Need Help!!!!

[troutman]

I have a 81 xs1100 special that I want to turn into a show winning, Harley eating, wet dream of a metric bike. My plans are to lower the whole thing about 3 inches, stretch the front end slightly (I do not want a chopper, just a little more rake in the front) take the original seat and stretch new cowhide over it and reduce the profile of the seat dramatically, cut the tank and widen it to epic proportions never dreamed of by any Harly fatbob tank, make the tank slightly taller, lower the bars and replace the stock bars with a sleek drag bar. Whew! Now with that said, if anyone would be interested in telling me how crazy I am go for it. I would appreciate anyone's comments or suggestions about this bike. I mostly need help with bouncing ideas off of some of you guys that are more familiar with metric bikes, as I have always worked on the OLD Indians and I do not have much experience working on this sort of bike. So any and all comments/suggestions/insights are welcome.

[randy]

Just buy a Harley and get it over with

Seriously, having owned an 81SH, I can vouch that it will eat 99% of Harleys for breakfast, lunch and dinner in bone stock trim.

Sounds like what you want is a harley look-alike that has go. Why not put an XS engine in a Harley frame?

[Ken Talbot]

We want to see regular updates and pictures!

[Brian_D]

may want to bounce some ideas off of Buckb as he has performed some of the mods already.

here is a link to the thread where he posted pictures of 2 such bikes: http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...&threadid=7062

[bandet01]

good idea but alot of work and where in indiana are you from

[81xsproject]

The reason for the "just get a hardly" advise, is because making these oldbike "show" quality is a lot of work, and by work what I mean is ebay scouring. Hardly any of the show parts are available new. If you do go for it though, keep us posted with lots of pics. Good Luck

[troutman]

Thank you guys for your insight, I gave BuckB an email asking him for advice. Looks like he knows what he is doing by the looks of those customs he has. By the way I live in the little town of Winchester about 30 miles east of Muncie. I tell you what, it may be a ton of work, but what's the fun of a project if you don't cuss a little, bust some knuckles open, and throw some tools around? I will keep you all posted and I will try to start posting photos very soon!

[John]

Big fuel tank

Here is what dennyz told me concerning a bigger tank:

I first cut the tank down each side where the tank transition from top to side. I removed the top by continuing to cut both ends at the seam. I then made a cut along the bottom of the sides where they transition to the bottom (the bend, not the seam). I wanted the tank to remain the same width at the saddle area, so I made a cut along the front of each side right at the seam.

At this point, I had the bottom of the tank and two sides flopping loose, attached only at the saddle area. This is a good time to clean the inside of the tank (sand blasting works great).

I welded a 1” strip to the front of each side (look close and you can see it in the picture) and a 1” strip to the saddle end of the top piece. I reattached each side to the front seam, bowing the sides out to get 1” extension to line up with the seam. I reattached the top by welding the front to the seam and bowing the top until the 1” extension lined up with the back seam.. By bowing the top, it puts the gas cap right at the highest point of the tank and adds a significant amount of volume

I then added filler panels to the resulting open areas, as shown in the picture. These areas exist on top of each side and on the bottom (I have not completed this step yet.). The petcocks remain in their stock location. This would be a good opportunity to eliminate the Special petcock mounts and install mount farther out for the Standard petcocks. I decided that would be another project, should this all work out. I duct taped all the seams and filled it with sand to make sure I had the desired volume. Less than 6 gallons is not worth the effort.

When I set it on my “SF” it looks pretty cool. It comes out to just over the valve covers on each side, yet is narrow at the saddle. The top rise is noticeable, but not objectionable. It has the bulbous look of a Standard tank, but much smoother lines.

As encouraging as the picture looks, I have a long way to go before I have a fuel tight smooth looking tank.

I used a bead roller on the edges of each filler panel to create an overlapping joint. The welding is being done with a MIG welder. A TIG would be a better choice, if I had one. The cutting was done with a air grinder with a cut-off wheel. The filler panel are cut from 16ga. steel (old car hood).

It is a long slow process with a lot of backing up. If the tank does not look good or hold fuel when done, it will be a waste of time. This being my first tank modification, I am learning as I go.


__________________
DZ
Vyger, "F"
(no name), "SF"
(wife's(??)), "SG"


Last edited by Dennyz on 10-22-2004 at 12:35 PM
I tried to post a pic of the big ank, but something seems to be wrong with photodump

[mro]

troutman???

does that mean you know something about trout


mro

[bandet01]

i am from connersville and i know exactly where you are from i used to race up in muncie and a winchester but i live in middletown ohio now