Now I had never seen this model of bike before so I began to search for information on it. The Horse website was very helpful, I found a manual with the help of Wazoo. Then the first order of business was to get the bike running. I swapped engines and hooked up the ignition part of the wiring harness. Cleaned the carb and the sucker fired off!

Okay, so now I have a running bike, my wife is short, just a hair over five feet tall on a good day, so I knew I either had to lower the bike or lower the seat. So I cut the seat support section out of the frame.

Then I welded in some tubing stock to get an idea of how it would look and the height of the seat. Now, remember the Yamaha XS I got? Well because I was going to cut the back end off the Yamaha anyways, I robbed the shocks and rear fender. I bent some tubing to fill the seat area, but the seat looked funny sitting there all by itself. I went back to the Yamaha and cut the rear frame loop off. Now I had a loop around the seat, this helped to tie everything together visually and also provide my lateral frame support brace. I also used the Yamaha shocks because they were beefier.

I tack welded the seat area together, eyeballing and cross measuring to keep everything centered and lined up. Once this was completed I turned my attention to the rear fender. As you know most jap bikes have very ugly fenders and are usually plastic under the seat. Again, the Yamaha donates the rear fender, the xs 650 fender was long enough to cover the wheel. I wanted to keep the fender close to the tire, I welded a tab to the front of the fender and bolted it to the swing arm. The tire I used on the rear is an odd size, a 130x80x16, the same tire used on the Buell Blast and a Ninja 250, it is slightly smaller than a standard 130x90x16 again, to keep the seat height low. Next I welded some 3/8 steel rod to the rear of the swingarm and ran it up to the fender for struts, I also welded a thick washer to the end of the strut to mount the fender, and pick up the mounting holes in it. I trimmed a Harley fender to fit the front, this took no time at all.

The gas tank! The tank required the most fabrication of the whole bike. The area between the neck and the seat is about 16 inches, about 2 inches longer than a sporty tank. So again I searched the HORSE Swap Meet page for someone who had a small tank for sale or trade. Hackasaw came through for me with what appeared to be a Triumph aftermarket tank of unknown origin. The tank had a very deep tunnel, I needed one with a shallower tunnel, but the tank fit. So I ground the seam on the tank until I could remove the tunnel section. I raised the tank and tack welded the tunnel into the right position and made some tabs and filler pieces to weld into the tank, A by product of this is that I probably gained a half gallon of capacity. I then took the tank to a friend of mine, Scott Morris, who is a certified aircraft welder and TIG welds all day on high zoot aircraft parts. He fixed me up, after welding I tested the tank and not a one leak or pinhole! Almost a shame to have to bondo over the welds.

On to Part 3.........

Back to Part 1.........