Time to build another bike

[Capt. Obvious]

I'm one of those people who can't not have a project of some sort going on, so it was only a matter of time before I bought another bike once I finished my Suzuki build, which involved taking this:


To this:


(Build thread: http://www.stanceworks.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=38839)

And now my new bike build is officially underway. This weekend I picked up a 1982 Yamaha Virago (XV920). It's in really good condition for a 32+ year old bike, and it only has 10k miles on it.



These bikes are pretty tragic looking in stock form, but that will change soon enough.



It hasn't been started in about 10 years, so once I got home, I got right to work tearing it down to clean out the gunk.



I changed the oil, filter, and spark plugs, then drained the carbs. The bike cranked right over and gave me a little sputter, but didn't want to fully start. I blame that on the dirty carbs and the fact that the battery I was using was too small for the bike and barely had enough cranking amps to turn the V-twin over.

The Hitachi carbs on these bikes are notorious for being a pain in the ass to syncronize and tune, so I'm not even going to bother. I'm tossing those in favor of a single 40mm Mikuni. Easier to tune, less 'stuff' on the bike, and they greatly improve low end power (at the expense of a little top end power, but I'm okay with that).

This build will get finished a lot faster than my last one because I'm building this for a friend of mine, and I promised to have it done by the end of the winter (it's actually going to be a surprise for his wife's birthday).

Plans for the bike are still a little fluid, but the general direction the bike will be taking will be something along these lines:





I'm excited to get to work on this project because I've been wanting to build a Virago for awhile now. They're such ugly bikes in stock form, but there is a ton of potential hidden underneath all the crappy 80s design Yamaha covered them in.

[hinrichs]

cant wait to see this one. Loved your last build.

I like the style that you plan to go with on this one.

[Shogunate]

I love cafe racers. Cant wait to see where this goes

[TruTaing]

This is bound to be good!

[blurred]

I'm in...

[Dome]

In af

[cruuz]

Lolz I've got a halfway-done '82 xv920 in my garage too, most likely try to get it wrapped up over the winter as well. You really should be on customfighters, so much good info over there

In for more

[gempterst]

like the style that you plan to go with on this one.

[TeckniX]

in for mikuni and well 80s cafe-racer transformation.

in case you need some references on fitment and stuff:

http://www.customfighters.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49333

http://www.customfighters.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60761

[Capt. Obvious]

You really should be on customfighters, so much good info over there

I lurk over there, but don't have an account currently (I probably should make one). The lime green and black forum layout makes my eyes want to bleed, it's almost as bad as the KAWF format on QuattroWorld. LOL

[Capt. Obvious]

Soooo, this might be turning into a double bike build because I "accidentally" bought another XV920 this weekend. It was too good of a deal to pass up.

[cruuz]

Gotta love accidental project acquisition

[Capt. Obvious]

Alright, time to actually start working on these things. Adulthood keeps getting in the way, but I made some time this weekend to bring the bikes inside so I can start tearing them down and get to work. Space is tight, but sometimes you gotta work with what you got.

[Dutch]

So in for this

[Capt. Obvious]

Had an opportunity to slip away from family stuff this weekend and devote some time to one of the bikes.

Finally got one stripped down to the bare essentials. This is pretty much all I'm keeping from this bike.



Then I mounted up the Triumph Speed Triple front end. As luck would have it, the Triumph stem works perfect with the Virago head bearings, so I didn't need to spend a bunch of time figuring out a custom bearing solution and/or swapping the stems on the yokes.



And now to deal with the rear wheel. A huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to custom bikes is when the front and rear wheels don't match. I'm committed to the Triumph front suspension and I'm not giving up the dual 13" 4-pot brakes up front, so that means I'm going to need to come up with a solution for the rear wheel on this bike. Besides, let's just all admit that the factory swirl wheels on these bikes are awful looking.

After spending way too much time online doing research, I decided that a rear wheel from a 1996 Suzuki Katana is the way way to go. It matches the 3-spoke design of the Triumph wheel, is 17" in diameter, and isn't as wide as most modern sport bike wheels, so it will still fit in the swing arm without being off-center, but will allow me to run a slightly wider tire, like a 150. Also, the rear axle size on the Katana was the same as on the Virago, so that will save me some time in the machine shop when I retrofit the disk brake system. I'll be machining the wheel to accept an adapter for the shaft drive.



I also ordered a tank from an XV750 since the factory XV920 tank is big and ugly.