My Rat Chop Rebuild

Took this bike off the road last winter stock, just planning to do some maintance, and for some reason never stopped till it was completely disassembled. Eventually was a bunch of parts on a pallet, and I started putting back together. I got many ideas from people chopping them on this site. This is my first bike and has been a great learning experience (for one thing I made myself learn to weld). Rebuilt the engine as well. Lots of blood sweat and tears in this one (literally). Finally got done tuning and synching. I knew nothing coming in to this so thanks to everyone here, couldn't have done it without you. Hope you all like.
-Lou



















It's all rattlecan, seat was a cheap find on ebay, fender is from a trailer store, the battery box is a junction box, seat/fender mounts is misc household items/home depot stuff. Custom wiring harness (bare minimum to run and light)
Still need to mount my front signals, put a mirrior on, and figure out what I want to do for a speedo (thinking about acewell but the cost has me stalling).

 

Great job! It's hard to beat a good rat bike chop!

 

i LOVE it

 

Normally I'm not a big fan of the rat look...but I'm kinda diggin' ur bike I especially like the starter button ..coooool...

 

This bike is cool. In the best kind of way.

 

http://www.electrosport.com/dirt-bike/speedometers.php
i just got the 3200 for 80 bucks, nothin fancy but all you need

 

I love it man. NICE!

 

Damn fine job!

 

That looks wicked and super bad, bro! You've given me some great idea for how to hang the rear fender on my own XJ550. Especially digging the dog-bones - I'm going to be putting (hopefully) real bones on mine as "grips". Well done mate!
Here's mine as I got it a year ago. I just started working on it last week and will post more pics as I progress.

 

I really like the what you did to the front end.

As my suggestion, I would even leave off the mirror(s) to keep it nice and simple.

 

bike looks awesome! nice job. Mine is my first bike too and its been fun

 

Bike looks Great! and for never having done anything like this I applaud you. This is an excellent website, packed with info, you can usually find what your looking for through the search engine. for instance I wanted to know how to do the coil surgery to install plug wires, bingo there it was. If not someone will have the answer or point you in the right direction.

 

i'm mounting one mirror off the headstock gusset so you are looking past your hip at the road, looks ok in mock-up and keeps the bars nice and clear, something like that might be worth a shot on yours

 

Thinking about one barend possitioned low. Thanks for the compliments!

 

Wicked ratbike! I've got an old Honda MPH speedo you can have for the cost of postage. It goes up to 110 mph and looks pretty cool with the slate blue background and white numbers. The gauge, including the body and surrounding chrome ring is 3 7/8" wide and 2 5/8" tall. The chrome ring is a little beat up but the gauge works find, not loose or rattling. Check the photos below and let me know. Send me your address and zip code if you're interested and I'll check the postage cost. Shouldn't be more than a couple of bucks.
thx,
baz

 

hey man, how did you do those makeshift risers that's a cool solution since you cant actually change the risers.

 

Looks like a very creative use of a bit of 22m bar with some old skool dogbones.