Tale of Franken-Vision (Part 2)

[Ben-Wa]

Along comes June and my lovely wife finishes her M/C training with flying colors! Alas, she takes a good look at the 400 parts of Vision lying around the garage and starts to worry. "How long before I can ride that?" she asks. Oooohh, about 5 weeks if I really hurry and every thing goes perfect I reply. (By this time I had the machine stripped to the skeleton.) BRRRZZ! Wrong answer. I completely agreed that she needed to get on something ASAP so as to build on her new found skills, and for some reason she declined my offer of riding the Ninja. Well within the week we got her a Buell, which is another story altogether, so we mutually decided that now I could consider the Vision a "Project Bike" on which I could spend my time over the long winter months.

For much of the summer of 2002 the Vision sat in various heaps in the garage, as a steady stream of parts was taken to work and sandblasted at lunch, then painted after work. Tiny switches were totally disassembled, refurbished, and reassembled. The frame was soda blasted and repainted with some durable coating, and the pile of receipts continued to grow.

Also as the time wore on, I formed in my mind the idea to "Customize" the bike, bringing it back to life, but not as one would expect. Of course the necessary replacements were made, forks seals, oil, spacers to stiffen up the springs a tad, new starter clutch assembly, almost all new fasteners, clutch cable, choke cable, gear oil, custom seat cover, fuel and vacuum hoses, carb. intakes, exhaust gaskets, case gaskets and o-rings, and the list goes on. Of course the stock airbox and filter had to go, and K&N filters replaced them. The master cylinder was rebuilt and a speed bleeder installed on the front brake, and I had the rotor drilled for better cooling. I scrapped the heavy stock fender/lic. plate assembly and fabricated my own fender eliminator kit. Flush mount signals and bar end mirrors were slated, and about then I decided to loose the rectangular stock headlight and go to a round unit so I could mount a "Cafe" fairing. All the body parts were sent to my nephew for a donated paint job, "Cadaver Gray" I call it.

I also realized that the stock exhaust, while heavy and ugly, was also rusted out more than I thought, so I started designing a 3 into one header that I felt I could pull off with the help of some welder friends. (Yes, 3 into 1 because each exhaust valve (4) has it's own pipe, and on the rear cylinder they "Y" together.) Since I was going to be eliminating the 2 mufflers, I did not need the large aluminum brackets that hold them and the passenger pegs, so those were scrapped but for a portion that was needed for the rear brake.

I decided not to burn a lot of calories on detailing the engine, as I had no idea if it would run or how well, and besides, it is rather easy to remove and I could do it later. Early in February I had the engine reinstalled and the wiring harness refurbished, and was ready to test fire it. The tank was not back from the kid, so I borrowed a fuel bottle from the local mechanic, rolled the barely recognizable as a bike unit out into the driveway, and fired it up! I was amazed...it ran, although with straight pipes and no tank or vacuum lines hooked up it was loud and not very smooth. At least I knew it could breath, and no oil or coolant was leaking, so moved on to the next phase.

The bike then went over to my welder buddy, and over the next two months we squeezed in the time to scavenge various exhaust pipe bits and a muffler and made the pipe. It is one of my favorite aspects of Frank- even without being tuned up, the pipe sounds a bit like a Harley with some Ducati thrown in....gear driven cam whine and all.

Anyway, it all came together in early May, the painted parts were on, fuel was in the tank, the pipe was fitted with some sweat and custom fabricated exhaust gaskets, and we were ready to try it again. After a dozen or so cranks to get the fuel through the system, it started right up and went to idle. (More amazement on my part.)

Well to finish a long story, I dubbed it "Franken-Vision", making custom emblems to that effect. This was driven by the fact that like the famous "Franken-Stein", this was once lifeless material, but with the addition of various bits and pieces from other sources and a little mad scientist action, it came back to life! Still not all that pretty to look at, like Frank, but a goer all the same.

The list of contributors to this 1982 Vision include:
'83 Vision petcock and carbs
'78 Suzuki GS-850 headlight and bucket
'89 Kawasaki EX-500 exhaust canister
'03 Buell front turn signals
grinding face shield
automotive gas cap
dirt bike fork boots
and probably other stuff I have forgotten.

I have ridden it 50 miles so far, and other than a small oil leak problem which turned out to be the oil filler plug missing an O-ring, and an occasional sticky carb float that dribbles gas, it seems to be solid. It will soon go in for a shop tune up and I will call it good.

I totaled up all my receipts and have will have about $1350.00 wrapped up in it. Now back in '85, I could have bought a brand new '83 Vision for about $1500.00 out of the box, probably even less with an employee discount. Do I feel ripped off? NO. It was a lot of fun at times, and I learned a lot that will help me on my next project bike. I plan on eventually selling this for whatever I can get and putting it toward some other basket case.

That is all,

Ben Getz

[GAJim]

we want pictures

[QQBS]

What a wonderful tale! Thank you so much for not only bringing the bike back life but also for going to so much time and trouble to share with us.  You are certainly an inspiration.

It will be interesting to see if you can get away with K&N's.

Your story really makes me appreciate my very intact unrestored excellent condition '83.  Thanks again!  Cheers.