Finally finishing an old project

This is the before pic of the bike as I bought it over 2 years ago.



I stripped the frame and swingarm down to bare metal. After about 5 coats of primer and sanding, 3 coats of paint, and a few coats of clear it looked like this.



I spent a lot of time on the motor. Every cover came off and was hand polished. I squared off the fins and polished the edges. The jugs were painted flat black and cleared with engine enamel. I cleaned the rest of the motor and painted with aluminum and clear engine enamel. The carbs are rebuilt and rejetted. I ran the bike one season (3500 miles) with the engine enamel and it held up very well.




I painted the tank with spray cans. About 3 primer coats, 3 color coats, 3 clear coats and about 2 hours of wet sanding and polishing and this is what it looks like.




Every nut and bolt was sandblasted and polished before it went back on the bike. The harness is all hidden. I am putting a cafe seat on it and will hide the battery in the hump. I polished the forks and added new seals. The triple tree, levers, and controls all received the polishing treatment. This is how it stands now.

 

looks like its really coming together! sound like you've put alot of time and attention into her I cant wait to see her finished keep up the good work.
Shaun

 

Nice work paint looks real good and engine even better

 

That's about similar to what I'm doing to mine! 'Cept I'm keeping the square headlight... dunno why but I like it! Glad to see another 400 Seca being done up! Tell me, what tires/profiles are you using?

 

Nice, Power to the 400's!!!

 

Thanks for the comments. The tires on it now are 120/90/18 rear and 90/90/18 front. They are chen shings. I am looking for something a little stickier. Probably a set of avon am26's. Going a little skinnier in the rear. I am trying for the old 60-70's cafe style look. I almost forgot to mention the amount of time I spent on the wheels. I sanded all the machining ridges in the exposed aluminum and polished all those areas. I also cleaned and painted the black areas with flat black and clear. All in all I had about 5 hours into each of the wheels.

 

nice work. Very thorough

 

BTW, this was stage 1. I rode the bike like this for a season and a half. A friend laid it down into a field and caused minor cosmetic damage. Fixing that damage snowballed into the current stage. Guess I should thank him? :?

 

Looks nice when all done very good work

 

Ooh, I like what you did with that hugger on the rear... what did you use? Where did you mount it too? I've been thinking of doing almost exactly the same thing for the seat aswell, torn between the cafe style rear and a streettracker rear.

 

The fender was an old Honda fender i shaped with a grinder and attached to the swingarm with a handmade bracket I welded on.

 

I got a set of Bridgestone Spitfires last year, been really happy with them, good grip and seem to be wearing really well...
Good grip wet or dry

 

Exhaust is almost complete. It had duals(1 pipe down each side). I used the stock headpipes and made a 2into1. I am thinking about making washer baffles. I would like to weld a nut to the underside of the pipe and run a bolt with a washer welded to it. My thought is if I weld a small lever on the end and use a spring and some washers, I can have an adjustable baffle. I thought of running 2 of them so I can adjust the sound and backpressure by changing the angles of the washers. What do you think?

 

Yes, the washer mod works very well for "tuning" your exhaust. I did a write up on it on another forum recently (for V-twins)
But for simplicity sake, you can do this mod to just about any pipe/muffler setup.
I first welded 1/4" bolts to the side of large washers (same size as the inside diameter of the pipe/mufflers. Then drilled a hole in the bottom of each muffler (about 1/2" from the rear of the muffler) and locked it in place with a wingnut. Now I am able to turn the washer open or closed to "tune" the sound of the exhaust. It also gives you the option of adding or removing back pressure.
You will need to experiemnt with different size washers (with larger/smaller holes) to get the effect your looking for. The washers do not need to fit tight against the sides of the pipes/mufflers, it just looks better to me (I painted mine flat black with BBQ paint so they arent' noticable)
You will need to wear leather gloves if your "tuning" them after you ride (they get very hot!) Have fun!