Fuck the Porta Power! on to plan B

Tried to use the shops portapower to open up a trapazoidal opening at the base of the swingarm to fit the battery since it no longer fits in the stock location. a fuckin' 10 ton press didn't budge the swing arm. after an hour of screwing with it i started thinking of a cafe' project i saw on the cc board where the battery was laid on its side. i tried it and low and behold the battery now has a permanent home on its side (its a glass mat battery so it won't leak) on top of the swing arm. i shouldn't even call it a swing arm anymore since its modified to a rigid. i bent up a couple of pieces of 1/8" steel strap to make a cradle to secure the battery to so it won't slide around and i'll finally secure it with an old skool leather strap to hold it to the cradle. i'll hook up the battery and see what happens later. hopefully it starts first try. next weekend i hope to have my co worker "frenemy" come over and help me make the exhaust. then it will be 99.9% finished. i still need a front brake light switch, i wanna ditch the speedo and run off the tac only and i may have to rake it out to get the trail correct for optimum ride

new mod... no pictures

started making a new mod for the bike yesterday. i'm not going to post any pictures of it until the bike is all finished. after this mod there is another, then exhaust and the brake light switch. if all goes well i should be done in 2 weeks. no new posts until the bike is 100% complete.

edit: i realize i just posted pictures 9/19, whatever its my blog and i'll break my own rules. 

A seat Liberace' would be proud of

remade my seat today. cut down most of the padding and smoothed it out at work. was deciding whether or not to use black or white viynl. I went with white and think it looks pretty good. its definetly old skool and i'm not fully finished. i have another piece to add to give it some dimension but overall I'm happy with it.

front suspension is DONE!.

got the front forks mounted today. put everything back together. holds fluid great. not holding air tight. i think i got a leak in the fill ports. painting of the forks turned out great. the brake pad needs to be adjusted cuz i can hear it scrape. fucking brake light switch was the wrong one and since it was a special order i can't return it. may not end up running a switch for it since the rear one works just fine. few more tweeks and it'll be all done. still need exhaust, fix the aformentioned air leak and brake pad adjust cut off a few no longer used brackets, burn 1 weld in and finish my seat modification i started today. not bad for 8 months and 800 bucks

its official.

I am almost out of things to fix on this bike.

cooling system- torn down and reassembled

fuel system- new fuel tank, petcock, carb rejet and rebuilt

new bars, rear suspension modified

seat has been repaired. may be replaced with a springer

new cables for gauges

complete repaint

new rear fender got rid of the front fender

lights and electrical system completely rewired

fab license plate mount and brake light

now i just have to figure you how i managed to do all that for 400 bucks

fuck

the only thing i hate more than carbuerators is hydraulics. so naturally i'm rebuilding the front forks. the snap rings did exactly what you would expect them to do. they snapped because the dust boots did little to stop moisture from rusting them solid. fork oil has a very distinctive smell. i've spent the last 2 days having to say "don't worry, nothing is burning"


FML

At least i didn't break my neck

took it for a drive today, cooling system all hooked up and leak free, fuel system all hooked up and leak free. front brake needs bled and a front brake switch, rear one works fine. I started it up let it warm up and figured what the hell, so i kicked it into first and started a little cruise. it was alot of fun. it was hella fast, louder than i expected but alot more comfortable than i thought it would be. I'll have to change the bars for something with a more comfortable position, I was a little extended and was a little awkard, but it runs! now i just gotta finish some of the little safety items, insure it and license both the bike and myself. I have attached a full array of pictures to demonstrate the crazy shit that i have done to make this project work for a grand total of $372.00 not including the $400 I spent for the bike