Here's some photos of what I did today, to give you a better sense of what I am working on.
Got off the fairing, rear cargo boxes, and both wheels. (Yipes! Those wires are outta control!)
Here's both the existing tires and rims.
Here's the new tires.
Here's a close-up to show the style of wheels, and the corrosion on them. The rims looks like aluminum, but I am not positive exactly what they are made of. I would like to get all that corrosion off. The outter edge and ridges of the rims are silver and the rest is painted black, but with quite a bit of texture.
Just another view of the wheels.
The seat has some cracking/tearing on it. I'd really like to get that taken care of to make it look nicer. You can also see that the rear springs are rusty. Can those be easily pulled off to get sandblasted and painted?
Here's the rear cargo cases. I love the chrome skulls. The eyes blink for turn signals. (LED too!) However, the cases do add some weight to the cycle. I think I would like to return the cycle to the more or less stock overall appearance, which would reduce weight. I now need to do whatever I can to reduce weight to maximize cruising range on the battery system. That means loosing the boxes. I originally got them from a friend of mine, so I think it's just time to return them.
Anyways, from the photos, you can see that the cycle needs some serious wire management (need to design a new wire harness from scratch!) I want to touch up the paint on the whole thing, repaint the gas tank, weld up a nice battery cage, and most importantly, figure out a way to get all four batteries in there in a configuration I really like. (I don't like the doubled-up batteries right in front of my knees.)
I'll keep posting photos and updates as I work on this, but like I said, this is my first motorcycle, so any cleaning/spit-and-polish/maintenance tips from the iron-butt riders is appreciated!
