No matter what question I have I always end up In these forums lol. New to this stuff and from California.

I WANT to build a custom bagger . Road king frame is 600$ Road king engine is 1500$ do you guys think is will be a good idea or bad? Cost friendly or not.? I'm not sure if I got all the components down but I'm thinking it'll cost me around 9-10k...

Friday Friday fridaaaaaay

 

You do know it is Saturday?

It will cost you much more then that and be worth about 1/3 of that. Buy an hd and make your changes

 

Add rims, tires, break system, bars, seat, lights, electronic systems, paint, .......... you will be close to the cost of a new bike and without the value. 9k is not realistic unless you find a bunch of great deals on used parts. Most likely you will wind up with a half built bike sitting on a lift in your garage that you will sell for a loss. Better off buying a complete, even wrecked, bike to start with than trying to Frankenstein something...

 

Hope you plan to start with a bike first, if not it will cost you more than 9K

 

If you have to ask these basic questions, don't do it. Buy an older Road King and find a good local indy that will do some of the hard stuff for you. Then do a little as you can afford it. Custom bags and fender = $2000+, raked trees, 26" wheel and fender = $3500+, custom bodywork and paint = $2500+. You can easily spend a lot more or save yourself a little by doing the work yourself with the trade off being downtime. See how this can go?

 

Save yourself some headaches and buy a running complete bike and customize that , between dealing with the DMV and all the little nit picking stuff you know nothing about yet you'll come out cheaper with a better build when done.

 

There are plenty of "custom project bikes" for sale on line. Guys want to build the bike of their dreams, assemble most of the parts, then realize they don't know the first thing about how to do it. Then they go on Ebay or CL. Like was mentioned just getting a title so you can register or sell it, will be a PITA. Buy a used bike and work it into what you want it to be.,,

 

It used to be fairly common, but the DMV has taken a lot of fun out of this type of build.


Biggest headache will be licensing it. If you can source a frame that has a clear title, it's certainly a do-able project, but might not be the cheapest route to two wheeled ownership. However, most of the frames you'll find will have either a salvage title, or no title at all ( just a bill of sale), so it really ties your hands. Frankly, I'd rather build a bike up from a bent frame (but with a clear title), than try to relicense a salvage titled bike.

 

Exactly, California is draconian when it comes to DMV headaches.
A bare frame buildup will also nickel and dime (now $5 and $10) you to death with all the bits and parts you need. Your $9k budget will balloon to double.
Buy a whole bike and start from there.

 

Had a friend with the same idea. Cost him about 30,000 to build a 20,000 bike that really wasn't all that great. As others have suggested buy a good clean bike in good mechanical condition. In the long run you will save yourself a lot of grief and $$$.