It is better then christmass round here!

     And today, well today we got presents.  Well what sort of presents do you think would make us hop up and down for joy.  Well lets just say more Z50 stuff, and even better than that...   How about three Z50 FRAMES!   WOO HOO is all I can say.  We managed to acquire a pair of K1 hard tail frames, and a very very early K0.  They even came with some extra parts, but dammit no tanks.

     Tanks for the poor, tanks for the poor.  If you have a K0, K1 tank please get with me, we are short tanks like really bad.  They are pricey to say the least online, and I have not been able to find a reliable source for replica tanks yet.  So please please if you have a tank, or any other 50 parts please keep us building by shipping them to us!

    Of course I cant leave you hanging with out pictures, that would be rude.  So this is what we got!

     As you can see we did not take our time waiting around for things to happen, we got to stripping the frames.  So far the K0 looks really good, and the blue K1 that I am going to build looks good too.  Now as for the yellow K1 as you can see, it has been scabbed a bit.  Someone rode that one hard and put it away broken, then got some gorilla to attempt to weld things back together.  Not a good situation, I am going to have to do some serious work on that frame to get it back to the way it should be.  More on that frame latter.

     Things on the pot belly have sort of stalled, I have been a bit busy doing some things.  Jason has been having life pop out at him as well.  But we will get back to her I assure you.  Now for me to get back to this dam Kodiak.

Oh boy, we are starting to mock things up!

     Monday again, and things have been coming togther pretty quickly.  Jason saw the tank and was ready to rock and roll with things to get the pot belly mocked up.  So well I left him the tank and a few days latter he called me up and said.  'You just have to come see for yourself'.  Well it was a few days latter since I was dealing with stuff on a Kodiak 400 (More on that thing latter).  Well I came down the hill and low and behold, look at what I saw!

     Things are starting to come together now.  She looks really good even with the coating of dust.  As you can see Jason has been working on polishing things up and getting a rear tire sourced and not to mention rims acquired and such.  The rear tire is a Kenda for one of those toy trailers, he happened to have a spare and since it was a 4.80/4.00 -8 we were like what the hell.  It is a nice big fatty to give it a nice stance.  Traction, well I guess we will see on that.

     I was going to strip and then paint the tank badges back to original colors, red, white and black.  But when I was stripping them down, I decided just to polish them up and paint the wing openings black.  I think it gives it a bit more class than the stock badges. 

     The seat is just set on there for now, we have no idea how we are going to mount it yet, we also have not decided what to run as a front tire.  I am leaning to something scooterish.  Jason is leaning more fat street bike front tire.  So that is still up in the air.  And notice, we are still short a engine.  We have been bantering back and forth about what to run.  I was leaning to the stock 50cc engine, or perhaps a 70cc out of a CT70.  He wants something much much larger.  Hate to keep you all in suspense, but we dun know what direction to go!

     So many things left to do, so many questions about parts and what to use.  Time will tell and see you all next Monday.

The tank, the tank!

     Well with all that has been going on around here, I do hope you do not mind some filler once in a while.  But in this weeks post we are back to the pot belly pig, namely the tank this time.  As Jason was polishing parts, prepping some bars, and doing some general fabrication things.   I went to town on the tank.  Since I was smart and let the primer set up for a few days, I gave it a nice guide coat and began to block it down with some nice wet 400.

     Now I am not a perfect body man, but I am decent when it comes to doing such things.  I mean my second job was working as mechanic in a body shop back in the early 90's and I did learn allot.  But on to the tank, a good blocking down and some tack cloth and extra liquid courage.  I did it.  4 coats of color, and 5 coats of clear.  Now I did have a fish eye pop out at me, but it is not that bad.  The main thing is.. it looks like this....

     I think it came out quite nice.  I am not sure if I am going to have to color sand and buff it, since I am not really seeing any orange peel.  But I might latter on down the road once we are at the final assembly stage.  We are getting close to mocking her up now, I can't wait.   But enough for today, more next week when good things begin to come together.

Filler, and sceenery...

     Today is filler day here on the Benton bike blog.  Figure I would post some nice pictures of the back yard, and then what happens when I go to these places often times.   First off, I was on the Suzuki SP-500 this time.  A older vintage duel sport bike that does rather well rock crawling considering the antiquated suspension and the lovely oil leaks.

     As you can see, she is no spring chicken.  But she is one hell of a mountain goat to say the least.  She has taken me many places in the back country to get views like this!

That is taken from the tree line at the start of the whites.   The next one is taken back in the whites a ways, but not up that high.  Figure 7000, to 7300 ft elevation.

     Of course getting to places like that, is a bit rough on the body.  Not to mention the bike.  Needless to say over the rocks I did have a bit of a issue when I was going down the trail.

     Well lets just say tires are not cheap, so I had to drop 108 on a new tire and tube for the old goat so that I can continue going places.  Not a bad deal, and it is even a Dunlop.

     To say she is a trencher is a understatement.  Nothing like new boots ya know? She is much more stable over the rocks than with the old rubber, it is like night and day.  Now I suppose it is time to do something bout the old worn out suspension.   We will get to that in some other post.  Enjoy the views folks.