Things were going so well...

[1lowdiesel]

So saturday i decide to take a ride and find a car show i saw a flyer for. It was about a 40mi ride one way. So off i go, got a full take of fuel and i'm crusing along, after riding out to the area where i thought the show was i can't manage to find it. So i start heading back, i turn onto the "highway" and start to get on it, bike feels sluggish. I pull the clutch in and it shuts off, Great! Pull off to the side of the road and start checking things out, finally get it fired back up about 2-3 min later. So i take back off again, get about 200yds down the road the back tire locks up doing about 40, SHIT! I clutch it and coast to the side where I find that I managed to run the bike out of oil and lock the motor up. The bike would smoke a bit on the top end and i never even thought to check it before i went. So i'm 30mi from home and had to walk the bike 7mi to a gas station where i waited on my buddy to come pick me up.

OH well lesson learned the hard way. I will be sure to now check the oil once a week seeing how i ride most every day.

Now the bike is sitting in my yard with 2 cylinders full of penetrating oil and 10w30 hoping that in a few days it'll free itself up.

Now the good news. I had a lead on a bike, but was putting it off till i could get some more money up, unfortunatley with my new found stupidity on the other bike i needed to get something else going.

Found the bike on here and decided to take the 2.5hr drive up to get it yesterday.

View attachment 9224

I was happy to see the bike was in decent shape, however the wiring needed the most attention. Unfortunately, as i dug deeper into the bike i found more and more things that the guy that owned the bike before the guy i got it from didn't have a clue what he was doing. Wires tapped into places they shouldn't be, ear broken off on carb that holds the cable end, wrong screws x threaded in the starter switch assembly and a few other wonders.

After screwing with the wiring for 20 min or so i decided to just pull the harness off the other bike and use that.

I'm not bige on paint but i decided that while i had the thing apart i might as well paint the motor and get a little creative. I wire wheel'd the cases and painted the motor with high temp semi gloss, then sanded down the fins on the head with 80 grit.

Decided to paint the wheels black as well just cause i'm not a big fan of chrome.

Got the bike into the garage at about 8 to start cutting it up. Got the seat area done and braced and made new shock mounts. Got the wiring in and hooked up but i'm having a weak spark issue i need to get figured out. Made new handle bars and rewired my headlight to come on with the ignition rather than the switch. Finally got fed up trying to figure the spark thing out and went inside about 1:40am.

Gonna get some more pics later cause i know everyone love pics.

 

[16VGTIDave]

Good to hear you survived your "incident". Thanks for sharing, that is another lesson learned here rather than the hard way.

You have made an amazing amount of progress, in a short time, with your new bike! At this pace you will have it on the road by the end of the week!

Dave

 

[1lowdiesel]

Thanks yea figured people can learn from my mistake. New to the motorcycle world and just figuring out that you need the check the oil quite often.

Yea i should have it running tonight and on the road tomorrow.

 

[drewpy]

good share bud.

Always check over the bike before I ride, that is tyres, oil, fuel and electrics like horn.

as in the series hill street blues... "lets be careful out there"

 

[1lowdiesel]

Yea if somone's gonna learn the hardway it's usually me. Oh well i'll just make some lemonade.

Got some more work done last night. First couldn't get the bike to start then figured out that i pluged the coils in backwards and bam started on the first go round. Took the exhaust off my other-other bike and i'm kinda diggin it with the rest of the black.

What is it with these damn bike and not charging. 2 of the 3 that i've got have charging issues. I pulled the case off and found the wires broken. I soldered new wires on and got everything hooked back up, still to not have it charging, i guess it's broken inside the grommet that goes through the case. I'm just gonna swap the stuff over from the other bike cause i'm tired of screwing with it.

 

[arfstrom]

Wow! Creative pipe play, color-ing! Cool, You rock

 

[codyxs400]

hey were you at the 4wheel drive jambaree i think i saw that bike there

 

[1lowdiesel]

Ha yea i was up there with the bike that i locked the motor on.

 

[codyxs400]

ya i talked to ya up there for a couple minuites i finaly bought some new intakes for my bike

 

[1lowdiesel]

Well got it mostly finished up. I swapped out the charging system from the other bike but its still not working for some reason. Took it put for a ride anyway to the bar. Everyone thought it was the other bike and wondered how I got the motor fixed already lol. Then I told them it was a new bike and they just stared blankly at me lol. Overall I'm happy with it, no front brake and its not bad at all. Gonna do another hand shifter, re-wrap the seat, different grips, new throttle assembly and resi shocks still, hopefully I should have that stuff next week. Also gonna make a few other sets of bars cause I'm not sure if I like these yet. Also gonna do a handlebar mounted rear brake lever and ditch the foot. Plus swap out the tank with the un-dented one, this one was full so why not use it.

Hid's. I managed to fit everything in the headlight housing.

Push pull headlight switch on right and momentary starter button on left.

Headlight housing sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[frwinks]

wow, you move quick

 

[Death Row Composite]

NICE exhaust!.. And turn-a-round time.

 

[1lowdiesel]

Changed up the paint a bit. Now to find a seat covering i like.

 

[Death Row Composite]

Thats a sick paint job. How did you achieve the effect???

 

[1lowdiesel]

I painted the tank with the copper color first, then after it dried i painted over it with black. Then once that dried, i wet sanded trough the black till some of the copper was showing. Then cleared everything to make it look like it has some depth.

I painted the frame first the copper color and was going to leave everything else the way it was. But once i put the tank on it looked way out of place. So i painted the tank the copper and did the sanding treatment. But again once i put the tank on looking all cool and stuff the frame stuck out, so i did the same treatment to the frame and i'm very pleased with the way it came out.

I just ordered some seat covering material earlier so hopefully that will work out.

Thinking about doing the same to the cases seeing how both the black and copper are heat resistant paints.

 

[frwinks]

sick effect I'd leave the cases as is though as it might all blend too much

 

[1lowdiesel]

Yea idk. Might do it to the extra set of cases this way it'll be an easy swap.

 

[1lowdiesel]

Finally got my new shocks, throttle and a temporary seat cover on.

 

[83xs400]

where did you get your throttle from ??bike looks great by the way

 

[1lowdiesel]

Thanks. Picked it up on ebay. Just do a search for motorcycle throttle. It was like $13 bucks, it's the 3rd one i've bought and they work great.