my 86 XJ700X bobber project

Here are a few picks of my 86 XJ700X bobber project.... As you can see a lot of the work is mostlly done by the prvious owner but I am going to continue to improve on what he has started. It is defently a work in progress. I am trying to do all the work myself. I have just finished putting together a new custom handmade solo spring seat that will be going on soon, its a memory foame seat with a black and white vinyl hand stitched cover. I just picked up a perfect drag handle bar at a local salvage yard and bought some grips and mirrors off of ebay. I am looking to replace the bulky guage cluster but dont know if I will be doing that anytime soon. The grips I bought have the turn signals in the ends so I can get rid of the bug eyed looking blinkers and i got flush blinkers for the rear fender. I was looking into a custom paint job but can't see spending $2,500 for a tank two side panels and a bobbed rear fender, so looks like im going to rattle can it. I am going for a flat black base with a flat white racing stripe down the tank and rear fender, and some sort of design boardering the the racing stripe with a satin black. Dose anyone know of a good flat clearcoat that will hold up to gass well? I will post more pics soon.





:roll:

 

Any Ideas that you guys feel will help out or improve the bike just throw them out, this is not only my first project but my first real street bike been on dirt most my childhood so figuerd its time to get on the road. Oh and Im keeping all mods on the cheap side so no costly ideas pls, because I will never be able to talk the missis into letting me put much more cash into this.

 

WELCOME!!! Looks pretty goshdarned nice as it sits. I'm not real fond of all the instruments, like you. Seat, little big, but looks comfortable. If you just have to get rid of it, I'll put it to good use LOL. Can't help with the clearcoat question. Hope you get a good reply, interested myself...

skillet

 

Ya that is a nice bike man. I like the seat thats on it. Maybe just clean up the frame on the fender area. As far as clear coat I believe you can put flattening agent into it. I have done that before on single stage paints, I would think the piant supply store would hook you up. And you should paint the drum brake black!

 

Skillet, I have already built myself a b@d a$$ seat after I put it on and make sure its a good fit ill hook you up with a darn good deal on the current seat. The seat I built didnt coast to much to throw together... seat pan $13+shipping, Memory foam - set of 4 pillows for $24+shipping, vinyl fabric near $6 for a yard of white and one of black, and i had to buy a little hand held sewing machine cause i have none at all, barowed a buddies rivet gun from work and with about 3 hours of messin with it... poof got a seat that looks like it would cost some $$ Ill put some picks up of my finished seat and maybe a step by step on what it took to completed I have enought mats for 3 more seats.

streetbrawler750 Yeah i dont like that last little bit of frame sticking out of the back of the seat, and It will be worse once i put on my new seat. Should i just cut those arms off just above the point the shocks attatch, grind them smooth, and weld up the opening?? Im not much of a metal woker but I have a few buddis that could hook me up. thanks for pointing the drum out man I hadn't even noticed it, but it dose stick out there I already have some High heat paint and primmer so Ill knock that out as well.

Another thought I had had is to take the exhaust and keep it 4 pipes the whole way and have two turned out tips just past the end of the frame on each side.

 

ok here is the seat I made






the stitching is the only thing that took some time its a black and white stitch it turned out prety neat!

 

Ya just sawzall em off and clean em up with a bit of metal, where the two pipes meet I cut a piece of flat metal to smooth it off and tie it together, and close up the end, click my link in my signature and you can kinda see what I did, I left it long to attach tail/brake lights. Ya I never noticed the exhaust that would be cool to do what you said I have seen black chrome ones like you described, that would be cool, keep it dark!

 

Seat looks good!

 

Ty for the heads up on the old brackets. The seat was my very first attempt at doing a seat myself after i get another pan ill do a step by step.
Here are a few pics of the drag bars and grips I got, both grip typs have built in turn signals. I dont know if I will be able to make these mirorrs work, looks like I will have to play around with them and see what I can do.





the grips with the chrome are very cheaply made dont think I am going to use them they are all plastic and rubber

 

very nice!

 

Duplicolor high temp clearcoat.

 

Is that the clearcoat I need to help protect the tank from gas?? and do they have it in a flat?

 

Pretty good job on the seat! I've been looking on utube and a few other sites trying to find out something about building a seat from scratch. Have found out unless you're planning on tooling the leather, it's pretty doable (famous last words :lol: ). Kinda partial to flat myself. Don't know anything about them but have seen "suede" colors in some of the hotrod mags. Real nice...

skillet
BTW gonna start hitting the Goodwill stores to see if I can find a jacket or coat (leather). Every now and then you can pick one up at REAL good price.

 

Yeah Skillet, I did it from scratch just bought a seat pan off e-bay. For the memory foam that i used, I just bought a set of 4 memory foam pillows off e-bay as well. It was a pain to cut the memory foam neatly. a few blogs hintted saying to use the edge of a table and compress it as you cut it using an electric triming knife. I found it actualy easyer to put it in the freezer for a few min and pull it out to cut. The foam solidifies a bit so you can make your cuts easy. I just used some vinyl I bought at walmart for $3 a yard and used a little hand held travle sewing machine to sew the white and black together. I sretched the vinyl over the foam and sucured it with blind rivets on the bottom after getting it tight and wrinkle free, I noticed the seam trying to pull apart so I decided to hand stitch it down both the seams to strengthen them. It took forever to stitch due to the fact I dont know how lol. All in all everything I bought cost me around $50 and other than the seat pans i have way more than enough mats to build more. Im going to look on e-bay for some cheap seat pans. Ill build some more to just get back any cash I put into this. I also think that a flat pan might look a bit better guess I will see. Its not that hard at all, and on my next one i want to use actual leather mayby an ostrich skin or print. I need to find a good soarce for the leathers.

 

I saw some leather "remnants" on ebay once and they were fairly reasonable. Googled them and found even better prices. Try that.

 

I'll have to try Google Seaguy, THANKS! Since I wasn't planning on any tooling, an old jacket or coat (besides being cheap) could have that distressed look. Good idea about freezing the foam...

skillet
BTW have been told that Tandy has a couple of books on lacing (for the edge) less than $10

 

I don't know if it comes in flat. It's high temp engine enamel. I've used it on 2 bikes and it holds up pretty good. I'm still super careful fueling up and immediately blot away any accidental gas drips. I'm not sure how it'd hold to a complete soaking.

 

I actualy orderd some black aligator skin and white initialy from ebay and the peices that came in are not near usable all scratched up with wholes in them not a godd solid peice to work with. and the white hide I bought was at miost a dirty tan color.

 

UHHHHH......THAT SUCKS !!!

skillet

 

Is the fork shortened or additional rake to the front end to get it lowered? I like it!!!

 

The Guy I bought the bike from said all hed did was get shorter shocks for the rear and shortened the front forks to lvl out the front end. He placed the bike on a stand and lvled it out by loosening the upper and lower fork hdwr and just tightened it in the proper position. So there were no rake mods at all. He said It was real simple. Overall it was lowered 3" in the rear and around 1.5" in the front.

 

boy, I gotta say, having flat black paint and then the gloss black x engine....

in all honesty I like the current paint job 10x as much as a flat black, but I do like the seat and bars alot better than whats on there...

just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions

 

To be honest with ya, I dont think I am gona be able to pull off the flat black. I have found a nice satin clear coat that I tested the other day lol. I sanded down some old crutches, primerd, painted flat black, and clearcoated. I let it all sit and dry all night long. Today I took them out and dowsed them in gas let it sit for a while till the gas had dried. I would have to say the clearcoad did a decent job it didnt buble or damage the paint to noticably. It did kinda dull the clearcoat a little bit but hardly even able to tell. suprisingly what I used was an outdoor "cough" satin wood "cough lacquer "cough". A buddy at work told me about it Figured I would try it. I only aplied one coat of each layer of the paint job. I am still waiting for the protective clearcoat I orderd online thats meant for automotive apps. I will test it the same way. Who knows this wood stuf might actualy work. For the Life of me I cant find a flat clearcoat so satin is what I am going to go with.

 

I don't want to say you're locked in to certain colors or a particular color scheme, but the black/white seat has you limited. The seat looks great. I'd hate to see all the hard work on the seat kind of fizzle out because it looks like it doesn't belong. I really feel flat black has been done more times than Pamela Andersen, but flat black is going to bring out the best in that seat. It won't look like it's just thrown on there as an afterthought. That's my opinion and Schooter's already told us about those.

 

I have the mats to do another seat of I can just sell off the black and white one that I did alread I am sure I can get my money back lol. But I can pull of a nice gloss job and still keep the seat. I could even do a red or blue paint job with a white racing stiripe that is boarderd with black, that would let me keep the seat.

 

Here are the design layouts I have in mind the first was one that I was going to pay to get done but cant see spending 2,500 on the bike.

Flat

Red

blue

Purpple

 

Where'd you get those nifty handlebars?

 

got em from a local motorcycle salvage yard.. Queen city motors in Clarksville TN the grips and mirrors are from e-bay

 

I just blacked out the grips with nightshades they turned out prety sweet

 

I dig the scallops, I think that gloss black would look good with grey and white, just my .02

 

Dang, a maxim X, lucky SOB. But seriously, both those sets of grips are cheaply made. Ask me how I know The pointed ones look cool until the lenses fog up and start to shrink their way out of their spots.

 

One thing you could try is "000" steel wool the satin clear to make it flat.

 

if you don't go crazy the paint souldn't cost that much. Ask around at the local body shops the smaller places are probably a better bet. ask what it would cost to paint the tank with some left over paint. The color choices will be limited but you never know ask around they might have something you like. If you pick a color you are prob looking at 500 bucks or so for them to do all the prep work, base clear and back to you. If you like the color of any car at a dealer doesn't matter the make any body shop can make that color easily. thats what I did cost me 100 bucks but I know a guy.

 

yeah I went to a collision repai shop and asked about a flat clearcoat... they said that the closest you can get is satin and if you want to keep the flat look and protect it just wax the crap out of the flat paint. they said it wont cause it to shine much more but will still portect it and make it feel smooth.... so looks like I am gona be one waxin sob

realy man dont tell me that I realy like those pointed ones I can see what your saying though the lenses are just held in place by some weak glue... thye do look sharp with the black out spray though.

 

I almost bought that bike on ebay. is there any way u could tell us what kind of shocks and kickstand those are?

 

I will contact the seller again and ask him so far he just said that they were shorter shocks ill get you guys a Part# or location to buy em... ran into an issue today there was a bump in the raod that I wasnt able to avoid withe the spings as low as they are my fender contacted the wheel and statched the tread up on the tier not deep enought to be a bid deal but something I have to watch out for now. And this bike looks damn good as is so I may not even touch it who knows But I did get asked like three times what was done to the bike to make it sit so well... Props to Gorge!

 

ya... I really like your X, I wouldnt put rattle can to that bike... but i have a 700 airhead that will work great

 

oh ya, and just an fyi... htey say to paint black header wrap every year or else they turn grey....

 

According to a friend that manages an auto paint supply house, there is a flattening agent that can be added to clearcoat for a shine-free protection. But that's beyond the realm of the rattle can.

 

well i got the drag bar on and it looks awsome..... but.... the turn signal grips I have arnt working at all I stayed in the garage till 2am messin with them and just gave up. my issue..... the bulbs in the grips have a single contact point at its base. the original lights have two. I have tried all sorts of things but no mater what i do the new lights will not even light up I am not geting them to ground properly the base of the new lights only have a single wire coming from them. any clues??

 

Haha you wernt kiding about those grips being cheap finaly wired em up and went to use the setscrew to lock the left grip in place.... well as soon as I started to fell any tq whatsoever the housing thred striped out so looks as though its going to be the glue on method for me lol.. but they do look awsome with the drag bar Ill throw some pics up tomarow.

 

Can you post pics of the seat that came with the bike? I'd like to see the underneath & maybe a side shot of the seat off the bike. The seat you made is awesome, BTW, but that 1st one fits the style I'd like to go one day with my bike.

Thanks!

 

np man I am gona pull it out tomarow for pics I just finished the paint job... Looks good but.. the flat black once waxed looks like a simi gloss grey now, o well still looks good. I pull the seat and get a couple of shots for you as well.

 

If he doesn't want the seat I might be interested...

 

If you still have the seat that was on the bike when you purchased it, can you post some pics of it?

I'm in the process of bobbing my XJ700 (non-X) and want to try to make my seat as close as possible to what you've got there.

Thanks

 

Same request here, but probably this thread is dead...