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

[mclarkson]

Hi, everyone. I’m new here and wanted to share my project: a 1987 Kawasaki LTD bobber build. There’s a long story behind this project, but I’ll put that in the second post to make it easier to skip over.

I have very, very (very) little mechanical knowledge and skill. Hopefully I can get some advice from wiser members.

My budget is as near to $0.00 as I can manage. My plan is pretty basic:
* Lower the rear end with some Suzuki Savage shocks.
* Lower the front end a bit to compensate, by sliding the fork tubes up.
* Keep the stock tank.
* Build a new custom solo seat.
* Replace the stock handlebars
* Keep the stock pipes, and replace the stock mufflers. I’m leaning toward some Emgo shorties.
* Paint it flat black with bright red accents.

I thought about replacing the ugly air box with some PODs but it sounds like getting the carbs jetted properly might be beyond my limited skillz.

The bobber appeals to me as it mostly requires taking stuff off the bike. Taking old parts off is always cheaper than putting new parts on.

So far, I’m still in the tear-down phase of the project.

I wish I’d taken a couple of photos of the stock bike before I started, but I forgot to do so. Here’s a photo of someone else’s 454 LTD that’s pretty much identical to mine.

[mclarkson]

My story

Long background story. Feel free to skip.

Everyone has a narrative that they tell themselves about who they are. My narrative has always included “I’m bad with my hands.” I can’t build things. I can’t fix things. I’m neither mechanically minded nor ‘handy.’

When my daughter was young, I bought a book of carpentry projects for kids. It includes a simple bird house made from a single 1x6. I’ve built that same birdhouse half a dozen times and I managed to mess it up on the first five tries. Remember, this is a book of simple projects for little kids.

Attempts to work on my cars always ended in nightmares of one description or another.

On the computer, on the other hand, I was pretty good. Photoshop, 3D modeling and animation, 2D animation … I could do them all but I could never translate that to creating real things in the real world.

Six years ago, I got into RC planes. (That’s an even longer story that I’ll skip.) At first, I bought planes that were ‘Ready To Fly.’ And I was pretty good at flying them. Eventually I got some that were ‘Almost Ready To Fly’ (read: Some assembly required.) And I got those to fly, as well. And then I built a couple of planes from scratch and they usually flew, too. Finally I started scratch-building simple planes of my own design and darned if most of those didn’t fly.

In the last six years I’ve gone from scared of cutting Styrofoam to customizing, modifying, repairing, designing and building. I’ve fabricated wings and firewalls. I’ve replaced bearings and shafts in electric motors.

And that experience began to creep into the real world. I built a simple ramp to allow my dog access to the dog door. I used fiberglass and epoxy to repair a busted drier door. I used my soldering skills to repair my granddaughter’s broken toys. Et cetera.

It began to occur to me that I could, just possibly, build something on a larger scale. I toyed with the idea of a hot rod or an electric hot rod, but I have little budget and very few large tools. (My RC habit has resulted in my collecting a lot of tools, but they’re all tiny, suited to working on airplanes a couple of feet wide and one ounce motors.) I don’t have an engine hoist, or a welder.

And then I remembered the Kawasaki that has been sitting in my garage for several years. I last rode it, briefly, about five years ago but the turn signals were broken and I never got around to fixing it.

And I suddenly realized that, hell, I could probably fabricate some new turn signals. That I could probably look up tutorials on YouTube that would show me how to change out the fork seals and make sundry other small repairs. That, despite the long-running narrative that I’m “bad with my hands,” I might be able to build a cool custom bike – something that I would never have considered a few short years ago. And I decided to give it a go.

That’s my story. Wish me luck.

[mclarkson]

The tear-down begins.







I found this sweet trailer fender for $15 at a local store.

[mclarkson]

All of this crap came off of the rear fender.




I found these Suzuki Savage shocks on eBay for $50. They'll drop the rear end a few inches.

[mclarkson]

I plan to cut off the rear fender bracket right here:



And get a buddy to weld a simple piece of 1" tubing between the cuts.

[mclarkson]

Test-fitting the Suzuki shocks. They fit right on, and drop the back nicely.



My giant son-in-law makes this bike look like a toy.

[mclarkson]

Pulling the carbs apart. I need to repair or replace one piece of tubing in here, and will probably attempt some kind of rebuild as long as everything's apart.





Here's the broken bit:

[mclarkson]

I found this worn leather coat at my local DAV store for $10. Plenty of leather to cover my solo seat with.

[PuskRat]

Welcome to overwhelmedness. I've tried this approach....some are Mechanically Inclined, I am "Mechnically DEclined" I don't have a lot to share, but for what it's worth...do you have enough clearance with those replacement Shocks? Bobberdom was my goal initially too, but dropping the butt end turned out to be a one way ticket to skids and sparksville for me. Luckily I got advice first. Generally I am loathe to redirect someone to a different website, but this might be of use to you: http://ltd454.proboards.com/ You may already know of it. I'm not a kawasaki guy, so I just googled this up. Let's say I feel your pain; had my 1980 Yamaha XS1100 for just over a year now and only now getting the carburetors back together. Hmmm.....What wisdom can i share?.....

Carburetion is the Devil
Ethanol is Theft
The Service Manual is your friend. It's fine to keep them stored on google drive (they're lighter that way)
Mikuni jets always
Go Go Partzilla.
MikesXS is probably not useful for you.
I take that back. They have the Mikuni Tuning guide.
Crap. No, I take THAT back. IIRC, my chopper chick told me her KZ4XX had keihin carbs

[shovelpan69]

do a little, ride it, make friends and keep on chopping and learning. I had no idea what I was doing when i started too. Now I may be a little over confident sometimes

[Townson]

I've always been mechanically inclined, but when I got my first bike around 4 years ago, I was completely lost lol. Just research every chance you get and everything will come out fine. Get it done, ride it and enjoy it. Motorcycles are one of the simplest pleasures in the world. I've seen alot of people end up hating them by overcomplicating things in their own mind.

[mclarkson]

Thanks for the encouragement and advice, everyone. Lemme try to work through all your responses.

I’m pretty sure I’m good to go with those shocks. I’m going to be mounting the fender directly to the swing arm, so I know I won’t have clearance problems between the fender and tire. If my fat ass doesn’t drop down to low, I should be fine. It seems to be a pretty common swap for this bike.

I have found ltd454.proboards.com and perused it quite a bit. Unfortunately, it seems to be kinda dead, so I kept looking for a more active community.

Carburetion is certainly one of the things I’m most terrified of.

I’ve had little look turning up a Service Manual. I’ve found some that appear to be a CD with a PDF of a scan of a photocopy, but I’m hoping to find something a bit better.

I’ll definitely check out Partzilla if I need any parts.

My bike definitely has Keihin carbs – V138’s, I think.

I’m doing my best not to overcomplicate things. A major appear of the bobber style is that it’s mostly about simplifying and removing.

Thanks again.

[mclarkson]

Time to try and fix this little bit of broken tubing (rather than pay $46 for a replacement!)

I epoxied the pieces together with JB Weld.


After letting it set up for about 12 hours, I cut a little 'bandage' from light fiberglass cloth.


I dragged the bandage through some epoxy to impregnate it and then wrapped it around the broken area in a figure 8.

[lcheredaryk]

Try this site out for your manual: http://www.pdfmotomanual.com/index.p...=1815&lang=ENG
The model you are looking for is EN 450. That covers the LTD 454. The one they have is a scan of a Haynes manual. Looks readable though.

[mclarkson]

Thanks! I'll go download that now.