shes special cause shes mine! 93 sportster

[tattoo2303]

never thought id own a harley, never thought i could afford one. through some wheelin and dealin i scored this extremely clean (at first glance) 1993 sportster 883.




old guy, couldnt ride it anymore cause it hurt his back and yadda yadda well he doesnt make it a secret he wanted a big bike like a heritage or something so he tried his hardest to make this poor girl into one, including working front fender light which he was quite proud of- im not knocking him to each his own. riding this thing home was an experience i hope to never have again, i sat up high with my hands damn near at my waist, it felt more like i was riding on top of it rather than in it

so once home inspection begins and removal of things to make it more "my own"


this is how the tank was attached in the rear (sitting on the frame in the front)

shortly after really riding this bike (maybe for the first time in its life) i blew out the rocker box gasket in the rear, the breather bolts for the head were there but there but just tightened in all the way, that along with self tapping screws and other red neck ingenuity anyways.........

[tattoo2303]

off with the tall stock shocks, new bars, standard tank mounted high and got rid of the front fender and bags


all geared up for the gypsy run, different seat, benchmark ignition cover and a set of bmx pedal pegs i made myself (with the help of a good friend and fellow chop cult member gigastatt)

[tattoo2303]

thats how she spent her summer picked up in middle of june with 12,000 miles and began the winter tear down at just under 18,000



what started out as a semi-simple bar swap turned into much, much more

made these up at gigastatts shop




i contacted steffan at zombie performance on here about bending me some tubing i wanted t bars but still wanted the top bends like the biltwell frisco bars i had- he nailed EXACTLY what i asked for......... however i didnt have anything to go off of and just made up the degree of bend i wanted in my head





i left these sitting up on the bike trying to see if theyd grow on me, the bends just a little to much for what i was going for, so as of now im not sure what im doing with em but im gonna make good use of them sooner than later!


fish mouthed some tubing with a grinder and files


yeah pretty dumb idea to use wood to bend against


my buddy joe welding to the table


now we had something to bend against



got it! just gotta cut down the top bar, the plan is to bend the uprights so the bars a perpindicular to the ground cause i like to lean forward when i ride

[ercle69]

those look good, and the bike has come a long way already too!

[tattoo2303]

so while all this was going on the simple bar swap...........


why doint we dig into the wiring???


and cut the cam cover??

i read as much as i could on the techniques used to chop a cam cover

i liked the idea of perforating a line with a drill

[IMG]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f10/tattoo2303/93%20sportster/20101112182009.jpg
[/IMG]






yeah i know terrible idea leaving that cam in there with the sensor, lesson learned (needed a new sensor)






super stoked i did this i never thought id have the nerve to attempt it and i think it cam eout great


couldnt leave the pully cover stock so i did a few simple cuts (i didnt want to expose the pulley as much as most do)

[tattoo2303]

as long as were molesting the front half why not show the back some love






new lights


cant do the back and not the front

[tattoo2303]

what to do about turn signal switches.......... im wanted to keep the bars as clean and simple to swap out as possible so i came up with this rocker switch




as for the controls i put my hand filing back at work

[tattoo2303]

now for one of the pieces thats in my top 3 favorite things ive made for the bike...........

4" aluminum disks with a 1/4" hole in the center (freebie from a farm i deliver to)

air filter for a lawn mower 2.50

my buddy mike enlarging the center hole and cutting the top of the ist plate




i should have taken more pics, but i used a 1/4" steel brake line to use as spacers the length of the filter (just under size so it would squeeze the rubber, theres 4 plates:
1st to get out past the carb top
2nd to rest around the circumfrence of the filter
3rd has stove top bolts counter sunk flush that pass through the filter, through the 2 plates and into the carb and a bolt facing out to escure the 4th plate
4th to clean it all up




the pics of it on the bike are before i polished the top plate and its still gotta be secured im gonna pound a carriage bolt into the 3rd plate and use a wing nut on the 4th total cost less than 6 bucks!!!

[ercle69]

i did the same thing to my fender, looks way better. does your state mandate you have turn signals? i ripped mine off as they are not legally required...plus theys ugly

[tattoo2303]

yup mandatory unless the bike was made/registered as 1973 or 74 and older

also gotta have a horn so i tucked it up under the fram rails on the bottom, forgot to mention i moved the coil to the top middle motor mount and made a marine switch bracket out of aluminum for above it ill have to grab pics of that soon


heres a candid of mike after he reemed the hole for the switch

[stangeralf]

dude thats awesome. I love seeing garage modifications like this. taking a bike from something stock (gay, ha) to something your own and fucking dope. Keep up the good work bud!

[Guest]

Looks awesome man!!

I love everything you've done!

[crazycracker]

lookin good

[BeetleJuice]

Nice transformation so far man..Im going to be doing the same thing to my rear fender here in a few weeks once it warms up a tad.

[Guest]

Wow. That's all i can say dude. You got some really cool stuff going on man. I can't wait to see more.