Sunday afternoon I put the new skeleton kicker pedal and painted risers in place on the '83 XS650. Then had to test them out for a fun ride. I still need to sort out a couple of things on the lowered forks, but they should be going on really soon. Also been thinking about lowering the back end also, monza or rebel shocks??? Either way, gonna be making that happen.
I picked up a Skeleton Kicker Pedal from Lowbrow Customs not to long ago. It's really nice quality. I spent a couple of hours getting it mounted up yesterday and thought I'd share the process. In photo #1 you can see the stock kicker pedal (bottom) below the one I trimmed up and prepaired for the pedal. When welding, I decided to use an extra bolt as a thread shield for any welding spatter. Also I used plenty of anti sieze lubrication as I welded the nut (with bolt threaded to it) to the kicker arm. I built up a pretty good thick weld around the nut and then filed and grinded it down a little to clean it up. Once the welded area was cleaned up, I tapped on the bolt with a hammer to test the welds. No problems, now time to paint and mount this up.
I picked up a headlight mount from Pandemonium Custom Cycles for the bike I'm working on. I wanted to show how easy it is to mount this up. The photos are pretty self explanetory. Mount up the bottom tree in a vice and drill the existing threaded holes with a #7 (7mm) drill bit. Spray some cutting oil in the new holes and thread with a 5/16-18 threaded tap. Clean up the new threaded hole with an air compressor and test fit the new headlight mount. If you have the tools and cutting oil, it's a 5 minute job. While I had the bottom tree in the vice I went ahead and lifted over the bottom tree rubber seal and tapped off the lower race. A couple of taps on top and a couple of taps on bottom with a big screw driver and ball peen hammer was all it took.
