Finally Functional, but not finished…
I’m excited that it’s finally out of the garage and functional after years of gathering parts and tinkering now with the nice weather showing up.
Picked up a 1st gen sv650 about 8 years ago. Didn’t run, swapped the motor and tinkered for very short rides to work and didn’t ride it much. I’m not a big rider, I just love to tear stuff apart and rebuild it and formerly worked at a Porsche restoration shop so had experience wrenching.
Everything needed overhauled to run and actually be safe. So started collecting parts 4 years ago, and then tearing it apart. Progress slowed up with having a little surprise bundle of joy added to the family.
Luckily the bike came with a box of parts that included new chain and sprocket, carb rebuild kit, and a rear spring from a Kawasaki zx6r, and a shop manual with wiring diagrams.
I wanted that cafe/streetfighter look so ended up fabricating a new subframe for it to fit the new seat. This ended up being a big project in getting the geometry to match and bend pipe without professional tools. But, I welded it up and it came out pretty decent. I had to wire up and attach new head/tail lights, turning signals, speedometer cluster, and installed a temp gauge on coolant return hose.
Swapped the front suspension with a set of GSXR forks I found on eBay. Rebuilt the carburetors for proper running. Replaced the ignition coils and wires. Reconditioned the brake calipers with new seals and pistons and put new lines in. Fixed the myriad of broken wiring throughout the bike. Had to replace the battery with a lithium as the new subframe did not leave enough room for the original lead acid battery. A detail I didn’t think about until later when the frame impeded the battery… I replaced the rec/reg along with the battery and maintained a lot of wiring that had become worn over its now 26 year life.
Paint job is just rattle cans and clear coat, and I still need to paint the tank. Wasn’t going for show piece, but wanted functionality and a clean appearance. Have little things to touch up around the bike and tweak with. But hopefully someone got some joy and inspiration from this ongoing project.