Andy's wacky '95 883 Sportster build thread.

[imofftothemoon]

threw it in the garage and forgot about it for a few months. moto itch came back, bikey boi don't feel right no more, and it needs a changeup.

the 10 over forks always bothered me in this configuration, way too much front end to handle. so it's another ebay order for some brand new -2 fork tubes. fuck yeah baby lets finish this enduro sporty buildout with some proper forks.
maybe we'll go hit a trail or two. or not.

front end is easier to handle, but forks bottomed out on any significant bump. is it my fault because i ran 10w-30 motor oil for fork oil, and had a blown fork seal? yeah maybe.i just wasn't feelin it as much as i thought i would've. still rode it like this for a good minute because im lazy, didn't want to do fork seals and didn't have a plan beyond this. yeeeeehaw

[imofftothemoon]

played with bar and riser setups a bit more, discovered i'm only truly comfortable with tall bars, and it actually became a fun and capable bike to rip around on. kinda of turned into the bike i had been trying to build all along.
however a recurring problem i kept running into was that, with steering geometry all fucked up, the front end LOVED to shimmy at anything over 50mph. death wobbles every time i'd hit the freeway. unrideable outside the city. sad. still rode it like this for a month tho.



in 'adventure mode'



then one night i was at a show in town, some cool-dude choppers parked next to me and that chop itch came back. it came back like it never left. i was actually sad looking at my weird semi-functional harley next to those beautiful bikes, man. i had to return to the promised land. what the fuck is this all about if it ain't about choppers, huh?

[imofftothemoon]

hehe i also put a tractor flap on it because tractor flap go flup flup flup flup

instagram link here

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUS4fiHp..._web_copy_link

but anyway back to choopers. bought new fork seals, new fork seals weren't for the right year sportster, fuck it the 10 overs are going back on with the leaky fork seal. funny enough the fork seal leaks a lot less now. who knows, maybe the chopper gods are smiling upon me. it still leaks, btw, but it's choppers who cares.

ran over my headlight lens after it popped out of my, uh, headlight.



had to fab up a new headlight assy. since i'm cheap & impatient and thusly couldn't be bothered to order and wait for a new headlight whatever-the-fuck part i'd need to buy to properly fix this, i decided to whip up something in the garage with some scrap metal and lights i had lying around (sometimes hoarding random shit really does go in your favor) and tada. it's a choppers again, dad.

[Down]

Dual lights always look good with longer forks, niiiiiice.

[markwade74]

I dig it in just about all its configurations

[DazedandConfused]

anyway so what's one to do when you want choppers, but also really like exploring backcountry roads? you build an enduro chopper, fucking duh.

do i know what i was doing here? not really, but fuck you, i'm off the beaten track here so anything goes at this point. nothing matters anymore. the world you grew up in no longer exists. who cares what you do with an old sportster anyway.

This is the post that officially set the hook in me for this thread. I have been giggling and grinning my way through this whole thread, and I fucking love this!

I have absolutely no desire to own or ride an 883 enduro chopper (or...do I? yet, I digress), and this is one of the straight up most fun projects I think I've ever fucking seen or heard about.

[imofftothemoon]

Dual lights always look good with longer forks, niiiiiice.

its a match made in chopper heaven. or chopper hell, whichever you think is cooler.

I dig it in just about all its configurations

thanks. its been thru a bit. lol.

I have absolutely no desire to own or ride an 883 enduro chopper (or...do I? yet, I digress), and this is one of the straight up most fun projects I think I've ever fucking seen or heard about.

the whole chopper enduro thing doesn't really work. it isn't particularly good at anything except for looking weird and being overall just kind of an unwieldy bike to ride, which is to say it's good at being bad. but, for what it's worth, it was very comfortable cruising at highway speeds w/ the 10 overs. ate freeway bumps up, felt solid at whatever the top speed of the day was, and you sat so tall you could see over most cars.

[47str8leg]

its a match made in chopper heaven. or chopper hell, whichever you think is cooler.



thanks. its been thru a bit. lol.



the whole chopper enduro thing doesn't really work. it isn't particularly good at anything except for looking weird and being overall just kind of an unwieldy bike to ride, which is to say it's good at being bad. but, for what it's worth, it was very comfortable cruising at highway speeds w/ the 10 overs. ate freeway bumps up, felt solid at whatever the top speed of the day was, and you sat so tall you could see over most cars.

Why , for the love of God , has the crackheads iconic skull and crossbones addition been removed ?

[imofftothemoon]

Why , for the love of God , has the crackheads iconic skull and crossbones addition been removed ?

hahaha, i actually had it ziptied to the top of my sissy bar for a few weeks, but the bones cracked & fell off so now it lives in my garage as a momento.

[imofftothemoon]

yeah anyway

beginning of Oct 2021

anyway, so a few things happened here now. first off i decided 10 over forkage wasn't enough for me, and 5" slugs are only $70, so....uhhh...you can guess what i did. 15" of fork, bitches.

bike looked fucking stupid and wack with that bar setup tho, look at this stupid shit. gosh. downright embarrassing.



-

enter a new chapter for the sportster.

id been looking at a particular set of super sweet rabbit ears from zombie performance for a year or so, and decided the bike was finally ready for em.

i was over-the-fucking-moon with how it looked when i slapped them on.



like, yeah, proportions are still a bit off, but god damn


its ya boi truly. if you're wondering why the sportster looks tiny it is because i am 6'4 russian giant.

[imofftothemoon]

but now the sissy bar wasn't tall enough. and what do you do when your sissy bar isn't tall enough? you make it taller, duh. come on, are you keeping up?

-
this is how i build my sissy bars. i don't know how or what the fuck are y'all doing, but this is how i do things.

drill, shove 1/2" cold rolled steel through, weld straight to the skin, tada. ezpz, and mostly kinda strong enough for most anything (i carried 100lbs of motocamping gear in a duffle bag on this sissy bar across texas and new mexico, so i'm a believer in the structural integrity of this. all depending on how tall is it, of course.




anyway i copied my single bar idea with another taller piece behind it.



one of my bigger problems in life is sometimes i go grocery shopping on the chopper and then forget i can't actually carry grocery bags on the chopper, so i welded some hooks on so i can grocery shop in peace.



idk why the pics are sideways, deal with it im not sober enough to figure this shit out.

[imofftothemoon]

after throwing down approximately 2.23rd-th of a layer of home depot blkblk fridge rattle can, i threw on a vintage VW hella foglight with a RED led inside as a running light topper & mounted er back up.

also converted it back to foot clutch/hand shift. yeeehaw

[imofftothemoon]

dude, this thing, like holy cow i was e c s t a t i c. i had hooks for grocery shopping!!



but then i was like, 'how far can i push the weird' and so the bike got another eyeball









a concept that didn't really pan out because i couldn't decide if i liked it or not.

[imofftothemoon]

just wanna say i spend a lot of time looking at mitch cotie's art.





so i rode up to fort collins one day for a shakedown run and the sissybar/fender kinda got all fucked up on i25. all that extra sissybar didn't have enough support being welded just to the inside of the fender and literally tore the skin on the fender apart. so keep that in mind if you're building something taller than 3' tall.



i found some random scrap and welded that on as side plates, and it's been rock solid since.



btw please ignore the supreme top tier quality of the work, just know that it works. my welder go bzzzz, a grinder and paint make me the welder ur mom aint. unless she is, in which case props to having a super cool mom. or however that saying goes.

[markwade74]

This is what chopping should be.

Doing what you like, not giving a flying fuck what anybody thinks, and doing it yourself, doing it on the cheap and changing that shit up frequently to suit your current mood.

Not $500 gas tanks and $1000 wheels

[imofftothemoon]

unhappy with the ancient performance of the sealed beam lights, i threw on some very bright LED pods i had lying around. i have a lot of stuff lying around, noticing a trend yet?



the trend is i have a lot of stuff lying around



then i decided to change up the bars because i get bored easily. found my old cut mid-rise bars, uhh, lying around, & slapped em on.

[imofftothemoon]

buddy snapped some photos when we went out and hit the colorado twisties in late october.





odd how relatively well this thing handles when it gets curvy.

[imofftothemoon]

those bars looked decently cool, but fuck they felt weird to ride with.
so on halloween day i cut up another set of bars that i had lying around (the tracker low-rise ebay bars from the dirtbike phase of this bike),
.....and....all was right with the world again.



i'm not joking, i think i achieved world peace with this setup. it just felt so RIGHT. ignore the brake master being held on by one bent bolt, half a shattered clamp and a piece of flimsy household metal sheet strip, if it ain't totally broke beyond all useability, don't fix it, am i right guys?



still got a rear brake if i loose my front, nbd.

[imofftothemoon]

i was finally happy enough with the overall image that i could start chasing down the smaller stuff bothering me. that 2-1 shotgun exhaust that i welded up from my old blast pipes, while simple and sturdy, was starting to bug me with all the lack of gaskets, exhaust leaks and badly angled exhaust port fitment. plus i couldn't really wrap my head around a decent muffler setup on it. just wasn't happy with any of it. so i found this basically brand new danmoto highwayman 2-1 locally for a decent price and slapped it on. incredibly super excited, as i've been after this exhaust for a while and finding it locally for $150 was such a treat.



oh my god what a difference. bike felt at least 10% faster according to the butt dyno. quiet as fuck too, no more worrying about the neighbors, and so overall much nicer to ride with. really like how tucked away it is, no more trying not to burn my legs on hot pipe all the time. worry free. so much mental freedom. it had been a while since i've enjoyed riding the bike this much.

[Tater66]

The only thing I can maybe add is this...

The overall look is a fabulous disaster. A "WTF" that is "FTW" all the way. My eye tells me a bigger rear wheel/tire combo would even out the profile. Taller not wider although a truck rim and tire would not be out of place.