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Oh WOW! Shimmy, you just made my day
I hustled on over to Classified Moto's site and the first pic I saw in the gallery had the kind of side covers I was talking about building. Same materials, everything. I was worried about how they would look, now I know. Awesome
Lots of great ideas on there, nice to see someone else as obsessed with playing with metal as I'm getting to be.

Thanks Dude, it's always a lightbulb moment when someone introduces you to new inspiration.

And here I thought I was being selfish wanting somebody else to do the work of figuring out how to do it.

Not quite what I had in mind, but still very cool ;D

www.pipeburn.com/home/2014/04/14/1981-ka...td.html#.U0vtYPldX-o

Got my "new" Vance & Hines exhaust in today, not crazy about it being a one piece welded unit. No wonder the shipping was balls-out crazy. The airbox the seller kindly threw in for free has a busted cap, but between it and the one that came in the basket-o-parts, I can cobble together one good set.

The megaphone was welded on?

Megaphone and header pipes. Sure hope that they're aligned right...

I'm pretty sure mine is a Mac or some other system but the headers to collector are all welded but then the megaphone is a clamp/slip on

Well Tusch, you may be right, what looked like weld seems like it could have been crud. I spent a large portion of my day with a pail of Pepsi and some aluminum foil. Cleaned a ton of thick crusted rust and God knows what else off of the exhaust. Got the collector box and the mufflers scrubbed down, there's actually some really pretty blueing under there. The inner parts of the headers are too close together for my stubby fingers, so I've got them sitting in a rough tote of vinegar, I'll take another stab at them after work tomorrow night...

And now, the tank!

I got that hideous chud paint off of it finally, whatever they used, that shit was tough

After I gave up on the exhaust for the day, I started sanding the tank, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800,1000,1500,2000 and then my new least favorite substance Autosol. It actually seemed to knock the shine back a couple of stages

I noticed the texture coming out after the 220, but decided to let it ride. It started growing on me. Especially with the dents, and the bacon taking on an almost pewter-ish look.

Managed to get the main dent reduced by about half with the bathroom plunger. Kinda pissed, but without a dolly, or a slide hammer and/or a welder, there's only so much I could do. Heat gun and ice/compressed air propellant were totally useless.

So, from about 15 feet, it looks pretty decent. Kinda rough and ready, got some character. I'm pretty stoked to see how it looks with some decals and a nice off-size set of stripes up top, and a clear coat. Regardless, it's light years better than what I was dealing with before.

Just a thought... i have seen good results on tank dents using a blood pressure cuff stuffed in behind the dent and inflated....they are fairly cheeap and might be worth a try.

Holy cow, Fast, you just might be psychic!

I saw a video of that yesterday, and ordered a cuff in, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Almost forgot the new & revised shopping list:

Reupholster or replace the seat
Tires
Chain & sprockets (Seeing as how the theoretical current top speed is more than I'm going to need, I'm toying with upping the acceleration, worried about standing in an intersection watching the bike ride off without me though...)
Overflow and re-breather lines

Best of luck to you on the pressure cuff, hope to see good results!