1984 Katana 7/11

[steve murdoch]

I prefer the look of them below the cooler as well.
Really enjoying following along with your project.

[ptegsotic]

Lights look great up top I reckon!
And some kind of low profile indicators on the fins!! Excellent thinking Batman!

[SVSooke]

I like the look of the top mounted lights better,not so bug eyed.

[pete]

Hmmmm yeah I dunno...

I think one of the KA fellas said it right about the whole idea... it's opened a big can of worms!!!

The bug eyes at the bottom has grown on me, yet at the same time I haven't really looked at the Kat from different angles to get that holistic look to make sure they fit in with the rest. The rest of my "custom" work is designed to either look or work with the stock look, so yeah they could just look wrong with a stock styled Kat... and that's exactly the opposite of what I want to achieve. I think I need to go stare at it for half an hour or so and try to get the overall look into my head, then I'll be able to see.

To be honest right now I'm leaning towards just repairing the front cowl and finding a stock or appropriate after market headlight. Let's face it, there ain't nothin' wrong at all with the stock setup in that area, in fact it's all just right!

For the sake of not wasting my effort, here's the mock ups with the indicators, don't really like either of them personally... and after a suggestion of bar end indicators, yeah not gonna happen... cheapest option seems to be about $200 for the pair and I cannot find any info whatsoever as to whether they're legal.

[Charlie G]

Pete,

I'd go stock....

[tkent02]

Pete, what did you use to bend these pieces?

[Tim Tom]

Pete,

I've been thinking about this headlight dilemma of yours, and I did my own quick mock ups. Generally based on what your ideas, but with the addition on a sheet of brushed alloy (could be painted to blend in to the bodywork) in the headlight opening. You would mount the lights to this face, and could use routed lines, or a drill hole pattern, to provide airflow to an oil cooler behind it. It also might look better with smaller lights, I know you can get some very bright LED lights that are only about 1" (25-30mm) in diameter.

Just food for thought.








I also did some without the louvers, if you put the oil cooler in a different spot.





Personally I like the vertical stacked look better than the side by side lights. They look too much like a face my tastes when side by side. The vertical layout gives it a bit more modern of a look, not sure if that's what you are after or not. Could also put in four lights in a square pattern too, though I just thought of that now, and didn't do a mock up of that.


Anyways, hope this helps you decide how to handle the front regardless of what direction you take.

Cheers mate!

[pete]

Tom, the bends were pretty simple to do. I used some left over pine from the shed and clamped that on top of the aluminium to the work bench with the edge needing bending hanging over the front. Then I used another piece of pine to bend it upwards. It's a bit awkward bending up against gravity but it's much easier to see the lines marked out that way so you can line the timber up properly and get a nice uniform bend along the entire length. I'm sure others will have better techniques but it seems to work for me.

Tim Tom, thanks mate! I appreciate the effort you put in!

I went out to the shed last night, put the side covers and screen on and just looked and looked and looked. Took some photos so I could check again this morning as well.

In the end, none of them in my mind are working with the stock lines of the Kat, so I'm sticking with the stock rectangular headlight I reckon. If I was going to be doing a restomod or some butt in the air fancy mod's or something then I would definitely go down this path, but keeping the majority of the stock lines means it just won't look right in the end...

So, dilemma solved

[pete]

After yesterday I may need to start the battery/electrics tray from scratch, just have to wait and see tonight.

I tried brazing it and that was a big fail. I had enough heat with the propane torch to melt the brazing rods, but unfortunately the 0.8mm aluminium melted first, so I did end up with a bit of a hole and lots of chunky bits of brazing rod attached where I had to take the heat away to prevent melting the tray even more. The potentially horrible short sighted solution was to use some adhesive filler my house mate has here to patch it up and stick it all together, and that's why I have to wait for tonight. It does an awesome job of sticking aluminium to tiles so we'll wait and see.

Yes, I should've seen someone to get it welded but I'd be too embarrassed by the mess it's in! Nothing a coat of paint won't fix if it works... and if I have to start again it will be welded...

But I did get one bit of success! The front inner guard is pretty much done.





I need to extend the cut out where the chain runs through, for some reason my cardboard template appeared to have plenty of room but the finished product hits the stock guard with the shocks compressed, not sure how i missed that.

I'll also need to adjust the angle of the lip on top to sit neatly on top of the rear tray when it's done and drill a couple of holes to join them together.

Other than that all good.

I'm undecided if I should polish or paint these or go for the brushed aluminium look. I'm thinking polished may look a little out of place on a black and red Kat, so may paint them black yet.

[pete]

I got an extremely pleasant surprise last night... the adhesive sealant worked it's magic on the battery/electrics tray!



I still need to trim the sides down but it really needs some sanding and a coat of paint to hide the attempted brazing mess...



But it sits in very neatly and once I get some mounts sorted for the rear it will be ready to go.







Then I did a quick mock up of the Acewell dash I'm thinking of using... seems it's a little bigger than I anticipated and there's not quite as much room between the head stem and front cowl as I thought. The fork legs also come quite close at full lock.

If I go with it, I'll need to trim some of the cowl back for it to sit in neatly, but I'd anticipated that much at least.

The catch is I bit the bullet and bought a GSX 1100 ignition barrel off eBay yesterday thinking there would be plenty of room to mount it beside the dash all neat and tidy. I don't want anything on the triple tree at all.

Thinking now it may have been a rash decision and there may not be room after all... not exactly a huge expenditure if it doesn't work but definitely annoying.





Hopefully tonight I can get back to the tail light again.

[Big Rich]

Looking good Pete!

[loud et]

I like that moch up of the acewell gauge. That looks like a well placed "command center".
I also like the first photo shop job Tim Tom did with the lights up high. But I also like the one you did with the lights down low Pete. Lol
I like what you are doing Pete. Stock bike with lots of add on touches and small custom bits.
Ya gotta make it "yours" if you wanna love it.
Looking good.

[pete]

Cheers guys! Yeah I'm pretty happy with the way things are going so far, although definitely sticking with the stock headlight after looking at it from various angles. She needs to be a bit more modified to get away with the dual round lights I think... although I still reckon it's pretty cool

All three of the bits I'm making at the moment (battery/electrics tray, inner front guard, rear inner guard/tray) will get a spray of some etch primer then some satin black paint I have here which I've used before and seems to turn out well. Should hide them all nicely.

As for the dash, I can always use the round Acewell 2853 like I have on the 450. That should give me room for the ignition switch beside it. If it's not pouring tonight I'll try to get out to the shed for another bit of cardboard fun.

It sure is neat sitting in that cowl though, definitely exactly what I'm trying to achieve there!

I tried to get more done on the tail light last night but getting 10mm steel rod to the right size with a perfectly flat bottom and top to make stand offs for the lense is way too painful with the tools at my disposal. I remembered I had some plastic rod around so I found that but it's way too big a diameter so I ordered some 10mm delrin rod off eBay instead. Hopefully it'll be here soon. At least in the meantime I can use some masking tape to stick the lense to the base so I can work out the correct length of the rear inner guard/tray and get that made.

[pete]

Here's the smaller Acewell 3100 size mocked up, catch with this one is I have to add idiot lights as it has none built in:





And the round 2853 which I run on the 450, has idiot lights included:





Having the 'bars at full lock with the rectangular ones does have the end of the clip ons overlapping the edge of the dash, although probably not enough to obscure the speedo. The catch will be brake/clutch/throttle cables once I get all those on the 'bars.

At this point I think the round 2853 is the way to go as there's no overlap on full lock and I can probably offset it enough to make plenty of room for the ignition switch beside it.

Then moving on to the rear inner guard/tray... I taped the brake light lense onto my backing plate and measured it all up, here's the revised cardboard version:





Seems to have the tail light in the right position:



I do need to come up with a better mounting idea for the rear of the tray though. The two 2.5mm thick pieces of aluminium have added a bit more weight than I thought they would, so having that hanging off the end of a 1mm thick aluminium tray is a recipe for disaster once a few vibrations and bumps have hit.

I'll also likely be hanging the number plate/rear guard from that same area so I have to take that into account as well. I had a quick measure with the 45 degree rule in mind (still applies to our Kats from the legal mumbo jumbo I can find) and it looks like a slightly-longer-than-number-plate height rear guard hanging from the tail light backing plate will be all that's required.

My plan was to use the rear indicator mounts on the frame for supporting the rear of the tray which should work, just have to design a suitable bracket to support it all. I suspect that one will end up steel to avoid potential breaks due to vibration.

[dmctechnical]

Hi pete ,

Have been following your build from WA , doing a awesome job mate .

There is no longer the 45degree rule with mudguard extensions http://www.mraqld.org/index.php/aust...rules-adr.html.

But there is a minimum distance apart requirement for indicators , its on the same page above .



David