let me see your custom fab tail sections

[vernk]

im looking into trying my first fiberglass tail. let me see some pics of what you guys did to your 1st gen vf's. im waiting on an f2 rear wheel and looking to lift the rear tail and customize the look. not sure as i dont have access to a welder....most i could do is braze....

[fatso1277]

not sure to many here are fiberglassing anything, most i have seen on this site is a few subframe and tail swaps from other bikes. i would suggest Custom Fighters - Streetfighter Motorcycle Forum, they have great tutorials on fiberglassing custom 1-off tails over there. and a gallery that will give you a lot of ideas. not sure what the welder is needed for...use some foam/fiberglass/ and current tail to make your plug. and go from there.

[drewr]

I don't know if it helps but I took the ugly as all get out rear fender off of mine last year to create an undertail effect like you might see on a newer sport bike. The whole point for me was to clean up the rear end but still have my plate and light back there (obviously).
I looked at several jobs done by other guys and never found one this agressive.
The first two pics are of the change when I had all the parts off to the painter. The last one is after putting all the body parts back on.

[vernk]

Originally Posted by fatso1277

not sure to many here are fiberglassing anything, most i have seen on this site is a few subframe and tail swaps from other bikes. i would suggest Custom Fighters - Streetfighter Motorcycle Forum, they have great tutorials on fiberglassing custom 1-off tails over there. and a gallery that will give you a lot of ideas. not sure what the welder is needed for...use some foam/fiberglass/ and current tail to make your plug. and go from there.

yea im on cf too. just not too 1st gen vf oriented ya know? wondered if any one here had done theirs.

[vernk]

Originally Posted by fatso1277

not sure to many here are fiberglassing anything, most i have seen on this site is a few subframe and tail swaps from other bikes. i would suggest Custom Fighters - Streetfighter Motorcycle Forum, they have great tutorials on fiberglassing custom 1-off tails over there. and a gallery that will give you a lot of ideas. not sure what the welder is needed for...use some foam/fiberglass/ and current tail to make your plug. and go from there.

the welder is for me to chop my rear subframe and weld it at more of an angle upwards as the newer style street bikes have. if you look at drew's his tail from stock is higher than my vf700f's tail...removing the undertail...

[fatso1277]

Originally Posted by vernk

yea im on cf too. just not too 1st gen vf oriented ya know? wondered if any one here had done theirs.

the most i've seen done which inspired me to do mines was a member put a 03-04 cbr600rr tail on his, and he details it pretty well with the custom brakets he made using the stock subframe from the vfr. actually after much consideration and research that would be the route i am going. gives bike a newer look. a lot easier to find plastics for an already existent subframe. but that me.

on CF.com, there is a guy who i think detailed how he made a new tail for an older kawasaki..if i am not mistaken using his stock subframe. Candyman over there at Cf.com, under the DIY section does a great job detailing steps on using foam, gluing it together and chopping it up and fiberglassing it. still using stock subframe. I know tons of subframe chopping threads going on over there.

Your only limitation is your imagination.

[vernk]

yea i've been doing the searching mostly at cf. i've been through candyman's thread. love the idea of the solo cowl, but i think i want to go a little further. we'll see how it turns out :)

[supertex]

I'm fabbing my own using foam, making molds and then using maybe carbon fiber as the medium. I tried to look up that site you both were talking about but it was Chrysler foundation. What is the actual link you guys are looking at?

[vernk]

www.customfighters.com

[fatso1277]

okay these are the best 2 i could find for fabbing your own custom tail section


using wood:
Tailsection

using foam
candyman does work! tailsection. - Custom Fighters - Streetfighter Motorcycle Forum

[masonv45]

The PO had cut off the plastic rear fender and mounted the plate facing toward the tire. Unfortunately, this allow the tire to rub the plate when the shock bottoms out.

I just took some angle bracket I had around, bent them at the correct angle, painted them black, and used some bolts,split washers,and nuts to fasten the brackets to the plastic underside of the bike. Bolted the plate on with some acorn nuts and you're good to go. The tailight lights up the plate and give the driver behind you twice the lit surface area compared to just a tailight.

I also removed the turn signal brackets and mounted the signals upside down. The bracket nuts fit the turn signals too!

Both mods make for a lot cleaner rear end.

[Vlad Impaler]

Originally Posted by fatso1277

okay these are the best 2 i could find for fabbing your own custom tail section


using wood:
Tailsection

using foam
candyman does work! tailsection. - Custom Fighters - Streetfighter Motorcycle Forum

That gussett wood one is CLASS, the foam lumpy one is ASS.
Looks like the wood framed one was made by someone who has done some hobby model airplane work before. Clean!
A quality job with some 3 dimesional framing and a hot wire knife on that foam would be fine. It just didn't happen in that example.

[vernk]

the foam piece is a cross country collaboration between multiple people of the customfighters.com community to build a custom streetfighter bike with purpose of auctioning it off and giving proceeds to charity. given that, and my not so high standards, its a beautiful piece.

[kevcov]

i have not done anything yet but im getting ready to make a new body for my 84 vf500. right now im just drawing and trying to map out how i want to make everything look

[actionj]

I hated the tail on my 94 so this is what i did. I swaped it out for a 2005 600rr tail. Mounting the tail was actually pretty easy. I used the stock subframe. All I did on it was cut out the side supports and rotated it up to the position i wanted and then welded it in. The 600rr tail fit on pretty easy with only a little modification of the subframe. The time consuming part was the side filler panels between the rear and tank. I first made a set out of sheet metal and then fiber glassed over them to make the ones I have on there now. I was going to do an undertail exhaust but came up with a under bike setup that I love. You hardly can see that it is there. Good luck and let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks,

Jeff

[supertex]

I've been playing around and put this on the bike to measure fit. Seems to fit perfectly so I'm going to adjust for looks, finish the rib work, and foam in. Got the idea from the first link you put up but couldn't use exact due to frame; so I came up with my own. The light is L.E.D. I found at Cycle gear. The hardest part was figuring out how to incorporate while still being able to remove and replace. That's done, which made the framing look just slightly different from picture but only on the inside. Silhouete will stay the same. just in front of the rear of the tail light will be a compartment that holds electonics and whatever else I need. When I'm done here I'll fab up some side panels, paint and polish the subframe, and get'er on the road. Let me know what you think.

[supertex]

one more just so you can see the light from the rear.

[actionj]

That profile looks really good. Keep posting pics of the process. I would love to see the steps as you go.

actionj

[fatso1277]

i tried the wood thing at first, but got really frustrating. Getting both sides perfectly symetrical was my problem. A member posted a thread where he put the cbr600rr tail on his 87, all he did was use the vfr700 subframe to make some custom brackets for it. (search under 1st/2nd gen - cbr600rr) i think it starts out with ITS ALIVE....but for me it was easy to take that route cause my vfr subframe was bent slightly and finding plastics for newer sleeker existing subframe was a lot easier. so my cbr600rr subframe and tail piece is in route to me...now just gotta learn to weld or find someone willing to help me out with the welding part. if you are going to continue with the wood thing might wanna transfer final shapes to MDF instead, a little lighter and easier to work with...maybe 1/2 mdf. just my 2 cents.