Kawasaki VN800 Classic - The Story Behind The Bike

The story started a couple of years ago when I was part of Finnish air cooled VW scene. My plan was to trade my Bug for a custom motorcycle but at that time my only chance was to trade it to my ex bike, a Honda CB750 which was built to cafe racer style. I made it a bit more scrambler style and after a couple of years, I decided to sell it. Once it was on a selling site, I found this Kawasaki and traded my Honda for it.  So now I had my "dream" bike in hands!

Rebuild the Kawasaki chopper

The first summer I just went riding and planning the new look. I painted some scallops on the tank, so it looked a bit more my style. After that summer and hours of looking on the internet, I found a perfect inspiration picture of how I wanted my bike to look. First was changing the tank, it is from Sportster and it fitted quite easily to my bike. Some brackets needed to be removed, and I relocated the thermostat housing and speedo. Also I made new overflow bottle (Jaegermeister) and bracket for it. Next, the ugly cheap rear fender went in the trashcan and I fitted an nice new fender, which I customized a bit. The sissy-bar is handmade by me from a 12mm square rod. The original electrics/battery box was removed and I made a new box for electronics under the seat, and moved the battery to left side of the bike. The wiring harness needed some TLC, because previous owners hadn't been very good electricians. The exhaust was custom made by me also: I cut those previous pipes and welded a mix of different 2" bends together, it came out quite good. The silencer is some kind of megaphone I think, from China. The air cleaner housing is from an old VW Beetle. I removed all inside parts and mounted a power filter, which goes straight to the carburetor. I bought a dyno jet kit to connect the carb. The tank and rear fender were sanded to bare metal and then clear coated. It has started to rust a little bit under that clearcoat. I've removed all chrome tins from front forks, because I didn't like that heavy look of it and then painted them black.

Future plans with the Kawasaki chopper

I've built the bike for me, all by myself and for the sake of riding it. This summer I rode around 3000 km.  Next winter, I think I'll do just a little tinkering with the bike: maybe new side plates, a removable sissy bar extension and some kind bracket for the gasoline bottle. Also a plan is to modify the gas tank a bit, to lower that too-high tunnel on it.