Time to build another bike

[Funk]

nice, a '82 Virago is still on my list as well

[Capt. Obvious]

Finishing up the electrical is taking longer than planned, but is progressing smoothly otherwise. I forgot where I had planned to put a few components, so remembering that has sucked up a few extra hours.

Test fit the tank to make sure everything still fits under there, and there's plenty of room to spare.

Still waiting on my wheels to get back from being mounted/balanced/trued.

[DutchieSaxo]

keep it going mate, this is turning out soo good.

[Back_in_Black]

Really starts to get look great!

[Capt. Obvious]

The last seven days were hell for me. I'm never committing myself to a hard deadline again! I've put about 50 hours into this bike in just the last week.

This is what the bike looked like on Monday:


I didn't really take a lot of pictures of this final stretch of the build, because it was mostly doing a bunch of small things, a lot of electrical work (considering how bare bones the wiring harness is, it sure took a lot of time to wire everything up!), and then stuff like bleeding the brakes, adjusting things, and giving everything a final once over.



At around 10:30 on Sunday morning, I rolled the bike outside, filled it with gas, and crossed my fingers that the tiny lithium battery I used was big enough to actually turn over this bastard and make it run for pretty much the first time in 10 years and... IT FIRED RIGHT UP ON THE FIRST CRANK! FUCK YES!!

Leroy was super stoked for me.



Then I took for a couple shakedown runs and made sure nothing was melting/exploding/leaking.

I haven't gotten an opportunity to take many photos of it yet. I still have a few things to finish up, like mounting the headlight and making a little bracket for the brake res. I also need to dial in the carb, and just make sure everything is perfect before it goes to the new owner.







First impressions: The bike runs great (aside from the carb needing some fine tuning), it shifts smooth, the drive train is smooth (there really is a huge difference between chain drive and shaft!), and despite the looks of the seat, it's actually quite comfortable. The bike isn't intended to be a touring bike anyway, it was built to be joy rider/bar hopper that will see 100 miles a day when ridden (if that). And no one involved cares that there aren't fenders.

[whacka]

dam thats amazing i want one!

[DC95]

It's looking really slick! Kinda different but it really seems to flow well, designwise.

[81XV750]

Rear shock control

A very nice build, indeed. Thanks for posting the numerous clear photos and text.

One question: Where did you mount the rear shock control? Has it been eliminated?

Thanks!

[TruTaing]

The work ya do w/ bikes is awesome. The last one was great. This one is pretty damn good too. I'm sure, you'll probably have one or two more of these threads popping up right after this one goes to its owner :P

[anti.engineered]

beautiful! that seat really compliments the lines and I actually dig the front cowl

[Capt. Obvious]

A little update on this bike:

After a few trials and tribulations with getting the bike tuned and running correctly with the single carb, I got it pretty dialed in with great rideability. I also convinced my customer to spend the extra money to put the exhaust on the bike that I thought it should have, so that made me very happy as well.

Before loading the bike on the trailer to ship it to its new home in Arizona, I was able to get in a photoshoot with the bike. I still need to edit the photos, but here are a couple of the unedited ones.





I'm hoping for another BikeExif feature for this bike.

[storey618]

you have me set on building a bike now! sometime this winter ill get started

[georgeMK1]

That is awesome! Top work dude, it looks amazing.

[PassionGarage]

this is amazing honestly !!!!

[Capt. Obvious]

Since my other bike thread got resurrected, I guess I'll update this one while I'm at it. Here are a few more pics of the finished Virago. The bike has been down in Arizona for the last year with it's new owner, but I have it again for a couple weeks to do some maintenance on it and get another photoshoot in for a feature on Pipeburn.









This bike is a blast to ride. It's kinda scary, in the fun way. It's super raw with zero refinement to it. The ride is harsh, it's bouncy, it's loud, it's finicky. It's awesome.