31 year old bike, 21 year old kid

Well it was a very busy weekend! I got almost nothing accomplished after I got my wheels back Saturday since I was moving stuff into my house for next year. However; Sunday was very productive albeit long. I was able to get my wheels back on with little to no trouble and finish installing the drag bars. Last week I got a m/c clamp mirror mount from a vulcan 1500 that I thought I could use with my 500ex m/c, but when I went to install it I realized that the bolts on the 500ex m/c are actually slightly offset. Oh well, in Kansas you only need a left hand mirror anyway, so I'll ride with one for a week or two until I can get some mill time and scrap aluminum at school :laugh: .

It took me almost all day to get everything adjusted just right and polish my rear brake cover, so unfortunately I didn't get to take a ride like I wanted to test the brakes, but they lock statically, and the couple of laps I took around the drive felt good.

Here are some pics I took before I loaded onto the trailer... I won't get to see it for two weeks, but hopefully at that time it will be tagged and I will be riding to Manhattan :woohoo: !!!











Here's the new M/C.




As you can see, lack of time also prevented me from washing the dust off like I had planned, but it runs and drives, I'll have plenty of time to shine her up on my week off before school!

Also in the next month or so will be an undertail job and 4 to 1 exhaust... maybe.

I need to change the date code on my camera lol! these were taken yesterday though lol.

Great news! I talked to my dad last night and he picked up the tag for my bike yesterday morning! Too bad I won't see it for another week! but at least when I move to Manhattan I'll be able to RIDE it there!

Now I have a feeling that time will slow down, dragging the next week and a half by, but I'm going to try to stay busy and not think about it so it goes as quick as possible!

cool,looks great,got to go ride after you get settled!

The bike cleaned up great Justin. You'll have alot of fun riding that old classic

Nice work.
Have fun with her, and ride safely.

Well, I'm officially done with my summer internship... I got home tonight and cleaned out my gas tank and replaced a plugged fuel filter, she runs like a champ now. I found out some bad news when I was taking my tank off... apparently I did not strap the bike down correctly/good enough when I put it on the trailer for my dad to take to get it inspected... I don't know how everyone here does it, but I set it up on the side stand, then had a strap around the front forks, a strap under the seat, and a strap through the grab handles in the back. I thought the back strap was tight enough, but somehow the center stand folded and my bike tipped over... Luckily the tank landed on the spare tire, so it got a small "soft" dent, It could have been much much worse...
For this type of thing what do you suggest. I was thinking about setting it in the sun or possibly using a little heat gun and then hitting it with some dry ice, I've hear of this working for hail dents, which are similar to what I have, but I don't know if this will damage the paint in anyway. I know some of you have experience!

Now on a much happier note... The exhaust I got IS a kerker, the muffler chrome is actually in somewhat decent shape, and the dent in the header is not nearly as bad as it looked in the picture, the baffle is completely trashed, I think it was a race version, It's really short, so it probably would have been too loud for my taste anyway... I'll make a baffle in the next couple of weeks/months and see how she sounds...

Anyhow, I'm going to fill her up in the morning, give her a nice bath and wax, then ride as much as possible for a week before school starts!

Too bad she fell over on you,but It will be an ez fix, I used a DING KING,you can get one at autozone and use it on you're car someday too.they are about 15-20 bucks ,and works great for small to med size dents.they use some kind of glue gun and a small puller.so you dont have to worry about heat or flames around your tank,I have one you can use but I used up all the glue sticks.I think they sell them separatly .

So it's been a busy few weeks getting moved in and starting school. Yesterday I finally got the KZ down to the shop and finished my undertail. I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet, but hopefully I'll have some up tomorrow. I ended up using 4 pieces of about 1/8th in. stainless steel. I think it turned out great, now I just have to do something about my giant turn signals. I'm really torn, I already have some flush mount signals, but I don't want to loose that much visibility, so I'm thinking I will use those in conjunction with integrated signals in the zx6e taillight. The only problem at the moment is being back to a starving college student... Hopefully I will have a job in the next week or so, then I will be able to scrape up enough cash for a trailer integrator kit.

Here are some pics of the undertail I did. Same basic idea that rstnick and some others have done. I used stainless steel sheet metal that we had laying around the shed and a zx6e taillight. I added an extra doodad under the plate so I didn't have to put my campus parking pass on anything that was painted.



I bolted one piece up front next to the inner fender, and slightly curved it like the fender was, to keep mud and water from getting under my seat. And another at the rear fender mount to actually mount the plate to.



This shows the brackets I used to hold on the taillight and also the led tag lights that I used.





Next up I'll probably be taking off the lift handles and trading for some flush mound turn signals and integrated taillight. I'm thinking I'm going to lose the center stand and put on that Kerker, but I've still got to make a new baffle for it and get some new jets... All in due time.