First let me say thanks to all the guys who have chronicled their builds in this site and another I frequent, and also to the people who offer advice when I need it.

I've been wanting to add a sissy bar to my bike for some time, something that has form and function. I'm of the belief that if it doesn't have a solid purpose it doesn't need to be there. While looking hard at my bike I started really noticing all the little rust spots everywhere and little this and thats. Here's how I started one morning:


So I decided to completely tear it apart. Motor out, forks disassembled....




While everything is apart and easier to work on I decided to finally pull the trigger and do the sprocket cover chop and cam cover chop. Burned through some Dremel discs on the sprocket cover and some time using a hacksaw for the cam cover until I wised up and got a 4 1/2" grinder, flap discs....



Today I was looking at the rocker covers and how much crap had accumulated on them so I took one off, blasted it with some aircraft paint stripper, sanded it a bit and just put some wrinkle coat on it. The 3 coats are still fresh, so it hasn't wrinkled yet but I'm sure you can use you imagination.

AC stripper bubbling

Paint looks too smooth/glossy, we'll see

 

Here's my 10 second idea for the sissy bar and I got this headlamp in the mail the other day. Gonna replace the one I had on there, PC the trees,fork lowers and foot controls all a satin black, maybe 20% gloss I think. As much as I love my double barrel SikPipes, I more than likely will be going another direction. Maybe modify the drag pipes that were on there originally, some 2-1s.

 

wow looking good, ill be watching the progress! good luck!

 

I don't know about that sissy bar...looks to be about nutt-sack high.

Otherwise, I like the looks of the bike. Ever think about running some enduro tires? (Those tree's look a lot like Vulcan's)

 

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I've wanted to run enduro style tires for so long but I can't seem to find anything in the 16" rim size. If someone out there wants to trade some 17" rims for my 16" spokes I would probable do it post haste. The sissy bar will be something I think about before I get it fabbed up, so the 10 second drawing probably isn't the final idea.

 

looks good so far dude. thought you wanted that sissy bar to be functional or it's not worth a damn? why dont you fab something off the axle mount and weld it directly to the rear fender. this way you can slam the fender and have a "functioning" sissy bar.

 

You going to do anything with the frame?

 

Looking good. The tires you're looking at should come in an 18 as well, no? You can run an 18" hoop with your current hubs. that way you won't have to deal with spacers & setting up your brakes since all of that will stay exactly the same. You can probably find 17" hoops too but I imagine the 18" hoop & spokes would be less spendy since they're more common.

 

Aside from cut off some unused tabs, I don't think so. I wanna keep it a swing arm. I've gone back and forth around a thousand times whether I should make it a rigid.

Thanks for the validation that I had on some ideas last night concerning reusing my hubs with bigger rims. I looked last night for 40H 17" rims but maybe I'll expand the search for 18".