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!!!