82 Maxim Bobber in progress

Still in the tear down and clean phase, but this is the first bike I have taken apart. The plan is to relocate the battery and most of the controlling electronics to an ammo box mounted off the left rear wheel (saw this done before and looks great), the airbox will be moved to an ammo box off the left rear wheel (if I can get the air flow right), 2.5" drop in the rear, and conversion to LEDs... I forgot to mention the seat will be off of a 1938 Ford tractor, just need to find someone to do the upholstery. This is going to be a long winter.

 

Just my $.02, but the tractor seat kinda overpowers the bike (it's size)...

skillet
BTW I know nothing so my $.02 may not even worth that :roll:

 

The seat will be cut down a bit to fit more in with the bike... I just want the full seat look and thepan is a good place to start I think...

 

Don't upholster it. Cut it down it you want, paint it then ride it like that.

 

It DOES look like a good starting point :wink: ...

skillet

 

Oh another thing I hope you got long legs. I lowered my bike about 2" and can barely flat foot it on both sides. But I did not cut my seat down.

 

Dido X2

 

I like the idea, itll be differant, but im havin a hard time imagining it workin on a maxim, the seat seems to be a bit too big and the bike a bit too small. Just an idea but it may match up better if you do a seat like that on a bigger/wider bike. but for all i know it could turn out to look bada$$ so if you do make sure you keep us posted.

 

Here is the update so far... Have the rear wheel off to make more room for grinding. I have removed the harnesses for the side covers and am working at grinding/filing off the remaining bits,

 

I messed up that reply, here are more pics. Have started working on grinding down the front fender mounts as the fender will no longer be going on the bike. Now it is just time for more cleaning, amazing how dirty a 30 year old bike can get!

 

I also cleaned the heck out my garage and lined the top with 6 mil plastic so I don't freeze in here this winter. 35 degrees outside, a balmy 68 in the garage.

 

you're gonna have a blast... i'm working on mine right now and it's been pretty cold (no heat in the garage) but i'm surprised how warm it gets when i'm in there... can't wait to see what you do with this bike..

 

I have been filing/sanding the brackets on the frame where I took the side covers off... I should clarify, I have been filing/sanding ONE bracket down to the frame. for the last 3 hours. It is smooth as a baby's bottom. For some reason I thought it would take me 30 minutes, but had a shock of reality once I looked up at the clock!

There are 6 more brackets which I have to smooth down, and if I feel as rewarded after those as I do after my first one I know I will only love this project even more.

I wish I had started tooling on bikes, cars, hell anything that moves! a long time ago... Working on the bike may be the best feeling in the world!

 

to sand that shit down..just use a grinder with a 40 or 60grit wheel.. it'll go quick.... or cut em off with a cut off wheel... grinders are a true help with this stuff... if you've got an air compressor get a die grinder which is small enough to get into everywhere...i've been using mine all the time with wire wheels and stuff to clean and buff stuff..especially old paint!!.. get one with an angled head which makes life easier... i picked one up from princess auto for 20 bucks... and a grinder i got a while back from there too in there summer sale for 5 bucks!..

 

I have used my grinder and cut wheel... Just doing the finishing work

 

Although I think that the tractor seat was overkill, I have seen some nicer lawn tractor seats under $50, not quite as big but padded, upholstered and comfy looking.

 

I will look into the law tractor seats, that could be a great alternative. I am at the point right now where I realized the tear down of the bike was the easy part. Getting all of the fine tune sanding, grinding, cutting, rewiring does not have the same "quick reward" feeling the tear down did. I finally have started keeping a log of the time I spend in the garage and am astounded at the results.

Since I started just over 3 weeks ago, I have around 140 hours into the bike (for what little I have gotten done this feels like a lot, but since I have never done anything like this before I am cutting myself some slack). Considering in those same 3 weeks I have only worked a little under 180 hours, it is no wonder my garage is my second home.

I finished smoothing out the right front fork where I removed the fender mounts yesterday. Today (finally a day off from work) have mostly been working on finish smoothing the frame where the side cover brackets were removed.

Heck, I just saw I never posted this before returning to work on the bike, so I will do a bit of an update.

I was getting anxious to work on the gas tank, so I removed the Yamaha emblems and took a grinder to the welds which held the emblem bracket on the left side. Got that smoothed out and applied body filler. Currently letting the body filler dry (I have no clue if I did it right, but everything seems to be hardening nicely, and I figure if I messed it up I can always sand it down a redo it).

This turned into quite a long post. I will post pictures of the tank once the filler is sanded down.

 

Fixin' to do the body putty thingy with my tank. Did you use more than one layer???

skillet

 

I have done 2 layers so far. Because this is my first time using filler I figured better be safe with the sizable insets behind the bracket. I will have to do a 3rd layer because I messed up when sanding, but 95% of what I have done is seemless between the tank and the filler... I will get a pic up as soon as my 2nd layer is dry and sanded

 

I do wish I had a power sander... my hands and forearms are killing me with all the manual sanding going on