I have no idea what this hunk of scrap was it its previous life, but it’s about to get the slice and dice treatment to turn into something usefule. Hit the read more link to see how I turned this piece of scrap aluminum into a functional piece of bracketry.
July 28th, 2009 by grail21 in '94 Sportster Project | No Comments
With the wife away for the Fourth of July, I headed over to the garage, sleeping bag in tow (my garage is an hour away from my house, but close to work) determined to get the bike on the road by the end of the weekend. Well, 38 hours of wrenching, wiring, painting and sanding later I can say - mission accomplished. It wasn’t a long ride - 1/4 mile down the road to get some petrol only to realize I forgot to put the nuts on the tailight bolts (doh!) and my kickstand was scraping - but it felt damn good to actually be on the road.
There is still a lot to do before she’ll be ready for some good long riding - shorter spring for the kickstand, re-route the fuel line (little too close to the cylinders), wiring still needs some cleaning up, turn signals need to be painted, loctite, loctite, loctite, gotta put the correct grip on the throttle side… couple other things I’m forgetting - all little stuff that I can do while shaking her down. There are some bigger projects that I’ll finish over the winter - like the paint (it’s about 50% done at this point), the cam cover chop, making my own tail light and pipes (although I really dig the set I’m using now that I got from hatch)… I could go on with other winter projects, but right now, it’s just time to ride. Shake her down real good and crank up some miles - gotta make sure she runs perfect for the Gypsy Run in August.
(Click on read more for pics)
July 17th, 2009 by grail21 in '94 Sportster Project | Comments (10)
Playing make believe
My desire to get rubber on the road is driving me into a Denethor type of madness. The weather taunts me from outside my office window - vivid memories of last years incessant rain reminding me of how fleeting the good weather lasts around these parts. Onward we go - heave ho!
(click read more for the full photo update)
April 29th, 2009 by grail21 in Home Built Motorcycles, '94 Sportster Project | Comments (8)
Tony at Hidecore is a wizard. Stoke-a-fied. Just wait son, you’ll see it all soon.
First pass on the tooling for the seat. Tony is killing it.
April 4th, 2009 by grail21 in Leatherwork, '94 Sportster Project | Comment (1)
When we last left off, had my wheels off and ready to powdercoat and my tank needed to get the Frisco treatment. First stop: the land of 40oz, midgets and jackassery - Choppahead (oh, they build some pretty sweet bikes too). The CH dudes got some new digs, so I took the camera out for a few shots. Lots of cool builds going on, I’ll post more of those pics another time - but hit the read more link below for a few shots.
Between working on the Greasebag, my regular work schedule and family life I’m getting behind on reporting on the Sportster progress. A ton of progress has been made in the last week so this incomplete photo and brain dump will have to suffice to get things back on track. (Pic above is of the bike before this all began.)
(Hit read more for the full update)
March 25th, 2009 by grail21 in Projects, Home Built Motorcycles, '94 Sportster Project | Comments (10)
I went to go see Jay Roche aka Special ‘79 this weekend to get some handlebars made up for the Sporty. Expect a full write with tons of pics in a couple days, but suffice to say Jay is a wizard. Here’s a shot of the man in action.
I’m waiting for a bunch of parts to arrive, so the weekend wrench session was a bit uneventful. Top of of the list was fixing my seatpan cutting mishap. I cut the seat pan too short, but had a piece big enough to make everything work again.
JB Welded the 2 pieces together. With the amount of JB Weld I used, it might have been fine just like this. It was pretty solid, but I didn’t trust it. I was only using the JB as “glue” to make the fiberglass repair easier…
Read more…
Let’s get on with it shall we? This is where we last left off:
Click the read more for the full progress report
March 5th, 2009 by grail21 in Projects, Home Built Motorcycles, '94 Sportster Project | Comments (7)As I mentioned previously, one of the projects I was looking at getting into this year was a mid-to late 90s Sportster that I wanted to give the modern japanese / bratstyle treatment to. So a few weeks back I scored a ‘94 1200 for a reasonable number of greenbacks, and this past Sunday, I was finally able to tear into it….
I started with this - your typical bone stock Sportster 1200 with bolt on, catalog tomfoolery. Overall, not too bad - plenty of reusable / hack-worthy bits. Time to get to work.
Click read more to see the rest…
February 18th, 2009 by grail21 in KB News, Projects, Home Built Motorcycles, '94 Sportster Project | Comments (13)
