[php]So I aquired my first (legal) motorcycle from my father-in-law; 2005 Vee. He rearended aan Accord that stopped on an onramp (for reasons still unbeknownst) the insurance company "totalled" the bike from the damage as follows: bent frok tubes, front wheel fender and right side fender cracked, bent crashbars, road rash, "bent" rear frame, bent front wheel, and a bent radiator support (causing fan clearance issues)
Well, he decided to just keep the bike, and went to buy a 2009 Vee, then put his holeshot exhaust, crashbars and adventure touring windscreen on the new one. He told me if I could fix up the old bike I could have it. So the project began...

Parts:
- 2 new fork assemblies (backordered from suzuki) $1489 pair
- 1 set of lowering dogbones (yes I have short legs)
- 1 gallon of flat black paint (5th vehicle I've had this color, and yes its an addiction)
- Various exhaust pieces for my custom straight pipe (I'm partially deaf from machine. gun fire and being a diesel mechanic)
- 7 gallons of blood, sweat, and tears for the texas heat
- 2 ounces of ingenuity
- 1 frustrated wife to put up with my 16 hour shifts and working on the bike on my days off

While I was waiting for the forks to. Come in, I designed and welded my exhaust together, and to all you oem lovers and performance freaks... please, spare yourself the frustration of dealing with my ignorance, as I will not change my mind about the pipes. The exhaust was fairly easy, since I had the other bike to compare. To. I used 2in. Piping to follow the same line as the aftermarket exhaust, welded the various components together and then grinded them down to a smoothish finish, painted and fabricated brackets. I cut my fender all the way to the bottom of the license plate light, then flipped the light upside down and drilled holes in my plate bracket in between the plate and inspection sticker, so my licnese plate actually sits directly under the taillight. Yes it does cover the key hole for the seat release, but my plate holder is plastic and bends plenty to access the key hole. Afteri finished that I installed my lowering kit (which was the most difficult task of all this project. The bolts were so frozen I ended up holding the race that the bolt sits in with a set of vise grips wrapped in towel, and used an impact to break the rust out of the race..... extremely complicated.... I lowered it two inches, which was an extremely significant difference when looking at the bike next to my FIL's stock height bike. I had to cut the wheel fender since it was cracked, so I just modelled it like the fender of an r1, and it turned out decent, much more decent than buying a new one. I superglued the cracks on the right fender from the back, then when I sanded everything for paint, the excess came off with it.

At this point I received the forks in the mail, and wow did it take such little time to put them on! Dropped the brakes, wheel (didn't have an allen key that big so I made a tool with 3/4 in bolt and nut welded together) and then took the old forks out. Reversed the process in reinstallation and bam! All done. While doing this I lowered the front 3/r of an inch to compensate some for the rear being so low. The radiator was really frustrating me with that fan noise, but I didn't want to bend the brackets too much, so instead I bent the tab of a used soda can in half and put it inbetween the fan and radiator where it mounts on the left, voila! No more noise, and it free spins with no clearance issues.

Now on to paint... ugh my current occupation is half oilfield and half industrial painting for all of our equipment, so I really didn't want to do this, but the original finish was not looking to great, and I just love flat (matte) black paint, so me and my wife sanded all the plastics and tank with burgundy scotch brite pads... so much better than sand paper. And I found out that she was a MUCH better prepper than me...... so guess who ended up doing ALL of the sanding?? It was a win win.. win: I didn't have to sand, my fenders felt like silk afterwards, and she felt really involved paint was easy, we've all painted before, but idk, for some reason I am just an excellent spray painter! Converted my garage into a temporary paint booth with exhaust and intake fans, drop cloths over everything and the bikes moved out. I painted literally everything except the frame ( which is matte anyways) and of course the windshield ( which I will be tinting) During reassembly, I realized that there were a lot of fasteners missing... (not from me) and luckily my FIL kept all the screws, plastic rivets and random rubber bits that fell out when the bike cooled off after a long ride ( I assume this isn't normal, but he did say the bike sounded like a bag of empty soda cansfrom the previous owner) so I. Reinstalled all the screws and just went ahead and replaced all the plastic fasteners.

The bike turned out phenomenal in the end, I just have to program the pc3 for the leo vince pipes (since the exhaust is similar in size and length) I haven't even rode it yet but I'm soooo excited! I'm waiting for the salvage title to come in so I can go get my rebuilt title. I will post pictures once I get home, but the bike is next to my FIL's bike on my profile picture

here is the image of it finished in the garage, as previously stated, ill take more pics in the sun when I get home

Just looked at it in your profile. Have you thougth of using some 3M Di-Noc? It would look great for your application. Also, would look great with the clear signal lenses!
Looks good tho! Good job.

I have never heard of that product, but looking at it opens my eyes to a few things I could do with that, I will think about the prjects I could do with it

I would really love to find some clear lenses, as soon as my FIL pulled up on the new Vee, that's the first thing I saw! Lol, small silly thing I know but its just one of those finishers

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I hope you took a very close look at the frame to assure there are no cracks. Sounds like the bike took quite a hit. Might be worthwhile to have someone watch you ride it to tell if the wheels are still tracking. If they are not, you'll need to be sure the frame is bent and not broken. Not trying to be a wet blanket. Just would really stink if the frame came apart at 80 MPH.

Well the frame WAS bent, but only the back part that the seat mounts from laying it down, all I did to fix that was bend it back. it was checked out when they totalled the bike at the shop, and found no main frame damage, but as soon as the title comes in am taking it to be inspected again just to make sure,

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Finished product

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That's really neat, congrats on a cool bike!

Are the pipes wide open? Damn that must be LOUD (which is fine with me).

My suggestion FWIW: get a cut-down sport screen and ditch that OEM barn door. Something that mounts directly to the fairing and in dark smoke color would really set it off.

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