Its (nearly) aliiiive!!!!!!

Tha Dance of the Rebels

My lovely hubby has been hard at work on the two parts bike Rebels. You may recall, we purchased a non-running 450 a year or more ago. The idea was it would be spare parts for the daily runner. Or, if we felt so inspired, a practice wrenching bike for me, or even better, a bike hubby could get going for us to sell. Of course, it sat for a while before any of those things came to pass. We did scavenge a few parts from it here and there though. Then, we purchased another 450 for parts. This one had been wrecked in the late 1990s but did have a running engine. No title with it but the first parts bike did come with a title. So, the new plan was to swap out all the good parts to make the titled parts bike a runner. That is where we are now. (And by we, I mean hubby.)
Above is the wrecked bike as hubby was preparing to remove the engine. The original owner (who I think bought it new) t-boned a car. The forks are mashed, the front fender was mangled (long since tossed by us), the gas tank has a massive dent in it where the rider landed on it (ouch!), and once the engine was out, we discovered a crack in the frame.

Below is the parts bike with the engine, among other things, already removed. Hubby thinks the engine is fine and that the starter might be bad. So, he is swapping out all of the keyed bits from the wrecked bike.

Both bikes came with trashed gas tanks. The parts bike had a tank from a 250 that was rusty and had many dents in it. I gave that to some one for the cost of shipping. The wrecked bike, in addition to the big dent, was also rusty inside. This bike had been stored outside since the wreck. Hubby said there was water coming from some of the parts as he removed them. All in all, the thing is in pretty good shape though. Mostly cosmetic issues aside from the wrecked issues. Between the two bikes, there is definitely a very nice running 450 in there. They both had very low miles as well. We'll need to replace the front tire but the rear was brand new when we got the parts bike. So, we'll leave that up to the next owner I think.

Below is the parts bike with the new engine in it. We plan to use the Tank brand gas tank that I bought new last year. (It's not attached yet.) They now have the console in stock so I should probably order one before they raise the prices again. I'll be glad not to need to do business with them any more. What a pain.


Oh, in the midst of this project, hubby also replaced the rear shocks on my daily runner with a pair from one of these parts bikes. He's so fabulous!

There's more completed since these photos were taken so I'll try to keep the updates coming. I'm hoping this blog will be a nice resource for anyone interested in buying one of these 450s. Hubby works faster than I can get photos documenting the job. :-)

Wrenching continued...

So, I removed a few parts from the bike on Saturday. In addition to the tank, we removed the exhaust pipes and were able to take a better look at them. Not too bad all things considered. I few smallish dents and some rust but no holes of pinching or anything that would prevent them from being useful. That's good because I needed them. The 86 parts bike didn't have useful pipes. They were cut by the PO. I also removed the battery and the battery box and cover. I took off the broken rear signal stems and threw them away. We tried to remove the tool box but it looks like you have to remove the air filter case before you can do that. I think that was it. Maybe next time I'll see about removing the headlight and some of the front end bits.

I'll still need to get new handlebars but that's ok because I want to put straighter ones on the "new" bike and the grip heaters. The stock bars on this 87 parts bike are bent from the accident. The 86 parts bike had the style of bars I want but those are bent as well. I think I'll need risers with this new Tank gas tank too. It is much wider than the 450 tank.

Wrenching

Today we took the tank off the wrecked 450 parts bike to see how the new Tank gas tank would fit and look on it. It is hard to say since the wrecked bike is quite bent. But, I think hubby wasn't discouraged about it fitting so that's a good thing. He's the one who will be modifying it to make it work. Here are some shots I took of the two tanks. I didn't take any shots of it on the bike. The Rebel gas cap fits. That's convenient.