OK I've decided to consolidate my build thread because it's scattered all over the forum.

I'm making a rat/bobber out of this. Started by ditching the seats, fenders and those ugly bars. I put my drag bars and hand controls from my other bike and started connecting everything but it's long from being finished.




Oh and yes, yes a Savage will fit in a Caravan. Quite well actually.

Since the stock tank is too wide for drag bars on short risers, I jumped on this tank from a 1988 GS450. A little banging and this is where it sits. This tank has quite a big dent in it on the other side but now that I know how well it fits, I may get one that's in better shape. Body-work is one thing I absolutely hate to do. I'll bang, weld and spray-bomb but god help me if I need to fill-n-sand.

The final piece of the chain conversion - moving over that lopsided left-rear shock. I'm not one for perfect symmetry - I like a single-side exhaust, one mirror, single-taillight etc - but this was completely unacceptable. All I can say is I'm so glad that I didn't need to modify the swingarm.

When I cut the tabs and foot-peg mounts off, I also cut off the left upper-shock post. I looked at it and thought, darn this looks so much better but darn this is gonna suck...




Turns out it wasn't so bad, just a lot of elbow grease. I started by drilling a 1/4" pilot hole, then a 31/64" then a 1/2" reamer. Spin the drill very slow and spray WD-40, PB Blaster, whatever you have around and it will cut like butter. The faster you spin the drill, the faster it heats up and dulls out.




I cut off the bracing from the post then turned down a portion of it...



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...and there it is. Since I'm not going to modify the swingarm - nor could I - it's still lopsided. I'm simply gonna hide that with the license plate.

Ordered a saddle, finally, so of course it comes with a tear in it. Welp, gotta send that back. At least I know I can't use my regular springs unless I want the saddle to be 3 inches off the frame.

You and me both. I've had the bike for 2 months, I really didn't expect it to take me this long. If I put my mind to it, I could finish it this weekend but the reality is I just can't get the motivation going so I'm shooting for the end of the month. I'm fighting with myself to get the motivation to do the wiring right now. Since I'm super anal, I want to use all the factory wiring colors which means dissect the harness(done), then remove what I need(partially done), then trim everything to length(not even close) and terminate the connections hopefully with the factory plugs(not even started).

Just typing that took more effort than I felt like doing.

I am pretty amazed at how well the tank fits. I really only did the banging to get it to sit as low as possible, the tunnel was already the shape of the frame. I stopped banging once I had it resting on the engine. I think today I'm gonna weld the front donut posts back on so I can size up the mount for the back.

I've had mine apart for almost 2 years. It might get put back together, eventually. Unless I score another project that I find more interesting (or the 1957 HD Panhead barhopper gets shipped down here).

And all I have left is respray the rear fender sides, shorten the harness, manual decompression lever and re-assemble. Oh, and swap the current tires for some fresher ones. And finish the mounts for a real seat.

Just can't make myself care about my bike anymore.

From there, the wiring was way too long with the much shorter risers and bars so I had to cut off a bunch. I started with the headlamp wiring.

I always reuse the factory connectors unless something was brittle or broken. I open up the crimp that's holding the insulation then I just wiggle the wire back and forth until it breaks off. Then I dab some solder right over the old wire crimp, slide my freshly cut and tinned wire in, crimp, then solder. Now I have a better termination than factory while retaining the factory plugs.




I couldn't do this with the plugs for the turn-signals because they had that piece of extra insulation over them. Time to splice some wires. I have a little trick I like to do to make the wiring as small and clean as possible. Instead of holding the wires against each other and twisting them together, I hold them in an X configuration and twist them together.




Originally the front running-light wires were spliced together at the beginning of the loom. Way too long and I would have had to fish them through two looms. Not happening. I cut the ends off and then spliced them in where I shortened the rest of the turn-signal wiring. Same concept as before but I twisted the two plug ends conventionally, then twisted them in an X to the harness.



Solder then heat-shrink. Always remember to slide your heat-shrink on before you solder!




And that's that! Them two stragglers are the horn wires. I haven't decided what I'm doing for a horn, I may get a large air-horn. Yes, you heard me right, an air-horn.