So, I’ve been working on a bobber project for about a week now. It was a bit of a spontaneous decision brought on by happening across a picture of a hard tail gs750 last week.
It just so happens, I have a gs750.
Backstory:
When I was a kid my dad always had so much cool stuff. He had a 3rd gen camaro, we watched nascar, he had a big truck, and he had a 1977 gs750. I don’t think I ever even got to ride in the camaro before it was sold. The truck I always thought was cool but it was too tall for me to get in (in hindsight, I was just a little kid and it isn’t that big). The bike always fascinated me. It was so loud I was afraid to be outside when he started it. It had a red tank. It was the coolest thing ever.
He started riding me around on the gas tank when I was too little to hold on. We’d do laps in the yard. Eventually I got to do some rides out on the road. Then in 2003, when I was 13, he got into an accident on the bike. A dude who was all doped up ran a light and hit him from the side. The bike was dead, and he went a couple years without one.
He kept it though, because he’s a bit of a pack rat and keeps everything. So I decided a long time ago I was going to fix it up. The damage from the accident was unclear, but something somewhere was bent. Due to a lack of skill and money I never really tackled the project. Then about five years ago I decided it was time. We threw it in my truck and brought it to my house. I ripped some stuff off of the back, confirmed something was indeed bent, and ran out of time and motivation.
Enter this bike..
That hit me pretty good. I loved it immediately. My buddy has a bobber and we’ve talked about them, but I never had any intention of owning one. Seeing that lit a fire though. A ton of research on bobbers, using the oem swingarm like in that picture, hardtails in general, etc all came pretty quick. I looked at hundreds of them for inspiration. I yanked the bike out of the garage and rolled it into my shop and started unbolting literally everything I could see.
My dad showed up by chance like day 2 and helped me for a few hours. When it came time to pull the engine we couldn’t seem to pick it up at the right angle to get it out of the frame, so I decided we’d just hold the engine in the frame and tip the whole bike over. Slipped right out. Excellent.
Since then I’ve finished stripping it as you can see. I’ve lowered the front about 2.5 inches, lowered the rear about 4-5″ and tack welded a rod to the swingarm and the subframe that’s getting removed to keep the height fixed. Next step is to weld a square tube to the two crossbars that are clamped to the frame. That single tube will act as a receiver for a telescoping tube with a vertical piece that’ll hold a temporary axle right in the oem axle plates. Then I’ll remove the swingarm and cut the subframe off, machine new axle plates, and build my hard tail around the new axle plates mounted to the temporary axle.
End result will have clipons, be blacked out minus the tank which will be a matte white. I’ll be doing a bit of machining here and there which I’ll post up as it happens. Not much going on so far, but i want to set up a place to document this as I go. I’d like to have the Black Crow logo hand painted in black on the matte white tank when everything is finished.