1982 XJ750 Bobber style (Looking for suggestions) PICS!

Maximontherocks: I haven't really driven enough to see if i really love it, but i do like the way it looks, reminds me of an old norton. goes in pretty easy, if someone has one for sale but is missing the hardware for some reason i got an extra set of hardware, ill send it to you for price of shipping. It seems to be on there pretty tight, no more vibrations than anything else really at speeds of 60mph. really keeps the wind of your chest. most of all it covered up that ugly gauge box really good and the way it lined up it looked like it was made to fit on this exact bike.

Kaos: I understand, That picture really isn't that great, kind of a bad angle in the picture, I think i may make a new bracket for the headlight and lower the light and fairing, but if i do that i want to lower the bike first, I'm also getting rid of those big turn signals for some smaller ones my buddy is giving me. so can't lower that screen until i do that. here's a picture that gives off more of a norton commando look.



^At first i was going to do a boober style with ape hangars and the such, but i realized that i really like the way the old cafe racers and Nortons looked.



^I made this logo up, thought it would look cool, give more of the norton feel.

 

I'll reserve judgment for now but I'm wary of that fairing too. Your bike was pretty cool before..

Like the muffler wrap though, I'm officially stealing that idea. Been thinkingof doing it and it's good to see it on a bike. Let us know if any of the supposed "performance" gains are true.

Good work all around- keep us posted.

 

Nice work so far, man! I'm watching this build closely.

+1 for addressing that fish-finder that's attached to the handlebars

+1, -1 on that fairing. It seems like it belongs on a different bike... Something with 'rounder' curves. Maybe it's better in person.

-1 on the logo. I say let the Yamaha be a Yamaha.

Those are, obviously, just my opinions, so you can take them for what they are worth.

-c

 

^I photoshopped this fairing a lower, i think after looking at it i want to lower the headlight and fairing a few inches.

 

Personally, I'd try and avoid the "boober" look...as a new rider, I try to avoid looking like a boob on the bike as much as possible! :wink:

 

I finished up with the exhaust wrap, looks good. I also bought a set of drag bars and put those on the bike, only problem is they hit the tank before i can get all the way to lock... parking lot maneuvers are not easy.

Huckersteve: I don't know if I gain any power or not, but i can tell its working, the headers are not as hot to the touch so it is insulating good, now the muffler gets a lot hotter though.

 

Cool man I'm doing it. Gottsta wrap the headers I love it!

 

From the looks of your avatar, you've failed horribly.

 

Ouch! Harshy McMeanypants.

 

^So i put on new drag bars and lowered the fairing to match the lines better.


^This is just a side view of the bike with it lowered. A lot closer to the lines of the bike.


^Hid the fish finder pretty good, tucked into the fairing nicely.

You may notice in the last picture that my left mirror is gone!... It broke of riding down the rode the other day. lucky for me my neighbor had some stock Harley ones for me for the low low price of, FREE, how could i refuse. I put them on but it's 11:00 here and it is way to dark, I'll take some more pics tomorrow.

 

Looking good man! I changed out mine as well...used the headlight bucket off of a old CB 500...the fork brackets were the exact same size!

 

im in the market for a stock headlight and mount. want a few shekels towards your build?

need a fish finder and mount too...


i like the red/black color sceme...

 

LTdave: i still have the stock headlight and shell. I don't have the horns though because i reinstalled them. And the two brackets that connect to the trees are still on the bike... PM if interested. I'll take some pictures of exactly what i have for you.

 

It has been almost a year since I was last on here. I got real busy with school and wasn't able to work on the bike to much but I have recently "got back on the wagon" and started working on the bike.

First thing I did was weld together some 4" risers so the drag bars don't hit the tank.


Then I attached my Tractor Supply Co. fender.


Here's the overall view. I am going to pull the rear fender in a bit more so it is closer to the tire.


I'd love some constructive criticism and see what you guys think. Also does anyone know where I could get a decent solo seat for cheap?

 

I did the same thing with the fender and bars on mine.I cut down the origional seat to make a solo.

 

Seats from Harley Sportsters fit perfect on your bike (does on mine) or a Honda Shadow front half will fit also. There's tone of seat out there that fit on thse bikes. You just have to look around.
Here's the Sportster seat on mine:

 

I finished up on the rear fender last night. Pictures I took then weren't coming out so today I took some as soon as I got home.


^ From the side, I still need to paint the frame some more.


^ From Behind, LED tail light and probably will switch the turn signal bulbs to LED's. Does anyone have a picture of the relay I would have to replace with the new electric one.


^ I took out the battery to charge it and one of the wires fell off (the one on the left). Probably a reason why sometimes I have trouble starting it. So I made a new one using a battery cable I had lying around should work out great.

 

Where can you get risers like that (4")? I'm interested in putting drag bars on my bike and those risers are a big deal to do it. Thanks.

 

I made those risers myself. Just welded the original brackets into a 4" piece of 1/2" steel tube with bolts welded on the bottom. Seem to be plenty strong enough and although I haven't taken it out for a ride yet, they do seem to be very comfortable.

 

looking good dude, keep the pics coming. I got the cheapy solo seat from ebay think it ran me like 37 with shipping.

 

Called up my uncle who was a sportster and asked if he had his 2up seat from before he replaced it with a solo seat. He had it but didn't want to get rid of it, just in case. About 30 mins later he called back and said he remembered he had a sportster seat from a '78 harley. He grabbed it out of his garage and brought it over to my house. Looks like it may fit pretty good but i need to work it in there better. It was kind of dark but I snapped a photo anyways.

 

Miracles do happen!

After being extremely frustrated because my bike just wouldn't start I decided to pull out the starter and look at that. It looked great and the gears were perfect it spun fine, all hope was lost. Then after taking it apart I realized the brushes probably need some cleaning and may even need to be replaced soon. So I cleaned them up threw the starter back in and what do you know fired right up first time and every time after that. Maybe it wasn't so much of a miracle as it was routine maintenance, but still I couldn't be happier.

 

Got some more stuff done to it, It is so close all I need is a seat (still haven't decided where to go with this one) and hook up the horn somewhere. Then I can tear it down and paint everything, right after I make new sidecovers. of course I have to sand down all of the frame. But that should be easy because I am replacing the tank. Plus I'm going to change the gauges out, and of course i need to fix the lighting problems... new turn signal relay and brake switches. Then I can paint everything... and of course tune up everything to get it ready for this season...

So, maybe it isn't as close as I thought. But I should have it rideable for the season.

 

im with you on that one Paint. I just finished tearing down my bike. all i have left is the frame lol all other parts are bagged and labled. i took something like 300 pictures of the tear down.

suggestions if you want them. hit up the grocery store for some ziplock bags. lable everything you take off. take as many pictures as you can. and make sure you layout everything. If i didnt have this advice i probably would have just started to tear down and nothing would have been put back together. keep us posted im liking the build. im sticking pretty stock with some minor changes paint and suck but your looking good.

keep it up.

 

^I decided to make a solo seat myself and see how that works out.


^This is the latest picture of the bike.

 

Another Update on the bike. After a week of work I put on the newly painted maxim gas tank, maxim gauges and finished the seat. Also used a roll bag I bought at Walmart to hide all of the spare wires along with the horns. Ran it up and down the street a few times and it seems to be running better than ever. Here's the updated photo.

 

Is the fork brace come on the bike or did you have to Ebay it?

 

The PO put the fork brace on, I don't know where he got it.

 

How did you go about wrapping your headers? Were they on the bike or off? How did you end the wrap once you got down to the collector? Thanks.

 

I wrapped them off the bike. and once I got to the end of the collector I used some stainless steel hose clamps. I had used stainless zip ties first but the clamps worked better.

 

Yeah the clamps I got with mine sucked so I got some hose clamps and replaced them.

 

Made some side panels out of a few pieces of scrap sheet metal. Changed the headlight so now I have High and Low beam. everything seems to be working and running good. Put on my new 09 registration sticker and I am ready to ride and get an inspection sticker soon. It's been really cold and rainy out the past couple days but hopefully it will clear up soon.

 

^Newest photos of the bike. I put on 6" dogbones, they really put the handlebars in the perfect spot. I also painted the side panels black even though they aren't painted in this picture.


^Bought this engine today, It may turn out to be an aluminum anchor but who cares it only cost me $20.

 

Went out riding today, took the back roads to school and road around just to ride. bike sounds good and is pulling great. I definitely need to clean my carbs but I'm actually cleaning a spare set and syncing those then throwing them on the bike. Maybe I can convince rickomatic to help me tune them up nice since I don't have a colortune, sync tool, or a yics tool.


^Built a sissy bar out of 3/4" rigid electrical conduit. Fit in the frame perfect. Still need to paint everything. black stuff on sissy bar is just tape that held it together while JB Weld was curing.

^Got that sportster seat from my uncle. it really fits on the bike good, especially with the fender I put on it.

Going on a ride Friday, hopefully it will be as nice out then as it was today.

 

Looking good!

 

^So I painted the sissy bar so it didn't look like it got thrown on over one night... even though it did.

Trying to decide to keep the black on black on black on black look or do a red frame with dark (flat) charcoal gray tins and a black engine (Kinda like the Kawasaki Mean Streak paint job), but I don't want a red sissy bar.

Also I want to still put on the Spade pinstripe I posted about earlier and I want to cut a spade out of metal and mount it on the sissy bar with a little pad attached to it.

I also plan on replacing the side covers I mad with something with a little cleaner look to it.

 

Looking good Paintit.
I liked the one up seat you had on earlier though. I would like to see more photos of your side panels/fairings that you made. How did you mount them on? I will be making some for my bike in the near future and needed to know.

 

went to the fleamarket today and found a pair of saddle bags for $25 but I got them for $10. Put them on and they look good, I need to take some pictures though.

 

^These are the bags I got for $10.

Changed the oil today and realized I have to remove my 4 into 1 header in order to change my oil. it goes right under the drain plug. All of the other times I changed the oil I happened to do it while the headers were off anyways. I also added a baffle into the pipe (which had been torn out by the PO) Bike runs a lot smoother with some sort of back pressure and still sounds pretty good. I should be all set to go get my inspection sticker.

 

Great find on the bags.
I wanted to mount a stock oil cooler on mine but it looks like the header will be to close.
Mathematically it fits but like you the header would have to come off for an oil change.

 

Spent all day, literally 9am-10pm, cleaning out the garage so we could fit our '69 Camaro (I'll get pics soon) on one side and still have room for my father's bike and mine too. In cleaning out the garage I found some more parts my dad took off his bike to replace with something else (chrome). Got the sifter pedals from his H-D Road King, along with the linkage, I am going to turn these into forward controls. If all goes well I can use scrap metal and these parts to make some forward controls for short money, I'm going to try and do them for under $10, maybe even $0 if I can find the right bolts at the shop but I may need to buy some longer bolts somewhere down the line.

 

So $10 dollar forward controls isn't going to happen but I will be able to do them for cheap. Made a set for about $1.20 but the turned out looking really dangerous, and I don't think they could have passed inspection.

Sp I went to the local harley shop and got some Non-chrome forward control pedals from a sportster. I know the guy so he just gave them to me, also got some cool mirrors that are longer so I have no need to get bar end mirrors for my drag bars.

Got the forward control mounts of CL for $10

Miscellaneous bolts and stuff not at the shop, about $12 worth

cool Black Knurled Pegs for the forward controls $10

Scrap metal from the shop, Obvious $0

And the parts from the HD shop, Again $0

Altogether that's about $32... not bad for a really nice looking set of forward controls.

Ill get pics tomorrow or later this week, along with pics of the Camaro.

 

^Trying to fix my Oil leak, Think I got a defective O-ring.


^Took the Dice knobs that I made for guitars and used them in place of nuts on my license plate screws. I actually have a tone of these in all sorts of colors so If anyone wants some PM me and I can sell you a custom set for your guitar, bike, or anything else.


^The 4 into 1 system I have on there now.


^Used one of the exhaust tips from my dad's Harley, fit perfect on this muffler. He replaced his because one was pitting and they didn't have the same ones.


^Forward Controls cost somewhere between $30 and $40. I'm not positive because I was buying other stuff at the same time.


^As I promised pictures of our '69 Camaro. Lots of stuff done to this car, to much to list. basically it is an ongoing project and as stuff breaks we replace it with something bigger and better.

 

I know this thread is a bit old, but WHERE IN THE HELL did you get forward controls for $30-40???

 

2 posts up:

 

crap....how did I miss that???? Thanks

I don't have the hook-ups, so I guess mine will cost closer to $200 if I go that route. I'm looking at suicide shift threads right now

 

Those forward controls look good on there. Nice job!!!

 

looking back over this thread, because I'm researching sissy bars now... I like how you did yours. I was originally thinking of making something to attach to the axle and then the fender, but I might go this route instead. Do you have any more detailed info on how you attached the fender? I have a bare steel one sitting in the garage that I got from TCBros.com I need to figure out how to attach it, workin in a sissy bar, and attach the 2up sportster seat. fun, fun, fun

 

Love the light swap and forward controls.. mostly just want to subscribe and get updates!

 

looking very good man. Props on the build.