A nice distraction

I've done zero work to the Honda in the last two weeks because I've been busy with my other project bike. This is an 88 Vulcan 1500cc. I think I paid 200 bones for it and I remember at the time that I wasn't sure if I wasn't just throwing away money. It ran bad, the cluch slipped, it overheated and it looked like someone pulled it out of a lake. Here's some before and after pictures.

Shiny Tree Top

Looks much better then crummy black paint.

Frame fixed

Put a little pach on there. It took my guy about 30mins to do. Stronger then new. It'll look better after it's painted.

A Shocking Exeperiance

I went to Lowes and got a polishing wheel and compound. So I started by cleaning and polishing my shocks. They cleaned up very nice.

I thought I was gonna need new shocks for the rear because the chrome was chipping off on one of them (you can see that well in the right side picture of the bike when I got it home)

The before shot of the rears was after I took a wire brush to the springs to remove the rust.

They dont look new but they're go enough for this budget biker.

Each shock took about 30 minutes to clean up.

The Work Continues

No frame, no problem. I just got the handle bars in so let's tinker with the front end.

After some research on line I though that the forks were 35mm. I purchased some used clipons but they were the wrong size. Turns out the forks were 33mm. I'm on a pretty tight budget, so $75 for clip ons seems daunting, however, I got these 7/8 Clubman bars new for $32 shipped.

More surprises. The forks will need to get new seals, that's no surprise, but as I was assembling the front end I found one fork was full of rain water. About 8 ounces of it!

I wanted to invert the risers and put the bars behind the forks and under the tree. It didn't quite work as assembled. Notice how the riser ends come out of the tree. I'll have to start chopping and grinding.

One last surprise, the front tire was mounted backwards, the rotation is in the wrong direction. Just a few more reasons why this was a free bike.