Building a chopper with Sidecarjon and Horse

Part one, the donor bike and its history

Let me introduce you to Horse.
This is Horse, already loosely mocked up, just to give an idea of the intended profile etc

Horse (aka crazy horse) is a 1987 Kawasaki KLR 650 trail bike.

In case you're wondering, the name has no Native American connotations.
The bike was so named because riding it in standard form was comparable in my mind to riding a psychotic rocking horse due to the infamously under sprung and under damped suspension and bad brakes that come as standard curtesy of mr Kawasaki san.

Don't get me wrong, it was great fun to ride in its own lunatic way.

Alas, horse has been the victim of two myopic motorists in the past, the second accident being serious enough to need major rebuilding work. "YOU BASTARDS, YOU KILLED HORSE!!"
Actually, damn nearly did for me too, see if you can guess which bit of me made the dents in the tank....


New forks, uprated fork internals and brakes along with junking of many mangled bits were the first steps to Horse's second resurrection, but then stuff and life happened in equal amounts and Horse was left lurking in the back of the garage, gathering dust and playing home to a tribe of homeless spiders.

Now it's time to get my old friend back on the road, but in a very different guise, this is the beginning of a real back street chopper project.

I have already taken my axle plate design to a local engineering firm to be cut out.
yes, I probably could have cut them myself using a drill and hacksaw, but given the amount of time it would have taken, I opted to have them cut out professionally, besides which it was cheap, not much more than the cost if the metal.
As soon as they're done, work will commence