Then spend several frustrating minutes disassembling the rear wheel for the 1098172340987154290761209387523rd time during the build process and put it all back together for the 1098172340987154290761209387523rd time. Crack a beer, sit back, take a couple of photos, and enjoy your handy work. Done. Peace!!!!

Getting there

Alright, time for another update. Been one busy bee working on the bike. Here goes...

Photo above shows the Headlight/Blinker bracket I made. In my last post yo could see the bits and pieces un-welded.

Same thing just from a different angle and closer up.

This is the Rectifier/Regulator and how I chose to mount it to the seat support. Was really the only location on the bike I could find that I liked and didn't look like it was just slapped on wherever I could find room.

Looking at the Rectifier/Regulator from the side and below.

The old wiring harness was a mess and didn't fit the bike after all the modifications I made. So I decided to make this SIMPLIFIED wiring harness. Good joke huh ;-) It's actually not that bad when you take it wire by wire. Easy to get lost if you're not paying attention though. It's times like this when I wished I had multiple colors of wire. Instead I'm going to have to find some labels that wont fall off.

That's it for now.

Hello again!!!

Alright, so yeah it's been a while. Sorry. Been a lot going down between family stuff, work stuff, winter storms, and a car accident. No injuries...besides my pride and my poor truck. Here's a photo of her weather the storm. She looks so sad and there's nothing I can do. Still feel pretty damn shitty about the whole thing.

But anyways...onto the real purpose of this blog. Posts about the happenings in my little shop while working on my bike. Here's the brief....

Moved all (well most) of my tools down to the basement. Couldn't stand sub-zero temperatures in the garage anymore. Down here it's a steady 50-60 degrees. Plenty warm for working with a sweatshirt on. Good thing in the summer too as it will stay nice and cool.

Got myself a larger compressor from home depot. My dad came up one day and helped me haul it home from the store, haul it into the basement, mount it to the floor, wire it up, and plumb it. Only took a couple trips back and forth to the store to get it all figure out. Working like a champ so far. I can now actually run my air tools. Air tools are so gosh darn nice when doing metal work.

The steering stop on the bike was cracking off the frame and getting twisted. Nothing that can't be solved with the trusty TIG welder. Here it is all welded up and fixed.

 No idea if I posted this already. Lengthened the kick stand back to a stock length. For some reason the previous owner shortened the damn thing. Bike would have fallen over if it was that short. While I was at it I installed a custom foot for it too. Hopefully the bike wont sink into the pavement like stock 650's do with their damn small ass kick stand feet.

 Finished up the forward control linkages. Here's a shot of the shifter control...

 Here's the shot of the rear break control. You can also see the new master cylinder installed as well. This master cylinder is off of a 2004-2005 Kawasaki ZX10 or ZX10R Ninja. Hoping it works out. I might have to do something more about the direct linkage. Worried that engine and road vibrations might shake the linkage bolt loose. If it does then the linkage arm from the control and pushrod of the master cylinder can get out line and wont work. We'll see...

 Close up shot of the rear front stay welded to the swing arm. That was a fun little adventure.

 Shot of the rear master cylinder reservoir mounted. This one was fun too. Almost melted the damn thing and caused a fire. Good note for anyone welding near plastic/rubber/synthetics...DON'T DO IT!!!

 Close up shot of the electronics box mounts underneath the rear swing arm. No box mounted due to the fact it's sitting in my computer room being thoroughly neglected. Not having too much fun working out how all the electronics will fit.

 Here's the current state of my custom front blinker mount. Decided to do a little modification from what I posted SOMEWHERE earlier in this blog. You'll see in a little while what I'm doing. Hard to explain and MUCH easier to just post a finished photo.

Well that's all for now. I'm going to go down some advil now for the whiplash from the accident. Hopefully the house doesn't blow away during the storm. I am quite impressed by the fact that my yard is still practically bare from all the damn wind. However, there is a 4 foot snow drift in front of my door. That's going to be fun to shovel through when the storm is over.

Till next time....