My Current Project

[breahn riley]

Well here it is. 1980 Special torn apart. So far I have lowered the front shocks 2 inches and shaved them down. Hopefully get the new dropped seat rails in soon. Sportster tank from lowbrow. Goin to have new gear ratio with 520 chain. Overhaul the motor with new gaskets. Tryin to figure out if im running bs 34 carbs or if ill upgrade to the bs 38s. If anyone has made the swap I would like to hear about it. Ill have to relocate the mountin bracket for the new 10.5 in rear shocks. Probaly gunna run pamco ignition. Tryin to figure out if Im goin batteryless or just runnin a small batt. I plan on fabricating my own wiring harness as well. Kick only and pullin the starter out and pluggin up that huge hole with a kit from mikesxs. Really goin for clean brat look, low weight and some more power. Also looking for some small turn signals that kinda look retro/vintage but havent found anything i like. I am open for all info about anything I've listed. Let me know what you think and im gunna try to keep update and the build goes on.

 

[BigJimmyW13]

I like it. Man, those wheels are gonna need some work or are you going to leave it as is?

 

[breahn riley]

no i actually painted the wheels brown.

 

[BigJimmyW13]

Alright totally different ballgame then! Let me know if you're going to do the PMA swap for batteryless.

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[breahn riley]

Yeah ive been thinking about batteryless. i wanna keep weight down and avoid the cluttered look. do you run the batteryless system? im just skeptical about the permanet magneto making enough juice to give full spark to the plugs as well as running lighting. Whats your setup? What did it cost start to finsh? Likes or dislikes?

 

[BigJimmyW13]

Well to give you an accurate cost estimate are you running points or TCI?
My set up is a custom stator plate, vf500 stator, banshee rotor, vf500 Reg/Rect, Pamco ignition, Green Monster coil, 25v 10,000uf Capacitor. There's quite a few ppl out there running the batteryless set up. Don't kid yourself and think your lights won't dim a little when at a stop light/sign though. It'll cost more if you're running TCI than if you're running points.

 

[breahn riley]

Yeah mine is a tci bike. I'm pretty sure I'm gunna run pamco. For now the battery is just one more thing on the list, where do I mount the batt and what size? Questions like that

 

[fongbros]

Looks good. the wheels got my attention right away. Nice aged look to them. Good luck with it.

 

[NoValidTitle]

Wow yeah I'm interested to see this come together, once I get one rolling we'll have to meet up. I love the look of the rims.

 

[breahn riley]

yeah for sure. just got my pan goin today. gunna start making templates for seat rails and gussets tmmrw. hopefully she is ready to go end of april. i kinda hope it gets cold again, im jealous of my friends gettin to ride already.

 

[breahn riley]

I havent gotten much done with the frame lately. Here are the seat rails welded in and seat pan just placed on top. Next step is gettin rear shocks so i can wrap up the welding.

 

[breahn riley]

Well ive made some forward progress. This past weekend I got the brackets for the shocks and tank mounted. Im pretty happy with how it turned out. With the tank, where the petcock sits, the end of the petcock pretty much bottoms out on the top of the valve cover. So I will have to order a new one that turns at a 90 degree angle instead of goin straight down. The rear shocks dont have much spring so I think its goin to be a stiff ride, hopefully still better than a rigid. Hopefully get the fender worked out this weekend, already got it figured out how im goin to mount it. Put the motor back in to see where it lands with all the controls and i can already see that im goin to have to rework the rear brake lever. Just gotta get the fender worked out, figure out where im mounting the pan, build a battery box and get it mounted, and where im storing the wiring. Once I have that all figured out im gunna rip it all apart, give her a proper sandblasting and start painting. Been thinking im just goin to clear coat the frame and swingarm and paint everything esle but who knows. Also put in the new tapered bearings and that went soooo easy. Here are some pics, let me know what you guys think??

 

[Teebs]

Very nice looking brat! And someone who took an interest in making the front look as clean as the back (neck gussets!)

This is the first time I've seen your thread. I was wondering if you've had someone with your same approximate weight sit on the bike so you could see the swingarm in it's compressed position? Or have a friend or family member take a pic of you on it. The reason I mention this is that with the added weight on it, the swingarm pivot point is likely going to be lower than at the axle, making it sag in the middle. This may even cause bottoming issues in certain conditions. Not sure if that's the case, but I wanted to bring it to your attention if you hadn't considered it.

 

[breahn riley]

Teebs, are you saying that the travel of my shocks looks greater than ground clearence that I have, and that will cause it too bottom out before full shock compression?

 

[Teebs]

Yes, at least it looks like it may be close, because of those particular pipes. I'm not certain, I just wanted to raise the question. One thing I'm fairly certain of though, is that it will appear to be sagging in the middle, regardless, because your swingarm is level without a rider on it. Once you sit on it, the swingarm will be lower in the front than the back, and the frame will be lower in the back than the front.

In the attached picture you can see the original swingarm position, and that the frame is slightly higher at the back of the motor than the front, so that it will level out with a rider's weight pushing down right above the pivot point.

 

[Teebs]

A quick photochopped example. I exaggerated the angles, but it demonstrates the idea:

 

[breahn riley]

Yeah, I can see that. Ill have to take a closer look today. Thanks for the heads up!!

 

[breahn riley]

Well Teebs, i'm in the clear with clearence. plenty of room, these rear shocks are pretty stiff and dont travel as much as i thought they would. Just got my fender mounted. i wanted to run the bracing on the inside of the shocks and have it parallel the shock body. not enough room, i was running into the sprocket. so i just mounted them on the outside of the shock body and a took a diff angle. not exactly what i wanted but i like the way it looks.

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all that i have to do now is get the wiring done, mount the seat pan and some controls and see if she fires up. I will be starting a thread on my wiring harness. I hope people pay attention cause I think theyre alot of us asking the same questions.