Iron Steed- more pics

Got the hard tail tied into the back bone and made a couple gussets. Next up is to get a rear fender made up and then a tank. Overall length of the steed is 8 feet !

Iron Steed-Update

Put some time in ,off and on, the past couple weeks. I started hackin away at the frame. I stretched it 4 1/2" and hard tailed it. Then I cut the double down tubes and gonna run a single down tube and back bone.

I just love the stance!

2011 Hunnert Car Pile Up

Last weekend I travelled to Illinois to meet up with some of my flatlander biker friends as well as friends from Michigan,Oklahoma,Arkansas,Missouri, Indiana ect ect..We camped at Friends Creek Camp ground for the weekend. On friday we all jumped on our bikes and headed into the town of Cisco for  the preparty to the car show. Friday night we partied at the campground till weee hours in the morning. Saturday we went to the car show and partied again at night. We also celebrated our fallen friend, Justin McMullen's life  on saturday night with all of us saying goodbye to him as the balloon candle was lit and floated away into the dark evening sky...Sunday we all got up, ate and headed home.

The Iron Steed Build

I guess that's what I'm going to call my 77 Kawasaki kz650 build. I cut the back half off and she's gonna have about a 4" stretched hardtail. I wanta take the down tubes up about 2" and out about 2 " and raked. Then, I want to try my hand at building a springer front end. I could buy one but where would the fun be in that? Here's how she sits right now.....

Fallen Brother

Update:
I found out earlier today that my two wheel friend Justin McMullen died from the injuries he sustained from his m/c accident. Please say a prayer for his 4 children and family as they deal with his passing..

Godspeed my friend!

Can You Guess

Here's a pic of a 20" GMC Denali wheel that I have a plan for...can you guess what I'm gonna try to do with it ?

This Weekend Sept 24 & 25

The Tenth Annual Wapak Wing Fest,
"Northwest Ohio's Original Wing Competition,"

Saturday September 24th

Wapakoneta American Legion Post 330.

Proceeds to Benefit Lima V.A. Clinic

12:00 noon – 11:00 pm

9:00 am P.T. Works Co-Ed Volleyball Tourney

11:30 am Registration for American Legion Riders Poker Run

12:00 pm Vendors Open For Food

1:00 pm First bike Out for the Poker Run

3;00 pm Open Registration for the Baggo Tourney

4:00 pm Last bike In for the Poker Run; Baggo Tourney

5:00 pm Poker Run Winners Announced

6:00 pm Vendors Submit Wings For Judging

7:45 pm Winners Announced For the Wing Competition

8:00 pm Live Performance by the staples



September 25th



Brother Down

A fellow biker brother went down over the weekend and is in serious condition with head injuries that has required the doctor to remove part of his skull do to brain swelling. He's at a hospital in Illinois. Please pray for Justin McMullen and his family. I first met Justin at R4YL2 and found him to be a stand up guy.
Get well soon brother!

Justin, Dirka,Landman76

(pic from carr99 at TCU)

Kawasaki Build update

Life has beat me down lately so instead of wollering in self pity I decided to keep movin on the 650 build. I received the new main jet holders and after installing them it seemed to do the trick. I can now start it with either the electric start or by kick starting. The motor still idles too high so I'll dig into that later.
This weekend I removed the wiring,lights,pipes and got the bike down to the frame, motor and wheels. Still not real sure the direction the bike is leading me to re-make her.I will have have to sit down again,grab a few beers and smoke some cheap cigars and stare at her for awhile. I may even ask her what she wants. If she actually answers me I'll know I've had a little too much to drink! But then again maybe that's what I need! Here's how th ol girl sits for now.......

Carbs Carbs Carbs

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to get the 650 Kawasaki running. I've clean the carbs and tried syncin them a couple times and it just didnt run correctly. I pulled the carbs back off and recleaned them for the 3rd time. I noticed when I took the jets out that two of the main jet holders looked bent. As I looked closer my thoughts were confirmed. I have no idea how I missed them the past two times but I did. I jumped on ebay and ordered a couple of main jet holders and hopefully this will cure the problem. What was happening was that the carb needle that slides into the main jet was not seating properly. Live and learn I guess.

Big Al's Shadow 1100

My good friend and ridin/beer drinkin/motorcycle nut buddy  Big Al (I call him Tiny cause he's like 6'6") had this 1100 sittin in his garage for the past three years. It was/is is first m/c. Anyways, got to talkin to him bout why this ol girl hasn't been on the road for 3 yrs. While drinkin a few cold ones he tells me that he had taken the bike to Ohio Cycle Workxs in Elida several years back to have the 2nd gear fixed in her (gotta split the cases to do this). When he got the bike back it ran like molasses on a cold winters day. The all wise and knowing gurus at OCW said there wasn't anything wrong with it. Big Al disagreed. To make a long story short, they didn't/wouldn't fix it so Big Al parked it after have some stencling put on the rear fender stating that the bike ran like shit and thanked Ohio Cycle Workx for it.
After some prodding, I told Big Al to bring the ol girl out to my place and him and I would see if we could get her back to runnin like she use to. So, he brought it out this past weekend and we put some fresh gas and a new battery in her and get her fired up. Right away I could tell something was definitely not right. We pulled the carbs and checked the jets and they were all super clean. So I synced the carbs and it ran a little better but not perfect. I told Al that it sounded like the timing was off. The manual says that the timing isn't adjustable and that any issue there would be due to an electrical problem. So were gonna tackle that next but I truly feel that when OCW put the motor back together after splittin the case they probably didn't put the cams back in correctly and I'm thinking that it's off by one tooth on the chain. I hope this isn't the case but if it is we will tear into and try and get her right. I'll post more pics in the future and keep ya all updated on our progress.
Here's a few pics of Al's bike. If ya look though some of my other posts you'll see Big Al's daily rider "PHATAZZ" a Kawasaki 2000cc !

Home Made Carb Tool

Carb tuning is not one of my most favorite things to do. Throw in the CV carbs on the Kawasaki KZ and its even more of a p.i.t.a.! Well, I have been trying to sync the carbs on this bike and I am having an issue with trying to tighten up the sync lock nut without disturbing the the position of the sync screw. So, being the cheap ass that I am I decided to make my own tool instead of buying one.
What I did was I took a 1/4 drive 8mm socket and welded it onto a hollow 1/2" pice of pipe about 10" long. Then I took a piece of  3/8' solid rod and ground down the end like a flat head screwdriver. I welded a short arm on the main tube to be able to turn the locknut while the screwdriver holds the screw in position. I then painted it an ugly ass green so I wouldn't missplace it in my tool box.
All in all, I had $0 in making this tool (left over scrap). And it's definately been much easier the adjust the sync on these carbs!

Motor Mounts

I, for one, really dont like when a bike builder spends all their time hardtailing a bike and then leaves the ugliest rear motor mount swing arm bracket in place. My nephew decided when he built his frame that he wanted a clean, open area behind the motor and under the seat. We hashed out how this could be done without sacrificing the strength and integrity of the frame. We came up with the idea of tying together the lower frame rails and then fabricating a "T" post that goes up to the rear motor mount. We are hoping (and praying) that this set up will be strong enough (without the lower rails being tied together to the back bone) when the bike is on the road hitting bumps and crossing train tracks.

It's a roller!

My newphew Don has been putting some time in on his build lately and he sent me a pic! What do ya'll think?

More BBB 2011 pics

I took these pics with my crappy cell phone...

Backyard Bike Builders Meet 2011

Sorry haven't posted in a while. Went to the BBB in Muskegon Mich July 15-17. Met up with other dudes that like to chop what they got! Here's a few picks of the fun!