Kawasaki 454 bobber build - I have zero idea what I'm doing

[ShookOne]

Im the same way.
Never been good with tools or building things or even repairing.
Sometimes I felt out of place at Home depot or Pepboys lol.

One day I was on craigslist looking for an aquarium 40 mins later I was getting off the phone with a dude to come see his cruiser and Id never even ridden a motorcycle hahaha.

Long story short, a few weeks later i taught myself how to ride the thing and got manuals.Cleared up some space in the garage and now im wrenching my own bobber lol.
The bike is a pain right now because it needs fine tuning and some love,and I dont really know much about mechanics but its a joy to work with your hands and fix things along the way.

Good luck with the build, this place is great for info and advice .

[mclarkson]

Did I mention that, since I only work on RC planes, all my tools look like this?

[mclarkson]

I realized that I had this old, old (old) lunchbox around from when I was in first grade. It's beat up and rusty and not really useful for anything but I couldn't bear to throw it away. Perfect battery box fodder, though I'll have to cut it down a bit to make it fit.

[mclarkson]

Getting ready to start building my custom seat pan. I covered the whole bike with a dropcloth from Dollar Tree, put some cardboard over the battery box area, and went to town with masking tape.





Next, I laid down a layer of duct tape. This will be my actual build surface.



I cannot figure out how to handle the front of the seat.


Should I make it slip under here? Bolt it to the frame? I can't decide what to do.

[mclarkson]

Getting to work on my super-cheap custom turn signals. I bought these little yellow LED bulbs online. They're to replace standard turn signals, etc.



I soldered some wire to the terminals and then cut a rough disc from Dollar Tree foamboard to serve as a bulb mount.


I slid it up inside a 45 degree piece of 3/4" PVC. Yep - it lights up.

[mclarkson]

Finally decided what to do about that piece at the front of the seat area. The whole time I was sawing, I was thinking: "The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It'd take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you're lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go."

[mclarkson]

Some more work on my el-cheapo custom PVC turn signals.







Some 0.050" Lexan for the lenses.

[LeDom]

I like the creativity, keep it up

[mclarkson]

Bouncing from one place to another - Starting on the seat pan:

A layer of fiberglass cloth:


Starting to add some pieces of fiberglass mat:

[mclarkson]

I drilled three holes - 2 in the back and 1 in the front - that go through the seat pan and into the frame, and put short carriage bolts through them. Hopefully, these will keep the seat in place on the frame when all is done.




And ... another layer of glass.

[mclarkson]

I wanted to share a few photos. Hope you don't mind.

Here's what custom bikes looked like when I was falling in love with motorcycles. #SpringersForever.





And I dug up these photos of me and my now-grown daughter on my subject bike, back in 1989. Dig the perm, boys!

[mclarkson]

Back to the turn signals. I bought these plugs to go in the end, and was going to push them in there all the way, but I decided I like the little extra detail that comes from leaving them sticking out a bit.

[mclarkson]

A bolt goes through from the inside of the base to attach the blinker to the frame.


Then the other half slips on and is held in place with a couple of small wood screws (barely visible on the top in this photo) and - *BAM* - turn signal.

[mclarkson]

Man, I thought I'd NEVER EVER get the seat pan pried loose. Turns out that putting two bolts through the back at opposing angles was a terrible idea. Ah well, I eventually got it off. I'm gonna put on another layer (maybe two) of glass, then trim it up.

[mclarkson]

Holding a flashlight under the seat pan to help me trace the frame.


A rough outline traced ...


... and cut.



Meanwhile, my fender-to-be was picking up specks of surface rust, so I decided it was time to throw a little paint on it.


(The fender is a Tow Zone #44911 7" wide steel trailer fender that I picked up for $14 at a local hardware store.)