man I havnt used this thing in forever. top it off I havnt worked on my bike in forever either. Life’s been crazy. Hopefully I can get this thing together n start using it more. thinking about just adding info about other stuff and not just my bike. we’ll see what I decide.
Its been a while…
I havnt had much to update about lately, work, life & money have been kicking my ass lately.
This weekend I finally managed to load the bike up and drive her down to my friend Chuck’s place.
He’s a master welder and has been building bikes for a while, I’m lucky to have some damn good friends who are honestly more like brothers to me. Chuck will be doing all the welding on my bike, and will be helping me finish her up. I’m more then confident with his help this bike will turn out exactly the way I want and I’m seriously stoked to have the bike down there with him. Now I’ll need to make a few trips down to get work done but thats part of the fun. moneys been tight so Im not to sure about how thats effecting my timeline but I guess we’ll see what happens. He’s also building me a set of rad bars for this project. I’ll definatly try and get as many pics of the progress as things move along. Hopefully Ill be able to update this more and have the bike done by July as planned.
Paint! it’s still a long way away but I’m in love
so I found the guy I want to paint my gas tank. he rules the 70’s style. small problem it’s gunna run me a good amount of cash hahaha so Im taking donations! ! He owns Blue Moon Kustoms look him up sometime, his work is breathtaking to say the least.
anyways donate to the cause! I’ll send you stickers for cash!
heres an example of his work so you can drool
anyways if you want to see more of this rad style visit his blog page. He’s got some cool stuff there. I’m especially digging the skateboards he paints. Maybe once my bikes done I’ll save up enough cash to have him paint me a board to match! haha anyways this bike is still a budget project for sure. I’m honestly dreaming about having a tank painted like this on the bike. But I do think once the bike is built and Im riding it for a bit I do want to spend some decent cash for an awesome paint job for this my very first bike build.
Friday night update…
Got out of work early, did alittle bit on the bike today.
Cut off the annoying seat loop
anyone want it? you can buy my seat It comes with the opening hindge and the helmet lock and I’ll throw this in you can weld it on to your bike, buy my side covers and turn your bike into a Special II! LOL now, email me and offer me money for the seat and side covers!
anyways here’s bike minus seat loop.
man I keep forgetting to take off that center stand. just currious am I the only one who bangs his leg every time I walk the bike out of the shed because of that stupid stand? hahaha I have a bruise that seriously never heals because I hit myself in the exact same spot everything I move this bike!
Tomorrow it will be gone!
I went to work on the Ebay tank, and well once I got started sanding it down I noticed some bondo…
the bondo itself isn’t thick at all, so I’m figuring the thin layer was probably applied to cover small dents or divits and keep the tank looking smooth.
I primered the tank up and that’s how it sits now. I still need to take it down to my friend so he can weld up the holes for the old petcock and we can figure out where we need to put the new one.
I started on the swap meet tank but it got dark quick and well I live in an extreamly quiet neighborhood. I figured I should have alittle bit of respect for the neighbors I cant stand.
anyways here’s as always how she’s sitting at this moment. I’m happy with how it’s turning out and am starting to see the bike I want in the bike Im building. did that make sense?
I know it’s Easter, but it feels like Christmas!
so today I got out of work around 6, made my way home, opened the front door to find two boxes waiting for me! It felt like Christmas! woohoo so of course it’s not sunday but damn I got excited so I tore into the boxes and checked out my new stuff.
The Ebay tank. I actually like it better then the swap meet tank. I don’t know why. But I’ve decided this is the one I’ll be keeping. The other tank is for sale, but will be getting sanded down this weekend and primered and painted satin black just so it wont look as crappy. Then it’ll be up on craigs list. anyone who reads my blog I’ll sell the tank to you for $70.00
If you notice theres unfaded sections of the ebay tank, there were old stickers all over this thing LOL here’s a picture of it from the ebay auction
hahaha those stickers look straight out of the late 80’s early 90’s, anyway they all peeled right off with almost no effort. Pretty cool! so I’m going to borrow some goo-gone from work tomorrow and clean up all the sticker residu, then it’s going to get cleaned up a bit.
11″ shocks courtesy of MikesXS.net
Fork Gaitors also from MikesXS.net
so of course I wanted to see which tank I was going to use so I pulled the bike out, and well since the bike was out I figured, might as well put the new shocks on! hahaha so heres some pictures of the bike with the new shocks and the ebay tank. I definatly like the look. I’m seriously excited, and yes I sat on the bike for a while and dreamed a little. I almost made the vroom vroom sound but I stopped myself. HAHAHA ok well maybe I did once in my head. 
anyways here’s the pics from tonights fun. this weekend is a day away and I was told by my bos we’re working half day tomorrow because of easter, so Im hoping this is true. If so I’ll be chopping off that annoying ugly seat loop and I’m going to start looking into taking off the guages and figuring out what Im going to do for a seat and bars. Im thinking I should have bought the single speedo from mikes as well. I always do that to myself, after I order something, I think, “Damn I should have ordered that too!” LOL but oh well It’ll have to wait for another paycheck.
I’m going to start looking at money spent, and money still needed to be spent here very soon, even though this is a just for fun build, I am giving myself a budget. and I’m nowhere near well off. I don’t want to spent over $3000 building this bike, and less if I can. with that and summer coming up faster and faster every day I’m hoping I can keep my goals. My birthday is July 12th, I know that’s a bit into summer but I’m thinking this might be the date I’m shooting for. or maybe end of June. I’ll figure out all those details in the next post. Money spent, Budget, Goal dates.
Here are the mock up pics as promised…
An interesting Sunday afternoon…
Well, I’m back.
So I ditched work all together today haha was to nice of a day to be stuck in a room with no windows, so I headed out with my google map in search of this swap meet that was being held @ some burger joint called Porky’s. didn’t take me long to find the place pulled in and it didn’t seem very interesting. was a pretty small meet and I didn’t see any small tanks from my car, but I got down and checked things out anyway, hoping I’d maybe walk away with something cool I could fab up and make work on my bike. I walked over to the guy with about 6 tanks laid out and asked him if he had any sporty tanks. Of course he said no, but then turned to another guy and asked him if he had any peanut tanks laying around and he said he did. I was stoked. so I introduced myself to Eddie the guy with the tank and we started talking. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said he’d take $50 again I was satisfied because everything Ive found so far has been $70 – $150 for a beat to shit sportster tank. we exchanged numbers and I looked around some more. I decided to take off and suddenly I realised something.
Right before I left the house I placed a bid on something on Ebay!
thats right a sporty tank! but I figured eh I was the second bidder these things tend to end up 20 bidders in and at 200 bux before the auctions done right? hahahaha YEA RIGHT! sooo I am a man of my word so I followed Eddie to his hosue which I now call Biker heaven hahaha very small house very big back yard covered head to toe in bikes and bike parts. so I made my first friend in the bike parts world. I bought the tank from him because it was dent free and clean. very minor surface rust just starting to show on the inside so I will have to clean it out but thats expected. it needs paint but thats expected too.
so as soon as the other tank comes in I will compare the two and see which is better and the other will go up for sale, so if you’re looking for a sporty tank for your project give me a few days and I’ll have one for sale anyone who actually reads & follows my blog I’ll sell it to you for around $70 which is what I ended up paying for the ebay tank.
speaking of parts for sale, like I said in my last post I removed the XS tank today and degreased the entire bike man she looks so wicked I cant wait to get my springs on her and see what she looks like low with the new tank mocked up.
I am about to post the tank the seat and some other misc parts that I pulled off the bike up for sale. If anyone is interested feel free to email me or leave me a comment and let me know what you need. I’ve got alot of stock parts in really good shape. heres a few pics.
the tank is in great shape, other then a dent on the left side which you cant really see unless you look for it or feel the tank for it. It does need paint though.
the seat is in perfect condition, it looks like it may have been reuhpolstered it’s so nice. It’s pretty comfortable too, just not my style. If you buy it I also have the seat latch and the helmet lock (both not pictured) that screws into the seat latch that I will throw in.
heres a couple of pics of some of the stuff Im getting rid of from the bike.
these covers are in great shape. no cracks at all that I have seen. they are slightly scratched though but nothing major
the filters in the air box are still pretty new, I did however misplace the screws that hold the airbox covers on. nothing to hard to get though they’re just regular philips head screws.
rear turn signals & I guess it’s a foot rest? it was on the front of the bike and I rested my feet on it when I was riding so thats what Ill call it hahaha anyone know the propper name if this thing feel free to correct me.
I still need to do a ton of cutting, am I scared or just lazy? I think Im scared to cut something I shouldnt. being that my friend with the building experience is back home which is two hrs away I’m doing everything pretty much blind, researching and researching again before I make any cuts. I did buy a new grinder today also. so I think Im gunna start grinding off all the useless tabs on the frame that Ive pulled things off of. Its crazy how many there are when you start looking at it bare. but that’ll be another sunday project Im sure. so all and all it was an eventful day
well I’ll leave you with some pictures of how the bikes sitting now. and a couple of pics of the new tank sitting on the bike.
before I cleaned it up
After the degreasing
and some mock up action…
and we cant forget to pay our respects to my new bible!
so I figured I’d leave you with this LOL
hahahaha it makes me laugh how horrible I think this looks! I cant wait to get a new seat & some new bars.
well thats it for now. Hopefully I’ll have more progress next weekend. Thanks for following along, remember comments and all info is always appreciated. Just thought I’d toss out more props to mikesxs.net and xs650chopper.com for the new parts coming in and the inspiration with all those rad bikes everyone keeps sending in. Take it easy folks and remember tell your friends!
woke up at 6am… this is what happens when you wake me up early!
Ha ha, so my son and I had a movie marathon last night which caused me to fall asleep on the couch, woke up at 6am, which sucked cuz it’s sunday and I didn’t wanna be up till at least 10! LOL ok 9, ha so I decided to continue my search for tanks & handlebars. I still really don’t know what style bars I wanna use. anyways I searched ebay for tanks, found a few I liked n decided to follow them n see how high they get in price. While I was doing that I went over to mikesxs.net and ordered some fork gators 
and decided to go ahead and buy some 11″ shocks.
Today looks like a nice day to ride, unfortunatly I’m still in the building process haha don’t you hate that? I live right off a main road and while I’m outside working on the bike I constantly hear bikers riding by enjoying the day. Honestly, I think it helps with motivating me to get this thing finished and back on the road where she belongs!
Unfortunatly at some point today I need to go to work for an hr or so, but other then that I’m free, so I’m hoping to get a few things done. Mainly try and get the tank removed, and chopping off that seat loop I had mentioned before in my last post.
I heard about a swap meet going on today @ some burger joint that I’m gunna try and go check out, maybe I can find a tank or a seat pan that catches my eye. wish me luck!
Thats about it for now, if I do anything productive today I’ll post up later, so check back!
Another sunday…
So first off, the sporty tank fell through, kinda my fault I got way to caught up with life and work and put it off way to long, so the tank is back on the list of things to buy. Great!
On a lighter note I pulled more crap off the bike today, and am probably going to toss it all up for sale somewhere. Im sure someone wants some good stock xs parts.
If you or anyone you know see this and see something you want, shoot me an email and Im sure we can work a price out.
BTW the seat is also going up for sale and is in perfect condition.
I’m also going to be selling the tank,there are two small dings in the tank but nothing crazy. the paint is in decent shape as well aside from some surface scratches and what not. I should have it off the bike next weekend. Let your friends know! I need the extra cash for new parts.
back to the bike…
I pulled the back fender off today along with all the other small crap around the rear of the bike. started looking at the rear of the frame.. I don’t know what it’s called but everyone cuts it off, and for good reason, it’s annoying and makes the bike look like crap in my opinion. I’m honestly just wondering if theres any type of bracing I have to do before I hack that section of the bike off or if it will be fine without it.
thats the section Im talking about… I know it has to go, just not sure if it’s ok for me to hack it off without any other bracing first. any info is greatly appreciated. I’m sure I’ll find something about it tonight. I’m about to search the web for more info.
I’m still tossing around the idea of just hardtailing the bike still. But right now I’m sticking with my original idea of going Brat Style.
Well that’s pretty much it for this weekend. I know I really need to start getting parts together and get my shit together if I want to have this thing built by summer. It’s time to get off my ass and do some side work. Anyone need any vinyl stickers cut? Tshirts designed & printed? let me know! I need the cash.
Still trying to figure out what bars I want to use also,
I found these on Ebay and am thinking they might be the ones…
It’s an 8″ ape. they’re kinda pricey but I’m thinking I might be able to have my friend make them for me cheaper. Just a thought though, I still need to talk to him and see exactly what it would cost. still looking around for ideas though.
No real progress, but here’s a new entry for ya!
Havn’t really done anything new to the bike. This weekend the kid and I went to a bike show and although there were some nice show bikes there, I was honestly disapointed. It was the “6th annual” I guess I just figured for a saturday around 2pm it would be jumping and jam packed. There was no swap meet which is what I was hoping for since I saw there was suposed to be in the website info. there really wernt that many vendors, My son was extreamly disapointed cuz we honestly couldnt find any kid size Tshirts at any of the vending booths. Which made me stop to think, I really need to get my shit together and start printing and vending at more of these shows. I unlike all the companies we saw today, do sell kid sized shirts. so I might have made a killing this weekend. :/ just food for thought on my part.
Anyways, I did however find a guy on www.craigslist.org who is selling a really clean black sporty tank.
It’s not the small one Ive been looking for but @ $60 it’s in my budget. I’m going to go look at it tomorrow, hopefully it fits the style Im looking for. The guy says the only reason he pulled it off is he got a new chromed tank. If it didn’t have the harley name on the sides I could probably just bolt it up and be ready to go for a while, but I do want to go with something flaked out anyways.
and speaking of flaked out tanks while researching sporty tanks online the other night I came across this super rad kick ass tank.
I love this paint job, and would love to have something along these lines for my bike, the color scheme Im thinking at this point is something satin black and extreamly flaked out candy lime green. we’ll see if that changes when it’s time to actually paint the tank.
I did pull the bike out and ride it last night around my neighborhood. No tail light, and headlight seems to be turning off and on, because of the old fuse box being crap made for one interesting 9pm ride.I already have a new fuze box from www.mikesxs.net
I was pleased that she kicked right over and still felt really good. I guess we’ll see what happens with the tank tomorrow. and I’ll post more then.
Oh, and here are some really shitty cell phone pics from the show. I forgot my camera like an idiot so I had to use my phone, the cell cam turned to crap after a nice incident with a gallon of water hahaha. again sorry for the crappy pics.
This was pretty much our favorite bike of the show.
Like I said I was alittle disapointed in the show, but for a $10 ticket and kids under 15 in free you can’t beat it for something to do on a great looking saturday afternoon, especially when you cant ride your bike around.
Hope I’ll have something more interesting next time. keep coming back!
Now we’re all caught up.
Ok all that brings us to this. I got some time to clean out the small shed I have so I can store the bike in there. (way better then out in the weather) and I got a chance to take some pix of how it looks as of right now.
so if you look closely you’re first question is going to be “WTF? IS THAT A WRENCH ON THE BIKE?” and the answer is yes it is. hahaha I started thinking about ride height and I think I kinda found the height I wanted so looking around I found a wrench that was farely close and stick it where the shock goes so I can see what the height would look like.
so as of now the question is, do I stick with this ride height and have brackets made to relocate the shocks, or do I go with Rebel shocks which are a bit lower, and I don’t really mind that except Ill have to do some work to the kickstand because any lower then what I have now and it wont sit on the kickstand right. which means the bike will fall over.
another option is to just hardtail it. the only reason I wasnt concidering hardtailing it was that I wanted to go with a bratstyle look and brat style bikes arnt hardtailed.
here’s some examples…
But a friend of mine we call “Chucky Bobby” who will be helping me with the welding and other parts of this build, mainly because he’s built some really rad bikes before and I cant weld for crap while he welds for a living. It’s good to know people who can guide you alone when you don’t have the first clue on where to start hahaha., anyway’s when I saw him last he told me he had a hardtail for this bike. So now I’m rethinking things and trying to figure out if I should just hardtail it or not. Let me know what you think. Im all for opinions. and here are some rad hardtailed xs bobbers to look at since Ive already shown you the brat style ones.
and this brings us back to my bike.
I replaced the extreamly huge bulky ugly stock air box
with a couple of cone filters, and a small breather that isnt on the bike yet in this picture below
Also I was told today that when you do something like this, you have to adjust the carbs. anyone know if this is true? I guess I’ll need to do some research when I get time.
so this is pretty much it as of today. Like I said before I’ll be posting up pretty much every time I do something new to the bike. I’m really hoping to get it finished by summer, but who knows.
I’m trying to build this bike with a very small budget. I’m honestly hoping to come in under $2000. But we’ll see how things go.
Also I’m on the hunt for a few parts,
Sporty/penut tank, new handle bars(not really sure exactly what I wanna go with just yet) Rebel shocks, and a new seat because I seriously hate the look of the stock seat. But I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to change the seat out untill I decide if Im hardtailing it or just chopping the rear and relocating the shocks.
If anyone has any parts laying around shoot me an email
vgclothing@gmail.com
maybe I’ll be able to use what you’ve got.
