Well, I pretty much finished up dad's bike. Sorry to say it took me 2 years and 2 months to finish. He passed away from ALS in April of 2011. This was kind of my therapy since my wife and I moved into his house and it gave something to do besides just going thru his things and bringing ours to the house. I kind of started before he passed buy just started to remove and clean things. The plastics were pretty much severely damaged from multiple drops before he quit riding, but I have repaired them pretty nicely (almost unnoticeable). I thought it would be wrong to get rid of them for serving him so well and took it on as challenge. I did get a new fairing frame and had to repair the fairing frame stay (lug). Both were pretty well fractured up. I test drove it around the neighborhood on Saturday and took it for its first "ride" with my wife on Father’s Day Sunday. It did great, no issues at all. That was such great feeling and hope he was watching.
It’s an '87 with a many mods added. The idea is that this is for just cruising around for day trips and that longer trips will be done with my other one ('87 also). I pretty much blacked out everything. It was gentry grey. Everything was disassembled and at a minimum inspected, cleaned, and lubed or polished. All the rubber parts that are accessible without an engine tear down were replaced. New tires. 4-piston CBR calipers up front feel like they could do a stoppie. Spiegler front lines. Front springs cut for a stiffer suspension with 15w. Shock fluid changed. Golden Spectro 20w50 that is from a case dad still had unopened from at least 1990 something. Petcock rebuild. T-Cro's stick coils. Steve's power jet kit and exhaust sprocket. LEDs everywhere. Corbin seat. Custom sewn passenger pad. Modified tag bracket and tiny LED lights. The list goes on.
There's still a few things to be done or added later. When I find the right tiny LED lights is Snarf’s light brackets. Also later are the short '86 clip-ons with new grips. The current ones are in good working order and they're heated (still need to be hooked up, but it is June in VA). The speedo/odometer are kind of quirky and probably need replacing. I also need to find a lock for the left side glove box lid and re-key it.
I would like to thank the members and friends who are pretty much one and the same that gave me guidance, support, and either gave or sold parts to me. I'm sure that many of you have done things like this yourselves and know the value of your friends’ contributions. I truly value each and every one of you no matter how small or trivial you think you contributed to this. From parts, to just a post somewhere on the forum, it is equally valuable in the end when doing a project like this.
I will take a few "good" pictures in the near future and post them. Now it is time to tear the other one down .... and update my signature line.
Thanks again,
Frank Hunt
