Hello people, here's a story how i transformed this:
to this:
First let me tell me a little about my history with motorcycles. Before this bike i always owned nakedbikes and supersport's. The last bike i was driving was a 2005 Kawasaki Zx6r, i had a lot of fun with it. But i was looking for some more comfort and a bike for some more relax driving without fearing to lose my liscense (in holland you lose your liscense when you drive +50 the max legal speed). I also like to pimp things and make bikes in mint condition. First i was thinking of building a CafeRacer, i like the looks of an oldschool caferacer, but i think a bobber is more fun to drive. So i decided to go look for a chopper and change it the way i like. Things that where important picking the right bike were: it had to be a V-twin (sound and characteristics), it had to be hard-tale or hardtale look and it had to be affordable. Because of affordable all Harley's fall off.
After alot of comparing bikes as Honda Shadow, Yamaha dragstar, Suzuki Volusia and Kawasaki Vulcan 800 i choose the Kawasaki because of the beautifull two-tone block and the positive quality i experienced with my former Kawasaki.
So the search began, after a few visits to bikes wich were in terrible condition i found this 1996 Vn800 with 12000 km (7500Ml) in mint condition. The owner was very proud of the state that it was in, i hope he will never see that i chopped a lot of parts he has been polishing so hard for a few year:)
The first thing i did when i came home was stripping all the parts i didn't need on my bobber.
The bike was now about 20kg lighter. I replace the fenders with much smaller and lighter one's.
Than the first thing i did was optimize the technical state. The bike was already in good condition but i wanted a sort of new bike so i placed new Chain and bracket, new brakes, new airfilter, new oil and oilfilter, new tires front and rear. The fun thing with this bike is that parts are not that expensive:)
I was already browsing the internet for custom parts and bought a new steering-bar, frontfender, rear fender, solo seat and exhaust with heatwrap and a sidemount.
Than i choosed a collor and sprayed the parts myself. It's always better to leave the paintjob to a pro but i allready have some experience with spraypainting some carparts and some scooters back in the days. And what the hack, it's a bobber don't mind if the paintjob is a less smooth and slik.
For the tank i wanted some striping and a cool logo, i choosed lucky 13 because of they make cool custom bikes and the logo has the spade in it, and i love cardgames like poker alot.
Because of the new (almost) open exhaustpipes the bike didn't run 100% so i decided to buy a dynojet kit and place some new adjustable needle and other gasnozzle.
After placing the new needle and nozzle the bike runs very good again. Maybe it needs a bit of finetuning so i'll bring it to a company with testequipment soon.
Now it was time to place all the painted parts to see how it looks:
I think for a first project this is not bad, i'm not finished yet, things to do are: new mirrors, make reartire more white, paint some more black instead of chrome. Please let me know when you like it or when you have questions or maybe some tips.
I had a lot of fun building it, now i'm gonna enjoy driving it:) bye bye
