Hey everyone! This forum has been a big help to me over the last year or two of messing around with this bike. Thought I'd share some progress photos as it evolves.
Quick back story:
I got this bike over a year ago as a surprise present for my wife who has always wanted to learn to ride so she can come with me on my bike days and such. I bought it for $400 from an older guy out in the countryside. The bike would only start when sprayed with some starter fluid, and would barely accelerate. But at least I was able to fire it up and make sure it had good compression and the transmission shifted. So I bought it, and snuck it over to my parent's house without my wife knowing. Had all the new parts (replacement turn signals, levers, shifter, carb jets, gaskets, etc...) shipped to my folks house so she wouldn't be suspicious, and then snuck over there once or twice a week to work on it.
Got it running good just in time for her birthday last year and gave it to her, she was hooked! We got some Bluetooth helmet headsets (Sena SMH5) so we could talk while we went out on rides and put a lot of miles on our bikes this last year, good times!
Well the modifying bug has bitten her now, so I figured, what better time than the winter? She is a big fan of a minimalistic motorcycle (so the Blast is kinda perfect for her!) so the main goal is to remove unnecessary items, and make things smaller. It's also going to be repainted, including the frame and wheels.
Probably the most obvious thing to remove was the airbox, which takes up a TON of space. Picked up a Sportster velocity stack and an Outerwears filter (not in the picture, should arrive today from the post office).
Also, her exhaust was kinda ugly and had partially separated where the header meets the muffler, so we decided to try something different. I picked up a sportster exhaust from a guy on Craigslist. Separated out the front header pipe and bolted it on:
The stock sportster muffler was way too long to fit under the Blast, so I cut out about a foot in the middle of it and rewelded it back together (still needs to be cleaned up and painted, this was mostly for test fitting):
And here it is test fitted on the bike (I have since welded in a bracket near the rear of the muffler and bolted it to the old rear muffler mount to support it) Also you can see the velocity stack test fitted in the picture:
I should be able to fire it up tonight once the new carb jets come in from Dan, so we will see how loud it is (may have to cut it back open and make it a little quieter if it's too loud for my wife's taste). I kinda like how it turned out, should look good once I sand it down and paint it.
That's it for progress so far, I'll keep you guys updated as we make more and get into the painting.
Quick back story:
I got this bike over a year ago as a surprise present for my wife who has always wanted to learn to ride so she can come with me on my bike days and such. I bought it for $400 from an older guy out in the countryside. The bike would only start when sprayed with some starter fluid, and would barely accelerate. But at least I was able to fire it up and make sure it had good compression and the transmission shifted. So I bought it, and snuck it over to my parent's house without my wife knowing. Had all the new parts (replacement turn signals, levers, shifter, carb jets, gaskets, etc...) shipped to my folks house so she wouldn't be suspicious, and then snuck over there once or twice a week to work on it.
Got it running good just in time for her birthday last year and gave it to her, she was hooked! We got some Bluetooth helmet headsets (Sena SMH5) so we could talk while we went out on rides and put a lot of miles on our bikes this last year, good times!
Well the modifying bug has bitten her now, so I figured, what better time than the winter? She is a big fan of a minimalistic motorcycle (so the Blast is kinda perfect for her!) so the main goal is to remove unnecessary items, and make things smaller. It's also going to be repainted, including the frame and wheels.
Probably the most obvious thing to remove was the airbox, which takes up a TON of space. Picked up a Sportster velocity stack and an Outerwears filter (not in the picture, should arrive today from the post office).
Also, her exhaust was kinda ugly and had partially separated where the header meets the muffler, so we decided to try something different. I picked up a sportster exhaust from a guy on Craigslist. Separated out the front header pipe and bolted it on:
The stock sportster muffler was way too long to fit under the Blast, so I cut out about a foot in the middle of it and rewelded it back together (still needs to be cleaned up and painted, this was mostly for test fitting):
And here it is test fitted on the bike (I have since welded in a bracket near the rear of the muffler and bolted it to the old rear muffler mount to support it) Also you can see the velocity stack test fitted in the picture:
I should be able to fire it up tonight once the new carb jets come in from Dan, so we will see how loud it is (may have to cut it back open and make it a little quieter if it's too loud for my wife's taste). I kinda like how it turned out, should look good once I sand it down and paint it.
That's it for progress so far, I'll keep you guys updated as we make more and get into the painting.
