Post by amartin328 on Dec 28, 2020 23:44:00 GMT -6
I bought a 1987 454 up in PA for $250 back in March. Thing had been sitting since 1991 and I'm no mechanic so it took me (my bike mechanic) all summer to finally get her running. This fall I rode it every day while I was at school absolutely loved it. I've been feelin crafty over my winter break so I've been fixin a ton of the problems I had this fall. Doing all these repairs to it gives me an itch to turn her into a full on project bike so since this forum has been an absolute blessing for a lot of what I wanted to know and a huge inspiration for ideas I thought I'd post about in in here.
Right now I have a radiator leak and I can't find any attractive looking offers on ebay or anywhere else so I'm planning on finding the leaks by pluggin all the holes and stickin it under water and then fixing them with JB weld. In the near furture I'd like to do some cosmetic/preventative maintenence by doin pads and rotors, replacing all the hoses and clamps, getting new clutch and brake levers (currently all rusted up) and maybe doing a clutch rebuild. Eventually I'd like to rewire the entire bike and repaint the frame and any other parts that look like they need repainting, just with some black paint.
A ton of my inspiration came from a couple builds I found online of 454s with clip on bars, fender deletes, shock dust covers and nice lookin exhausts:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikebuilders/comments/ifmgzy/kawasaki_ltd_454_almost_done_only_waiting_for_the/
www.hellkustom.com/2014/08/kawasaki-454ltd-by-dust-motorcycles.html
Don't know how ergonomic those bikes are with the clip ons and all but I just love the look and how clean the bikes are (mine's an old rust bucket currently).
I think I'd start with the exhaust since that's probably the "easiest" mod I want to do. Looking at EMGO slip on mufflers and wrapping the pipes to look real slick. I wanna jet the carbs once I get an aftermarket exhaust and some pod filters on there. I found a Mikuni VM30 kit sold by Speed Moto Co that comes pre-jetted with pod filters. I think I'll have to give Speed Moto a call and make sure they know what they're doin, but the kit doesn't seem like a bad deal especially since my carbs are all rusted up on the outside anyway and I'd either wanna repaint them or replace them if I kept em stock.
I'm thinkin about gettin' one of them tabletop sandblasting units from harbor freight to clean up some of these stock parts and repaint 'em gloss black.
As far as the front end is concerned, I'll probably paint the bottoms of the forks black and put dust covers on 'em for the looks. Get rid of the stock triple tree and replace it with a nice gloss black billet aluminum part. Get some clip on handlebars, new LED headlight and turn signals mounted to the forks. Right now I'm rockin no speedo bc I got tired of the lag. Just got a phone mount sideways and a speedo app. Eventually I'd like an analog speedo. The MotoGadget ChronoClassic Speedo looks increadibly nice but it's also increadibly expensive as well. We'll see what I do there.
Speaking of MotoGadget, they sell this "mo.unit blue" where you can rewire the whole bike through this fuse box unit they sell and it allows you to control your bike electrics throught your phone via bluetooth. So cool, but also so expensive... maybe someday.
Beyond all that I'll probably go ahead and do a rear fender delete and make a bracket for my liscence plate and an LED tag light on the side, along with some LED turns signals in the rear. I like havin' a second seat on the back but the plastic cover that comes on the seat stock has a few rips and tears so I'll probably reupholster the seat in some nice leather. The seat as is looks a little odd since it kinda just pops up in the back and the right after it goes right back down to the rear fender. (if that makes any sense??) I think the bike would look a lot better with a storage crate behind the back seat and some saddlebags. I'll probably have to make some custom mounts for those but it'd definitely help the look of the bike.
I'll probably also lower the frame to the ground a little, get a shorter rear shock and lower the triple tree up front to match the rear.
Finally, I guess the original owner dropped the bike while he had it because there seems to be a huge dent on the left side of the gas tank. I like how the tank looks when it sits a little higher off the frame so instead of trying to reapir the one I have or get a new stock one, I've been looking at aluminum Porky Pig Piglet tanks:
www.billetproofdesign.com/oem-Piglet-style-gas-tank-with-screw-in-style-gas-cap-bung-steel-3-3-gallon-fits-2004-2006-harley-davidson-Piglet/
looks like you could bolt that to the frame up front and cut the back of that tank short and drill a hole in it to fit the stock mount. Will have to do some more research to see that one out.
We'll see how much of this I end up doing... this is more of a broad overview of what I would do to this bike with all the money and time in the world but I'd like to see at least a few of these out. Let me know if you have any relevent advice or any experience with any of these mods! Would love some guidence on this project.
Right now I have a radiator leak and I can't find any attractive looking offers on ebay or anywhere else so I'm planning on finding the leaks by pluggin all the holes and stickin it under water and then fixing them with JB weld. In the near furture I'd like to do some cosmetic/preventative maintenence by doin pads and rotors, replacing all the hoses and clamps, getting new clutch and brake levers (currently all rusted up) and maybe doing a clutch rebuild. Eventually I'd like to rewire the entire bike and repaint the frame and any other parts that look like they need repainting, just with some black paint.
A ton of my inspiration came from a couple builds I found online of 454s with clip on bars, fender deletes, shock dust covers and nice lookin exhausts:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikebuilders/comments/ifmgzy/kawasaki_ltd_454_almost_done_only_waiting_for_the/
www.hellkustom.com/2014/08/kawasaki-454ltd-by-dust-motorcycles.html
Don't know how ergonomic those bikes are with the clip ons and all but I just love the look and how clean the bikes are (mine's an old rust bucket currently).
I think I'd start with the exhaust since that's probably the "easiest" mod I want to do. Looking at EMGO slip on mufflers and wrapping the pipes to look real slick. I wanna jet the carbs once I get an aftermarket exhaust and some pod filters on there. I found a Mikuni VM30 kit sold by Speed Moto Co that comes pre-jetted with pod filters. I think I'll have to give Speed Moto a call and make sure they know what they're doin, but the kit doesn't seem like a bad deal especially since my carbs are all rusted up on the outside anyway and I'd either wanna repaint them or replace them if I kept em stock.
I'm thinkin about gettin' one of them tabletop sandblasting units from harbor freight to clean up some of these stock parts and repaint 'em gloss black.
As far as the front end is concerned, I'll probably paint the bottoms of the forks black and put dust covers on 'em for the looks. Get rid of the stock triple tree and replace it with a nice gloss black billet aluminum part. Get some clip on handlebars, new LED headlight and turn signals mounted to the forks. Right now I'm rockin no speedo bc I got tired of the lag. Just got a phone mount sideways and a speedo app. Eventually I'd like an analog speedo. The MotoGadget ChronoClassic Speedo looks increadibly nice but it's also increadibly expensive as well. We'll see what I do there.
Speaking of MotoGadget, they sell this "mo.unit blue" where you can rewire the whole bike through this fuse box unit they sell and it allows you to control your bike electrics throught your phone via bluetooth. So cool, but also so expensive... maybe someday.
Beyond all that I'll probably go ahead and do a rear fender delete and make a bracket for my liscence plate and an LED tag light on the side, along with some LED turns signals in the rear. I like havin' a second seat on the back but the plastic cover that comes on the seat stock has a few rips and tears so I'll probably reupholster the seat in some nice leather. The seat as is looks a little odd since it kinda just pops up in the back and the right after it goes right back down to the rear fender. (if that makes any sense??) I think the bike would look a lot better with a storage crate behind the back seat and some saddlebags. I'll probably have to make some custom mounts for those but it'd definitely help the look of the bike.
I'll probably also lower the frame to the ground a little, get a shorter rear shock and lower the triple tree up front to match the rear.
Finally, I guess the original owner dropped the bike while he had it because there seems to be a huge dent on the left side of the gas tank. I like how the tank looks when it sits a little higher off the frame so instead of trying to reapir the one I have or get a new stock one, I've been looking at aluminum Porky Pig Piglet tanks:
www.billetproofdesign.com/oem-Piglet-style-gas-tank-with-screw-in-style-gas-cap-bung-steel-3-3-gallon-fits-2004-2006-harley-davidson-Piglet/
looks like you could bolt that to the frame up front and cut the back of that tank short and drill a hole in it to fit the stock mount. Will have to do some more research to see that one out.
We'll see how much of this I end up doing... this is more of a broad overview of what I would do to this bike with all the money and time in the world but I'd like to see at least a few of these out. Let me know if you have any relevent advice or any experience with any of these mods! Would love some guidence on this project.