A True OLD SKOOL Bagger 1993 Tour Glide

[benjiblaze]

A few of the parts that my buddy powder coated for me are back and the flat black powder turned out pretty nice. I picked up the aluminum stock this week for the front fender mounts. Quite a bit of work ahead to make the mounts hopefully look like the mock up. I made the first fiberglass seat pan last week and it is now off the bike and I should be able to everything done today to start the second seat pan. At that point, it is tear down time! Off to blasting and powder coat for the frame. Hopefully that should start this weekend.

[Denis C.]

Wow, very impressive! Congratultions so far. Can't wait to see her when done. I also find that she was impressive when you first bought her. Nice project and are you planning on opening a custom shop for living?

[benjiblaze]

So the first seat pan cured enough that I cut it into shape. This is the single seater and I will be making a two up seat pan later this week. I ordered my neoprene foam today for both seats and should be able to get both of them completed sometime next week. Front fender struts bends are almost complete and then the actual making them work on the fender and front end to come. Here's a couple of pics of the seat pan. Turned out pretty decent, and I like the fact that it doesn't move at all due to the impressions made by the frame and other items into the fiberglass.

[benjiblaze]

The single seat pan is finished up, and is ready for the cushion to be added which I should be able to get done next week when the large sheet of Neoprene foam gets delivered. So I tackled the two up seat pan which will be the comfortable seat for the distance rides and I guess when the wife wants to go as well. This pan is quite a bit more involved than the single since I need some sort of backrest for the wife. I originally wanted to just order a seat from Ultimate Seats since from what I hear, the seats are comfortable and they have the incorporated backrest in the seat. Unfortunately they can not make a seat that will fit the old girl since I removed the original tab locations and rear fender location as well. So since I have done everything else on the bike myself, I figured let's add seat fab to the list. The first few layers of fiber are down and curing and that is giving me time to make the the backrest mount that will be laid in between the bottom and top layers. Currently there are 4 layers of fiber on the base of the pan, and I will lay probably 3 more layers on top of the braces of the fiber. One nice thing about this is I do not have to drill the rear fender at all and the bike will not have the hole out in the open when I am only running the one up seat. I also kept with the harder corners on the seat pan to match the lines of the bike better since the fairing has more sharp edges than a normal glide.

[benjiblaze]

Now this has been fun getting everything together for the levers and controls on the handlebars. I started from scratch here. Had to go with a bigger front brake reservoir due to the single disc brake. Had to remove the cruise controls, radio controls and just about everything else. Since I am making this bike as light and minimalist as I can while keeping everything that I actually need, I needed to incorporate 5 buttons/controls on the bars. So what I came up with was a 3 button setup for turn signals and high/low beam, and then 2 momentary switches which will control air ride suspension and the horn. The starter is being controlled by the ignition switch which is being added to the dual coil bracket which is going to be where the horn was originally located. It will also have a 2 way switch to control the angel eye LED's and normal headlights. Eventually I may add another switch on the handlebars if I go with the air shifter..... So after a few swap meets and about 4 hours of machining and cutting to make a reliable brake actuator to work with the reservoir and modded levers, I was able to remove the chrome from the pieces and put a black wrinkle finish on all the pieces that match up nicely with the RSD bars and quite a few of the other pieces on the bike. I also picked up the small throttle cable housing to work with the RSD grip. I ordered a set of black mirrors to mount as well on the controls, but am still debating on if I may just buy another set of mirrors that have the LED front turn signals built in since I almost don't want to cut the fairing anymore to incorporate them into the fairing itself?? (any thoughts?) This weekends plans are to cut and weld the backrest, install the backrest and add the extra layers of fiber on the bracket and hopefully do the final tear down so I can take the frame and all the pieces to powder coat.

[Monkeyman]

That's bad ass.

[benjiblaze]

So the second seat pan has the backrest installed. gotta get back to working on the rest of the bike build over the next couple of weeks. I bought a BMW touring bike last week so I have been out riding it to and from work/everywhere so I have slacked off on the build. So back on nights for work for the next couple of weeks and I will spend the rest of the time working on the build. Here are a few of the pics of the backrest in the seat pan.

[cubezombie]

wow!! Great build so far...Any updates?

[benjiblaze]

Sorry I have been offline for so long. Status on the bike is not a lot different than a couple of months ago. My real job has had me too busy, and then my studio has been busy most weekends, so the bike has had to take a slight hiatus. I did end up buying another bike to tide me over from my withdrawals until this one is complete. I think I am up to about 4K miles on it in the past 3 months or so. As an updated status on the old girl, she has undergone a couple of design changes, and been doing a little bit of metal shaping and designing of the front fender mounts. Came up with a design that mimic's the design of the rims on the bike, and hopefully they mounts should be done in a couple more weeks. When I get a couple of minutes, I will get some new pictures and post them.

[Sedona103]

Been waiting for more pics. This is the most interesting build by far. Keep up the good work.