'83 750 maxim build bob brat

Found my first bike on 'the craigs' for cheap. It runs. Leaks a little bit of oil. It's hard to tell, but I cleaned up the front of the engine and it looks like its coming from the valve cover. We'll see once we open her up.


She got laid over on the right side, bars were bent, so I tossed em aside. headlight cover and gas tank too a little scrape too. The instrument cluster was missing too.

Got a cheap speedo and cable to find out the speedo drive unit wasn't working. Tore it apart and found the two tangs attached to the wheel itself were slightly bent. Found a new on at a junk yard. SPEEDO WORKS!


The second picture kind of shows the z-bar style handle bars I want. I tried to make these with some tubing I found nearby for a buck a foot. The tubing is plenty thick, but the OD is .84 instead of .875. So that kind of sucks. I just put a layer of tape between the bars and controls for now. The bars I have right now are just bent, I've got a buddy who is willing to weld some up for me, but I am kind of on his schedule. I found some heat-shrink that I will apply to the bars to give them a slightly larger diameter and that should be a little more permanent than duct tape.





Doing a very crude mock up of the seat with the brains of the operation overseeing QC.




I used a purse from goodwill($2), some aluminum from a local sign shop ($5), harbor freight gate hinge ($3), and some carpet foam scraps from a flooring store dumpster.
I ended up putting some support braces on the horizontal section of the seat because that aluminum was a little thin.

more to come

 

More of the seat.



So I've got some por15 for that tank. Gonna try to run that through this afternoon. Shit. I guess in gonna try the epoxy-slide hammer dent remover first so that last layer of the por15 isn't compromised by the change in size and shape...


Anyway. That frame cut on the last picture.. I'd like to go closer to the suspension. For the guys who have made that cut closer, did you add any additional support for the frame back there? I've got a wirefeed welder, but wouldn't be comfortable welding anything that will be seeing a lot of stress.

Thanks

 

Replace that layer of tape with a layer of aluminum shim stock before you try to ride it.