Wow, long time no updates!  Ok so now it's spring and we've moved along quite a bit on the bike.  I say we because my friend Brad has leant me a big hand and pretty much got me through this build/restoration.  He and I took the bike completely apart down to the frame and motor.  I ordered a ton of new parts, cleaned, cleaned, and then cleaned some more before he came back about two weeks ago and we got the bike back together.  

I resealed the tank with some awesome "RedKote" or we'll see how awesome after I put some gas in it and hopefully it holds.  Got some new tires mounted up on the wheels, new brakes front and back, new chain, carbs cleaned and resealed as well.  I changed the oil, and wire wheeled, primed, and painted the frame, got all the surface rust off of it.  Changed out some bulbs in the instrument panel, put new bulbs in for the gauge faces so they finally light up.  I fixed some wiring, and with Brad's help learned the importance of ground wires on motorcycles, you need a lot of them for it to work well!  The new ignition switch works great, and lo and behold the battery that the previous owner said was no good, has enough juice to turn this thing over, a little fuel and I think we have a running bike.  Bike Bandit has been the best resource for parts I can find, they ship quickly and have decent prices on what I need.  I like working on this old bike because the parts are so cheap, set of front pads... $20!  Rear brake shoes (yes it's a drum brake rear end) another $20!  Brake job for less than $50, ok with me.   

I still have to install some air filters I bought, ditching the big bulky airbox in favor of some racy looking "airpods" makes it look like a bobber intake, retro like.  I still have to decide if I'm going to change out the handlebars at this point, I'm leaning towards leaving them alone until I learn to ride as they are a much easier setup than say "drag bars" or "cafe racer" style bars.  I need to put new seals in the front forks and refill them with oil, just got that on Saturday.  Luckily one of the cool older dudes at work says he'd help me do the job at lunch some day at work so I can learn how to do it for the next time I do the job.  I also picked up a front fender (the bike was missing it's original) on Ebay for$9.00!! It's a little crusty, but being that I'm planing on cleaning it up a bit I'm ok with it, besides you can't beat the price!  I'm going to leave the exhaust alone for now, but I'd like to chop it and get rid of the "trumpet" style cans as they really put a date on this thing.  I'm thinking with some chopped straight pipes and all the black and chrome it'll look like an older bike.  I'd like to also shorten the seat as it currently is a big'ol banana looking thing.  With a shorter seat the rear fender will stand out and again make it look a little different.  

So it's all coming together, and I can't wait to fire it up, hopefully it'll run after all this work.  It took longer than planned, but doesn't it always?  I'm looking forward to being done and moving onto another project, with 4 wheels again!  Some days when I'm out there I look at it and just want to take this thing for a ride and enjoy it instead of constantly wrenching on it.  

I'll post pictures eventually, hold tight, last time I tried to post them it didn't work, user error I'm sure.  Stay tuned, updates will be more frequent from here on out.