VN800 Bobber project

[CustomVN]

Ok I had a day off work today so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for new pictures.

Anyway, today I met with a painter to discuss my ideas and we've picked out the metal flake we're going to use, and the Kandy we're going to lay over the top, talked about scallop designs and organised a pin striper. All materials will be from the House of Kolor so this paint job should look as good as they come! I also got the answers to the 3 big questions I had: how soon can I drop it off to be done (answer, 1 month from now), how long will it take (answer, about 2 weeks), and how much $$$ (answer, less than half what I was expecting!).

Given how much time I had left on my hands after that, I developed a real desire to spend some good quality time sitting in a very long queue, so I went down to the Department of Transport and ordered some vanity plates for the bike. I almost fell over backwards when I found out my first choice was still available ... so in about 4 weeks time I'll have a plate on the back of my bike that reads BOBBER.

[CustomVN]

I did a little more work on the seat pan over the weekend, but with two small babies in the house I have very limited time available where I can make a lot of noise cutting and grinding, so I didn't get as much done as I should/could have.

First you can see the design marked out on some 3mm thick steel plate. Turns out I had so much material left over that I'm actually going to make two of them. You never know when I'll need/want to build another of these bikes and having a seat done and ready to bolt on in future will be a bonus.



About 15 minutes later after using a 4" angle grinder and a $1.50 cutting disk I had the raw outline of the seat pan. I cleaned up the edges with a grinding disk, and over the course of the next couple of nights I'll hand file the edge just to finish it off. Of course the second one is also cut out and ready to go.



And lastly I started making the brackets to mount the front of the seat. I don't have the tools to put a neat 90 degree bend in 3mm thick metal, so quick trip to the hardware store and I found some roof truss cleats in 3mm thick metal with 90 degree bends in them. A few dollars each and some cutting, grinding and drilling and they are coming together. I'll make another like this and weld it to the under side of the front of the seat pan and run a bolt through the hole shown to hold it in place. This mount won't actually be taking much of my weight it's more for just locating it.

[CustomVN]

Well I've finally got some curve in this seat pan, thanks to the help of another friendly Hot Rodder.

Unfortunately I didn't get the curve exactly right, but that happens when you don't have the bike handy to go back and forth to check your design. I'm about 90% happy with the shape and support it gives, so hopefully hand hammering it the rest of the way will get me to that 100%. But I do love the look of it: it follows the line of the frame perfectly, the shape came out great and my final seat height with standard suspension will not be much higher that the top of the rear tire!

These pictures showing it sitting in place as it will be mounted, although I haven't welded the brackets on yet, but hopefully I'll get to that this weekend.

[likearock4x4]

NICE!!!! You gonna pad it yourself, or have it done?

[CustomVN]

Originally Posted by likearock4x4

NICE!!!! You gonna pad it yourself, or have it done?

I'll have it padded and trimmed for me. I'm having a little trouble at the moment finding a trimmer locally who can hand carve designs into leather, but we'll get there.

I'm looking forward to properly mounting this thing on Saturday. I might even ride it around the block after that

[btob]

That pan came out really nice. Kuodo's!

[CustomVN]

Thanks mate

[likearock4x4]

Originally Posted by btob

That pan came out really nice. Kuodo's!

Yep, and I'll bet it's comfy--considering it's made custom for YOUR seat!!!

[CustomVN]

Well I'll tell you next week, after we mount it and then I can put my full weight on it, and hopefully ride around the block on it. If I could do it over again I'd continue putting the curve in it for about half the length of the pan, not just the last 1/4 of it.

I only intend for the seat including padding and covering to be somewhere between 1/2 to 1" thick, so comfort obviously hasn't been my primary focus. Which I'll probably regret later...

[likearock4x4]

Originally Posted by CustomVN

Well I'll tell you next week, after we mount it and then I can put my full weight on it, and hopefully ride around the block on it. If I could do it over again I'd continue putting the curve in it for about half the length of the pan, not just the last 1/4 of it.

I only intend for the seat including padding and covering to be somewhere between 1/2 to 1" thick, so comfort obviously hasn't been my primary focus. Which I'll probably regret later...

If you plan to do any riding on it, you will. That's for sure.

[CustomVN]

Well it looks like I've got access to the rollers I used on the seat pan again on Saturday morning, so I think I'll put a little more roll in it to about half it's length. That way I will be happy and ensured a good base to sit on without sliding off the back, as at the moment it's a bit touch and go. I want to be 100% happy before I get it covered.

The other good news is I just found out that my rear fender blank and Sparto style tail light have just arrived from the US, so I'll pick those up tomorrow as well. I'll start trying to mount those properly next weekend, but I'll take a picture of them sitting loosely in place so you can get an idea of how it will all tie together.

[CustomVN]

Well after a very busy day on Saturday the seat pan is finally done and mounted!.

I went back down to a mate's workshop and we rolled the pan again as it needed more curve, and we also rolled the spare one I had too. They now look much better, provide a greater area to sit on, and more support to stop me sliding off the back.

My old man helped me weld on the mounting brackets and studs, although don't look too closely at the welds as they look like a dogs breakfast. They seat pans twisted a little at the front from the heat of welding the front brackets on, but I was able to hand hammer that back out.

So here it is finally bolted in place and reading for trimming. The rear studs bolt through the existing holes provided in the support for the original seat, and at the front bolts to a little bracket I made and bolted onto the battery hold down bracket. So I can still easily return the bike to stock if need be.

After waiting 5 weeks my rear fender and tail light finally arrived from the US and I picked those up on the way home and will hopefully mount those next weekend.

Thanks again to the local Hot Rod community who seem more than willing to continuously help me out!

[btob]

Mr. Moderator, where are you?????

[zedx11]

she has a game????

[wattage]

Looking good!

What are your plans for the cowl behind the seat?

[CustomVN]

Originally Posted by wattage

What are your plans for the cowl behind the seat?

You mean that excess plastic guard that looks like a "C" shape around the front of the rear fender? I'm basically just going to trim off all the excess, aside from that what you see is what you get.

I've just booked the seat pan to be trimmed by one of the best motorcycle seat trimmers in Australia, so it will be sent off to Sydney at the end of the month for an awesome hand tooled leather covering that should hopefully help make this bike a knock out!

[likearock4x4]

Cool, I can't wait to see it.

[CustomVN]

Ok people here's one of the biggest changes now completed, the rear fender.

This went a little easier that I thought it would, although my tire clearance in now very minimal (about 3/8 of an inch) but I've been told I should be ok using the Metzeler tires.

Here it all is in great detail, with an explaination of each picture.

1. Here's the raw fender as purchased from the Custom Chrome catalogue. A flat 6" wide steel fender made in Mexico of all places. And as you can see I have a spare.





2. First step was to mount the classic Sparto style tail light (made in Taiwan) to the fender to help me figure out how much fender to chop.





3. Here you can see I've lined it up so the flat face of the tail light is roughly vertical, and I'm getting good tire coverage like this.





4. Now I've marked up how much to chop off.





5. And cut off the excess. The left over would make an excellent 'shorty' fender for a real bad *** scoot...

[CustomVN]

6. Ok first problem encountered: you can see the bolts I want to use to mount the fender are lining up with the sloping sides of the fender, not the flat surface.





7. So I notched the sides of the fender.





8. And using pliers and a vice, started to flatten this area out.





9. Now you can see I'll end up with a flat surface to bolt up too.





10. Here it is all properly flattened out, excess cut off each end, corners nicely rounded, edges smoothed and drilled ready for mounting.





11. And here you can see it bolted in place.

[A2rider]

Looks really good. Love the taillight.