Project Ground Pounder -1981 Suzuki DR500

Maritime said:
Yep that tank is allkinds of rad and will hopefully get the mad scientist's brain going. Yourast bunch of projects as rad as they were had more function than creation. Looking forward to seeing the creative juices in this one.

Thanks Mike, it has been fun so far!
 
Exploratory surgery is revealing a few missing parts. Always fun when one of the side covers is only held on by 2 bolts and a healthy sized booger of RTV is slathered on the side. So far only a couple of parts found missing and sourced from EPay. The bearings and internals actually look great after getting rid of all of the oil+water sludge that was hanging out all over everything. I’ve definitely seen worse. This is how $100 bikes transform into $$$$ bikes.


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Kanticoy said:
They’re hot commodities. I’ve had 2. Eric has one and CC got the other. ‘Round these parts in this thread we don’t need no stinkin’ swingarms!
Nice. Might have made a rad sissy bar out of it just to prove a point about the coolness of hardtails.

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whats your plans for that sweet xr600r motor in the background ;)
 
Been in in the shop for a while this morning. I finalized the tank mounts to get the tank to sit where I wanted it to. The top curve of the tank is now identical to the angle of the top tube. Should allow it to flow into the hard tail just fine. Machined up a new puck rod and welded it in:

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Since I knew I was going to be upgrading to a modern front wheel I had to make it work with the forks. I’ll be using a wheel off of a 2007 KX250f because I picked up a massive 320mm supermoto rotor for that wheel for cheap at the swap meet brand new. The newer wheel uses a 20mm front axle. I also wanted to kick out the fork ends 1.5” to add a little more clearance for the caliper when I get to that point. The original axle for these forks is 14mm so I got creative. Machined up some new axle drop outs out of cold rolled steel and bored the inside to 20mm:

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Next I cut of the ends of the forks with the portaband. Machined a slug out of tubing and cut another piece of tubing to integrate with the drop outs. I used the mill and fishmouthed the ends to suit.

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I aligned the fishmouthed ends and TIG welded it all together:

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It will integrate with the new drop outs like so:

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I will finish weld it all together once I get all of the wheel parts and axle in so I can center it all up correctly. Should work just fine!
 
Leading links on a former dirtbike and not for sidecar use...
What a terrible idea. Go on, go on. Nobody said you're supposed to stopl :p
 
der_nanno said:
Leading links on a former dirtbike and not for sidecar use...
What a terrible idea. Go on, go on. Nobody said you're supposed to stopl :p

That’s the beauty of a bobber. It can be functional art. They’re much more interesting to look at than a standard fork!
 
Some parts came in so I couldn’t resist. Since I got my front axle in I finish welded the dropouts into position where they needed to be:

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After that I was able to get the front wheel put together. 320mm rotor fits like a glove and looks like a beast!

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With the spacers in place it’s like it was meant to be:

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I’ll end up dropping the front end with a shock swap and shortening the rear hoop once I know which tire I’m running to hug the rear wheel and tire more but this is the look I’ve been chasing and I love it!

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