Ruining a completely fine '86 Honda Rebel 450

[Down]

Hey! I'll buy that rear fender off ya, if you're within an hours drive from the capital area. PM me, I can't send you a message for some reason.

[Fruttolo]

This thing's new stance is so mean, very cool
As for hardtailing, I would remove the rear vertical section at all, from the seat portion to the lower tubes and make a full tail you can slug and weld to them

[helikopteri]

Thanks for the input!

Even tho I already sais that it was 'confirmed' what I wanna do, I somehow cant put myself into getting the car tire. I'm real hesitant about running it and just thinking to myself that could I make it work with the current tire and maybe a slight knobby on the front? Something like this Duro maybe? Or should I keep both of the current tires? Afterall theyre both almost brand new and I guess I could try to make them work?

I seriously need some proper input here, I've been pretty much stuck with the build because of this problem..

[Fruttolo]

What car tyre are you thinking about? A modern radial would ride ok just straight, an old bias ply tall sidewall tyre would be better but best maneuverability will come with your current setup imho.
Do you have a sketch of your project?

[helikopteri]

I have my eyes on an old well aged bias ply tire, the vintage style ones that get used alot on motorcycles as well as VW Beetles for example.

What do you mean with a sketch of my project? Picture or plans where Im trying to head with the build or?

[Fruttolo]

Yeah some drawing or rendering about where the project is heading looks wise, in this initial stage it's difficult to give advice on things like tyres without knowing how the bike will look.
An advice I can give for sure is, do not ever use old tyres, there is nothing worse than being surprised by rain and slippery roads and having an old dry rotten tyre...ask me about my ex-2008 front tyre that almost sent me into a ditch, and the 2001 rears that actually sent me in a guardrail in my old bmw e30, to know how I know LOL

[helikopteri]

Well, I'm still continuing on the path of boring text updates but what you gonna do. Getting pissed how the build is pretty much stumped upon the tires.

I tried to do some rendering and copypasting on GIMP to get a picture out showing where I'm headed with the bike, but it just turned out shit everytime I tried. I just said fuck it, went with your and a couple others' advices and bought new tires. 145SR15 XZX Michelin for the rear and a Heidenau K34 3.5"x18" for the front. The front tire was a hard choixe too since I wanted vintage look but not a ribbed tyre however. Something just makes me doubt ribbed fronts ride wise.

I'll update some pictures as soon as I get the tires. Then I'm off to piecing the frame into two and starting to hardtail this turd.

[helikopteri]

Let's get a quick recap to current form of the build. I'll try to keep the talking in minimum and just let the pics do the talking.

Was looking at the frame and thought "those bolts look ugly outside the frame tubing. Let's make them invisible."



Like this:



It didn't go quite as planned and I had to quit the job. The tap twister-holder-thingy broke and I had to get a new one



I started molding the old gas tank mounts from the neck area with some bondo. Not quite ready here but getting there. Dont have a picture off of the finished product.





But I did see boomboomthump's shovel build thread, got inspirated and thought fuck it since I had nothing better to do at the moment. Here's his frame (sorry for posting your pics):



And here's mine after a good while with the good ol bondo. Not fully done on these, but the sides are almost finished so I'll let it slip:









Here you can see the inner arch of the neck finished too, this is pretty recent material. I was thinking of measurements for the axle plates and I ended up with these. You'll see them on the pics. I'll plasma cut these out of 8mm steel:







Some more neck area:







I shinied up the top triple and turned some straight into handlebar-risers.





Grinded and cleaned up the lower tree all around. I like the look of it now. This will be the mounting point for the headlight





And this is from today. Mocked up the bike and tried to find proper stance but ended up giving up with it cause it just doesn't look right with the frame at that form. I need to get the tires, axle plates made, tubing, preferrably the tank and some other stuff before I start to mock the stance. Until that it's most likely break time.







And since I had the bike mocked a bit and found the right height but it looked bad, I thought to myself to make a little mock up image what im trying to do with it. This is what Fruttolo suggested me to do and now I (kinda) delivered. Still lacks the handlebars, motor, right tires etcetc but I'm not too bothered. It looks pretty good for me and I think I'm heading the right way with the shapes of the bike. Any feedback regarding the looks of the build are greatly appreciated.



Cheers.

[darby74]

What did you do to remove the rear fender bracket? How did you achieve that?

[Rebrouser74]

Just wanted to bump to see if you were still doing this build?

[darby74]

I guess he got in over his head and gave up