My new project bike buildup

As I was making the deal on the bike I started searching around for some proper forks. I ended up scoring a sweet deal on a complete front end from a wrecked ZX10R and started taking measurements to see how I could make them fit together.

I also got started on stripping the bike down to the frame so I could figure out what needed to be done to de-cruiser this thing. I happened to have my last project bike in the shop for an oil change and started comparing the different lines of the frames. This is gonna take some work.

Before getting too deep into the frame mods I decided to tackle the bent up front end. And boy was it bent up. Both fork legs were bent much more than it looked when they were mounted, the axle was bent, and even the steering stem was tweaked. Basically the whole front end was junk. I ended up cutting out the steering stem and using it to make the adapter parts and it's in the bike for mockup right now, but I ordered another lower crown off Ebay to get a straight one from for the final product.

On the last bike I swapped on a complete ZX6 front end, wheel and all then did a bunch of work to make a Ninja 250 rear wheel with the matching spoke pattern fit. On this bike I decided to do it a bit differently. I actually really like the Nighthawk wheels and I think the 18" front will work nicely for the look I'm goin for. The tricky part is making it fit. I had to order different wheel bearings to fit the Ninja's 25mm axle (stock honda was 20mm). The real trick is gonna be centering everything up though. The single rotor is actually the right diameter, but the offset is wrong so currently the wheel is 1/4" offset to the left. Gonna have to fix that one soon.

The new tank finally showed up so that I could start figuring out the rest of the bike. It's from a 1980 KZ750 twin and amazingly the front mounts actually fit, but are just a little bit too low. Pretty easy fix there though. Now I can get to the real work...

After cleaning up the frame I started bending up the new seat hoop. Ended up needing to do it in pieces, which were spiced together with some stubs inside to keep everything straight. After welding up the seams I'll smooth it all out so it all looks like one piece.

Here's the new seat frame all tacked in place.

The diagonal seat stays were a little bit tricky. Not only are they not quite straight, but the original frame tubing is a fair bit thinner than what I'm using, so the sleeve trick I used on the seat frame wouldn't work so well. Instead I ended up chucking pieces of tubing in the lathe and turning the end down to a tight fit inside the original frame tubes. Then I added a little bend and notched the other end.

Spent some time with the TIG welder over the last couple days. Got everything all welded together and got to work on the new shock mounts. Took a couple tries to get the gussets to line up properly and fit the way I wanted them, but I'm very happy with the results.

Next up is to finish the tank mounts, and get the front end swap finished up. Then some wiring, a seat, and paint.

Spent a little time making the rear tank mounts and frame gusset. I thought about modifying the tank and adding a mounting bracket more like the Honda ones, but after thinking about it I decided it'd be better to just use what was already there. The Kawi tank uses a pin on the bottom to locate the tank and another pin/hook thingie to hold it down. I fabbed up a little stand for the locating pin, then drew up the frame gusset with an extra tab to bolt on a removable mount for the hold down. For cushioning I actually used the 2 rubber grommets from the original honda tank that the side panels snapped into. Worked out pretty nice, and holds everything quite securely.