Been hankering to build something recently, and my lovely wife told me that i couldn't mess with the Buell because she liked to ride it how it was, so i picked up a 1982 Yamaha Virago 920 from DeathmetalDan for $300. The bike had been sitting outside under a tarp for a while and was in pretty rough condition, but as i am only planning on keeping the engine and swingarm, it fit the bill quite nicely.
My plan is to strip it down, build a custom frame, tank and tail. My goal is to have a striped down bike that is basically wheels and an engine. I haven't decided completely on the styling, however i am going to be putting spokes on it and the bodywork will be primarily carbon fiber. Oh and the other thing is i am going to do my best to not spend any money from our budget on the bike. I am planing on funding the bike with side-work. so if you have anything that you need done, hit me up.
I also have parts left over from the last build, including these USD forks from a GSXR 750 that were in really bad shape that i cleaned up and am rebuilding.
Here is the bike as it sits newly introduced to its stable-mate.
and the fork rebuilding:
thanks for looking and i will have more to come soon.
~Chris
that is the plan. I dont have a welder powerful enough to get the penetration i will need, but i have both welder friends as well as car-building friends so between the two i think i should be okay. the first order of business is to strip the bike down and see what i have to work with. which is always fun, except for the critters that will have to be evicted. I was already attacked by a 4" diameter wolf spider. *heebie jeebies*
sub'd.... cant wait to see what you do with this. i loved what you did with the CBR... thats the bike that first got me hooked. i have a 90 F1 and i was looking for stuff on CBR's and ran across that one.
Most excellent. Ya know I got the SV on the road a while back. Maybe I could ride down there so you can peep it out and I can see this build in the flesh.
I always like these Virago biulds. Takes talent to turn such a turd into something cool!! There have been a few and I love the way the V-twin looks in the finished product.:shocker:
okay so i only had about an hour yesterday to work on the bike due to some conflicts, and should have more time today, however i was able to make some headway it stripping it down.
I am really sorry for the crappy pics, my camera was having a bad day.
just some of the crap i pulled off of this thing
Is it just me, or does this bike have a lot of electronics for a carb, air-cooled bike? Maybe because of the digital gauges? i am going to go through the wiring diagram and see what i can cut out.
Is it just me, or does this bike have a lot of electronics for a carb, air-cooled bike? Maybe because of the digital gauges? i am going to go through the wiring diagram and see what i can cut out.
I agree with the excessive electronics. There seems to be a lot of bulky relays on my virgao 750, way more than my KZ1000 of a similar year. I think removing the old gauges and some of the safety circuits will help trim it down.
Anyway good luck with the build! Kinda bums me out though as I suspect your build will outclass mine if you put as much attention into this as you did your CBR.
i am going to do my best to simplify the bike as much as possible. KISS and all that.
I hope to make this one much better than the CBR as i learned SO much from that build. I am hoping to make this one alot more precise and clean with more machined parts and since i will be getting rid of just about everything i can start with a clean slate and not have to worry about integrating antiquated components.
Chris, your CBR build has inspired me to join the fighter ranks with my '98 F3. I've been constantly going back to your build thread for motivation and inspiration. I can't wait to see this new project develop over time and watch the design, machining, and fabrication that I myself enjoy so much. Definitely subscribed!
sadly there isnt a whole lot of "progress" right now as i am just stripping everything off and figuring what i have to work with. I got some 1.5" tubing ordered through my friend who has been using it for the roll cage in is opel GT. going to do a vertical stack of two.
The pile of stuff i have pulled off just keeps growing. though it is about as big now as it will ever be. gonna start cleaning parts up and selling them, so if you think of something you want, let me know.
Got the bike down to engine and frame.
i also got the swinger and rear wheel off, but the primary drive is stuck to the wheel, so i need to get that off. i am also contemplating rebuilding the swinger a little beefier with round tube to match the frame.
i like how it looks like this...
all in all i am getting the bike to where i can start the frame building, then i will be upgrading the swingarm. after that i will make the "lower" frame to tie the swinger, engine and main frame together. once that is done i will make the triples, and have a roller to start the subframe and body-work.
since i dont have a good picture of the engine and frame, i stole apollyon's gorgious setup and interposed my crappy MS paint over it as an idea of what i am planning on doing. 1.5" dia steel tube welded together with a brace near the neck and the front section will be covered in plate, alot like apollyon's for the front engine mount. again.. this is a crude sketch, there will be a radius at the bend rather that sharp corner.
thoughts?
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