Andy's wacky '95 883 Sportster build thread.

[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?

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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.