sl350 bratty dirtbike build

[shanelxi]

Ordered some cl360 forks yesterday, I hope they work. Should be about 2" shorter, so I can go a little lower up front without having 4" of fork sticking through the upper clamp. Also pounded out the tunnel on my rd400 tank and test fit it, looks rad. Should be getting my "seat pan" tomorrow, then I can start mocking up the tank/seat combo and get an idea of how it's going to look. Will be getting the materials for my swingarm stretch hopefully on thursday as well, so should have alot of progress this upcoming week .

Sunday was wasted cleaning up my nasty nasty garage. So much nicer now that I have some room to work. This side of the garage was mostly storage, so I never kept it clean. Unfortunately now that I am working on a bike, I need that second bay .

before:


after:

[shanelxi]

Crappy pic, but here's a shot of my rd400 tank mocked up and also a rough draft of my seat pan. It's a 8.25" skateboard deck. A little too wide, need maybe a 7.5" or 7.75" deck, but this will work for test fitting, and I can use it as a template for the finished seat pan. Will be upholstered, but will still be very very low. More updates on Thursday

[shanelxi]

Big day! Swingarm lengthened 4" and also cl360 forks (2" shorter). Bike is low low. About 36" at the highest point (my truck has 37"s on it, so I used it to give some perspective in the pics). I just finished bolting the swinger in, so sorry for the dark pics, I did what I could . More updates to come. I haven't gotten a chance to mount the chain yet, this is a very very rough mockup.

[xl350]

looks good. whats the atvantages of making the swing arm longer?

[shanelxi]

I'm very new to bike riding and building, but It is my understanding that the only performance advantage is that you can more easily accelerate without losing traction/popping a wheelie. It may actually effect performance negatively in heavy cornering as well. But it looks mint!!

[xl350]

ya it does make the bike look alot better. it probably lowered it too since the spring got more of an angle too?

[tron]

Cool bike, although you completely eliminated your brat status with the swing arm lengthen!

[shanelxi]

I don't care, lol. I'm just trying to make a bike I think is cool. So far I'm pretty happy with it . Yeah it slammed the back end. I have the longer 13" sl shocks back on in these pics and it still lower than it was with 12" shocks at stock swinger length. I'm going to probably buy some 14" shocks.

[shanelxi]

Got a little progress today. My new shocks and shoes finally showed up, so I went to work and mounted them up. Also sprayed the wheels a matte black so I could see if I liked it. Plan is to powder coat matte black eventually. Shocks are 14.5" cb750 units. Extremely stiff. I also went with a slightly smaller tire out back for a little more seat clearance. I wanted to be able to take my wife out on rides too when this thing is done! Anyway, now I just need to finish detabbing and getting rid of anything else I don't need like that fucking huge horn and the brackets for the steering dampener. Then I can disassemble and start painting/polishing! More updates soon.

[shanelxi]

So I was detabbing my frame today, and started to get a little nervous the more I thought about how thin this metal is! Did I got too far? should I have left some more structure up by the backbone? I left all the support and metal around the shock mount. You can kind of see where I was going to spot some square tube in and then my plan was to weld about 8" of 1/8" steel on as well to ad some rigidity. What do you guys think?

[ThePete]

Who cares if it doesn't conform someone's definition of brat, cafe or chop I think some of the stuff you're doing is pretty damn cool, and its your bike as long as you like it and you're getting what you want out of it thats all that matters.


Sent from the handicapped stall.

[shanelxi]

Thanks man! I also made a rear fender/guard today out of a crusty pilfered "NO TRUCKS" street sign. Can't wait til I'm finished mocking this thing up so I can start polishing this turd!

[shanelxi]

Cut out some 1/16" steel to box in the seat rails. Just spot welding everything for now, will be welded more solid when I strip the bike down, but I am pretty pleased with how everything fits. Will have 2 cross sections for both support and to mount the seat to.

[shanelxi]

No pictures to post, but I have been working on this bike. Doing boring things like welding in seat brackets, replacing controls with simpler stuff, finishing seat hoop, and making a rear fender. Also sent my cables out to motion pro. So nothing cool to photograph, but still lots of important things getting done! Pics when it gets more assembled!!

[shanelxi]

Waiting on my cables to come in the mail from MotionPro. In the meantime, I've done quite of a bit of welding. Seat hoop is now on and I've put the front end more "together". Next on the agenda is wiring, then tear down for paint. Can't wait.