I'll snap some better pics tomorrow.
I picked her up two at Barber 2013. She was missing the back end, frame and all. I let her sit for a while and figured out what I wanted to do. Something different, than your every day bolt a seat, bars, and call it a cafe. It's been a long process, to only have about 60 hours in the bike. It's been a pet project, a little here, little there. I had originally wanted to build it for an event called the Ozark Mountain Scramble. Bikes have to be vintage, less than $1,000 in the build. Starting with that goal, which I failed, allowed me to keep costs down significantly. I ended up with just under $1,500 in the bike as she sits now.
To begin; I'm really bad at keeping up a build thread. As I was doing it here and there whenever I had some free time, I didn't think a ton about taking a lot of pictures of the build.
Started with half a bike essentially. I picked up the rear end that I wanted, a Ducati 748 swinger with a Marchesini wheel in lieu of the stock Duc 3 spoke. Scored this on eBay for $350 shipped. Swinger, wheel, brake system, shock. Everything I needed. After I had my rear end, I moved to the subframe, and kind of built that around how, and where I wanted/needed the shock mounted. Not the stock tank, but A tank from a DOHC CB750. Had to relocate the rear tank mount back several inches. I do love the look of this particular tank. Seat, is one of my designs, rearsets as well. All electrical was relocated to underneath the cowl of the seat pan on an aluminum tray I built. To be honest, not a ton of fab work in this build outside of the subframe/shock mounts. I usually spend a lot of time on a mill/lathe during a bike build, but it was more-so getting everything to fit than completely fabbing everything up. With that said, I do love the way the bike turned out. It runs well, it rides well, and surprisingly, it's getting a ton of love from the Harley crowd!
How she looked when I bought it, minus the F2 gear. It's hard to roll a bike around without a back wheel.
Almost went with a VFR set up, but it was too wide at the pivot, not enough meat to machine down to get it to fit.
Got rid of the stock CV carbs. Figured I'd give Cycle X's dual carb set up a go. So far, I'm impressed, the bike runs well.
Subframe:
Welded in plates on both sides for my rearset mounts.
Exhaust, went with a 4 into 4. She sounds spectacular.
Hopped on the lathe, and got some cones and half moons turned for the exhaust.
Paint was done by me as well. Bahama Blue with a Cobalt Blue, and chrome flake. Looks spectacular in the sun. The cobalt flake in the blue paint really makes it sparkle.
Lot of stuff I didn't really document in the build thread, frame bracing for the mono, shaving things down here and there to make them fit. Building axles/swing arm pivot bolts/ engine mounts, etc, out of stainless.
I'll snap some pics in the morning, and post them up. Thanks again to the guys who nominated the bike. I love the way she turned out. She looks great, very rideable, and draws a ton of attention. Which should be good when she's sitting in front of my booth at shows.
Thanks again, and to you others guys who were nominated, great looking bikes, job well done, fellas.