I’ve slacked on posting reader’s submissions for a long time, going to try to get a few more rides up over the next couple weeks. This killer Kawasaki KZ200 comes from Gifny Richata out or Indonesia. Dig the attention to detail and smooth lines of the bike. Looks like a blast to rip around on. Here’s what Gifny has to say about it.

The motorcycle is 1981 Kawasaki KZ200, back then in Indonesia it was the biggest bike around since the goverment only limit the motorcycle’s displacement on the market under 200cc. This is my first custom ride, I’m working as an illustrator but motorcycles is always my obsession. I build it with a help from my partner Nandang who is a mechanic and also a customizer. This is our first work together under the ‘Hajarbroxx Motorcycles’ banner

Bought the bike in a poor condition and not running, we rebuild the engine to the original condition with NOS parts. The gas tank is a 19?? Suzuki TS100 NOS. The frame is original with some cutting here and there. The swingarm is a custom handmade (approximately 7cm longer the original) by a local smithy. The battery case and the headlight plate is also handmade from iron plate. The front fork is original, but we use the wide triple clamp from a customized one, I think it used to be used for an enduro bike. Handlebar is handmade custom, too.

The wheels are 3.00 wide for front and 3.50 wide for the rear. The tires are 120s. The rear shocks are from new Suzuki GSX250. The rear brake is still the original drum one. The front brake set is taken from the new Suzuki GSX125 with the OEM disc. The headlight is light accessories for cars. The turnlights are universal accessories. The exhaust is originally used for KTM 950 I got on a good deal so I tried it on this baby.

I’m working as a concept artist/illustrator and started my own studio ( www.oraystudios.com ) and now with my friend Nandang, a mechanic who helped me building this bike, we’re gonna start a small custom bike garage called Hajarbroxx motorcycles, and hopefully we’ll gonna start making really cool bikes in near future… We have a Facebook page so far, please visit to give comments and feedbacks, thanks!   

Nicely done.

Mike P. sent in some pics of his 1977 XS650 based chop along with this info. Dig into it.

The bike is a 1977 XS 650. This was my first bike build. It was a blast to build and I learned a ton. I can say now Im officially hooked on building bikes. I am currently in the process of another XS build and I plan on building a triumph based chop as soon as I can afford one. Thats kind of why I started with the yamaha xs in the first place. Budget was a huge concern so I set out to do the whole bike for about 3k. I kept track of every dime spent on the build and it totalled up to about 4k all said and done(including the price of the bike). Im really happy with the results. This is what was done. I hardtailed the bike utilizing a G&L hardtail. The tank is a wassell. I made a new tunnel for it so it would sit higher up on the frame. Next I welded in flyrite site guage bungs and did all the bodywork. The rear fender is a 30s ford spare tire ring. I chopped it down and reradiused it to fit the wheel tighter. The seat is a accufast seat blank. I made all the mounts for that and drilled around the perimeter for a cool effect. The headlight is off of a scooter. It was a side mount. I shaved the side mounts and made a bottom mount for it and converted to 12 volt. It houses the speedometer in it. Last is the paint. I do that for a living, well paint and autobody so that was the easy part. I did the frame and a bunch of the smaller pieces in a bronze brass color. I used a black underneath and distressed it to mimic a patina’d brass effect. The tins were all done in chrome paint which I also distressed to give them more of a aluminum feel. All the stripes are done to match with brass powder in the stripe paint(Thanks Ed). The results of my build I call THE BRASS MONKEY. Thanks for checkin out my build.

Volker checks in with a few flicks of his pal’s flatty and knuckle. That sissy bar looks like a heavy duty impaling tool. The knuckle is dreamy. Dig it.

I just finished shaking this bike down over the last few months, and all is good. So now i can say its done.

It’s a 1975 Honda cb 500t. I used the original engine cradle and front half of the frame and made the rest. Frisco mounted the sportster tank ( Im born and raised in San Fran, so i thought it fitting). I made the exhaust as well as seat and battery box, and the bars( everything was either built or re-built by me). It’s got a older dirt-bike front brake master cylinder and the original wheels, and drum brake in the back. The coils got replaced with some brit style ones and better plug leads as well as new points and condensers. I took the starter out and machined an aluminum slug and plugged the hole, making it a kick only bike. Its pretty simple, light and runs great.

Between getting ready for the greasebag, finishing the sporty, getting ready for the gypsy run and normal day to day life I’ve slacked on posting reader submissions to the site. Time to fix that situation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be purging my email box and posting up a good chunk of the reader submissions that have come in over the past few months. I may not love the style of every bike I post, but I do love the home built ingenuity and D.I.Y attitude that went into them. Check them out and post up your thoughts in the comments.

This one comes in from Dan Payne:

My name is Dan Payne, I’m a 22 year old welder / fabricator from the east midlands (northants) UK. Been moding bikes since I was 18 how ever this most recent build is my first full ground up build.

The bike in question is a xj900 chop. I started off with a late 80s euro custom frame i found on ebay located in liverpool, anyways i won the frame for next to fuck all picked it up and started building the bike in the winter 2008. The frame was originally built to take a xs1100 motor, which we know was a very popular engine for a chop way back before i was a twinkle in my old mans eye.

I modified the frame to take the xj 900 motor i had laying around, easy! I got a virago 750 rear wheel that went straight in, lovely. However the wheel was ugly as fuck so i lazer cut some discs to cover the factory custom blandness, job done ! The front end consists of harley dyna fork lowers, and suzuki dr600 stantions with harley bushes and the suzuki dr pistons modified to fit the harley lowers by me.

I made the head race bearing housings to take harley bearings, used fxr yokes smoothed down and polished by me. Used a sporster 21″ wheel, and dyna brake calliper with a rear disc on the front (cheap!!!). I made the electrics box, exhausts and all other odds and sods and linkages etc……

Some 16inch apes helped give the old skool look i was after. I re-welded the frame for my peace of mind. I then dry built the whole bike, using my old man’s electrical skills (the man really is a god when it comes to electrics (and building bikes for that matter). Run the bike, stripped it, painted most things with the finest of matt blacks! again for that old skool attitude look. I polished a few bits to break the matt blackness up so it didnt look like a rat bike. I then built the bike back up, and tada done !

The bike took me a year and a half to build due to working stupidly long hours welding and fabricating at a local engineering company, and building a mental 1216 bandit 12 streetfighter that really does go like fuck and wheelies everywhere.

My old man helped loads with the build, lots of good advice as you would expect from an ex National Chopper Club northants member during the early 80s - early 90’s. I remember when i was little, the manic bike building machine he was. No wonder i turned out to be the way i am today !

Between getting ready for the greasebag, finishing the sporty, getting ready for the gypsy run and normal day to day life I’ve slacked on posting reader submissions to the site. Time to fix that situation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be purging my email box and posting up a good chunk of the reader submissions that have come in over the past few months. I may not love the style of every bike I post, but I do love the home built ingenuity and D.I.Y attitude that went into them. Check them out and post up your thoughts in the comments.

Belongs to Dave Faust:

It’s an ‘82 Shovel, 80″er. Paughco frame and frontend, Sporty tank pinched at the tunnel, and frisco’d. Just a straight forward, garage built, chopper.

Between getting ready for the greasebag, finishing the sporty, getting ready for the gypsy run and normal day to day life I’ve slacked on posting reader submissions to the site. Time to fix that situation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be purging my email box and posting up a good chunk of the reader submissions that have come in over the past few months. I may not love the style of every bike I post, but I do love the home built ingenuity and D.I.Y attitude that went into them. Check them out and post up your thoughts in the comments.

Doug - who I think is from the UK - checks in with his home built Sporty.

Between getting ready for the greasebag, finishing the sporty, getting ready for the gypsy run and normal day to day life I’ve slacked on posting reader submissions to the site. Time to fix that situation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be purging my email box and posting up a good chunk of the reader submissions that have come in over the past few months. I may not love the style of every bike I post, but I do love the home built ingenuity and D.I.Y attitude that went into them. Check them out and post up your thoughts in the comments.

Rob Robinette checks in with his 1970 BSA Chopper.
Check the last two images for a write up and spec sheet.

   

Between getting ready for the greasebag, finishing the sporty, getting ready for the gypsy run and normal day to day life I’ve slacked on posting reader submissions to the site. Time to fix that situation. Over the next few weeks I’ll be purging my email box and posting up a good chunk of the reader submissions that have come in over the past few months. I may not love the style of every bike I post, but I do love the home built ingenuity and D.I.Y attitude that went into them. Check them out and post up your thoughts in the comments.

Volker Ringhand checks in from Deutschland with his 100cui Shovel

Swissmike on the JJ has a rad bike. Here’s some info:

It’s been a 3 year journey to get to this point. I bought a pretty sad looking 68 bonneville chop rolling basket case. Upon closer inspection I decided to junk everything except the motor, frame, frontend and hubs.

The cases had chain damge and were replaced with a set of nice ‘67 cases which came without any hardware, which turned out to be a bitch because most of the hardware changed from ‘67 to ‘68.
The late style head was rebuilt by MAP, countryside cycle installed and sized the cam bushings.

All bearings were replaced throughout and the frontend completely rebuilt.
I shortened and rethread the fork tubes 1″. New rims (stock 19″ front and 16″ rear were laced with stainless Buchanan spokes on a homemade truing stand built out of 2×4 pieces.

I machined the oil tank, engine plates, headlight bracket and fabricated most all of the parts and brackets on the bike.
The taillight lens started out as a truck cab marker light, for which I built a bezel and the interior bulb holder.

The fender is an aluminum aftermarket ebay item.

The electircal system consists of a Sparx regulator /rectifier/capacitor with a Boyer electronic ignition module and a 2.2Ah gel battery to make starting easier.

I “untunnelled” the Wassel tank slightly to make it sit level and added new outlets.
The paint was my first attempt at a flake job. It took me two tries to get it right (it helps to read the label on the bottle before using reducer instead of hardener…).
Pinstriping was done by local talent Anthony White.

Modern Japanese style by speed & noise

Dave has the madness of the best variety. Go check his site to see this beauty hand built fron the ground up. http://boardtracker.blogspot.com/

Billy’s new Shovelhead… rockin’ as usual

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)

Read more…

Sent in from Wally at Wally’s Speed Shop
I’ve been restoring and building bikes in my garage for years so I’m sending you some pics of my latest bike build. She’s a ‘77 XS650 I purchased for $675. and after six weeks of work and about $1,200. worth of parts, she’s ready to roll.

Click read more for the rest and additional pics….
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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.

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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)

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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.

Hit the read more link for the tech info

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