Glad to see you got the tank on ok. The only thing that strikes me as looking a bit off is the gap between the seat and subframe where it bridges across the new angle that has been created. I know you're still tweaking the seat and we've covered the angle thing but I think I'm looking at a different bit to your mentioned solution. I like it anyway. I also like the original monster too. I'm not sure that it is necessarily better just different and no worse(when 100%) and I think that's just fine. Enjoy it!
I like it, looks like it would be a real chuckle to ride. I also like that you have gone out and built the bike you want, not the bike you think others would like...
I take my hat off to you. With the determination you clearly have you will end up withe bike you want At this moment in time I don't like the seat unit. Take a picture of the bike without that seat on it and I bet you get a lot more positive responses. You explain that you don't have wads of cash to throw at it so you are going to have to use the other valuable asset you have, time Search the bike world there is a seat out there that, with a bit of work cutting and shaping will fit and match the lines of the bike Even when you do crack it there will still be people that don't like it Guess what, I am just starting out on a project the reverse of what you are doing. I am going to turn a 916 into a Monster something along these lines
Wow. I wake up to a flurry of new responses. Too many to quote individually..... @rcv4 - Least said soonest mended, but, ahem, yeah. :Banhappy: :Blackeye::Banghead: @Joe748 @higgy748 - Yes, I agree. There are a couple of things I'm not 100% happy with about the seat unit and subframe. That gap between the subframe and halfway along the seat base being one of them. It sort of couldn't be helped because to make the top subframe spar follow the seat unit perfectly would have meant cutting it off and rewelding it much further forward, at around the point of the shock mount, which would have caused almost as much grief as fitting the Pani subframe. As is often the case, it was a trade off between ideals, risk, hassle and budget. I may still get the Pani seat unit and subframe grafted on in the future, but that will have to be once I've topped up the piggy bank again. I trawled the interwebs for seat ideas but most of the interesting ones, like the one on the white bike you posted (which looks great btw and I look forward to seeing your project), are single seater and I need pillion capability. I also wanted the seat unit to be short and end at around a line drawn vertically through the rear wheel hub, and this further reduced the options. I already have built a radically bobbed/brat 900ss (which I'm selling if anyone is interested) which is single seater only and hence is sort of a bit of a third wheel. Although I do a fair amount of riding on my own, I also do a lot with my girlfriend on the back, so the bike needed to fit that requirement too, which severely complicated matters. While if it's just for single seat use only, it's quite easy to just make up a little seat mounting base and subframe under the rider's bum and leave the rest of the seat unsupported, but if you're going to retain the ability to carry a passenger, you need a lot of load bearing capacity carried high up and at the end of what is a long and potentially un or insufficiently braced tube. My girfriend is only tiny, but I sometimes take my teenage sons out for a blast, one of whom is built like an ox and still growing. Ultimately I hope I can fit the Pani 899 seat and subframe I have in my shed, but it isn't going to be a simple job. The seat and subframe are quite a complex combined unit where the subframe sort of twists through and up into the pillion area in what I can only describe as an "organic" fashion (no straight lines). The seat unit itself is also not a single piece of plastic, but is instead a collection of small bits of plastic which mount to the subframe to form what looks like a cohesive whole, but is in fact basically a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Hence, that means retaining at least the back end of the 899 subframe so the seat unit can be built around it. Unfortunately the 899 subframe mounts to the Pani in a completely different way to any other previous Ducati in that it bolts to the engine casing. Hence, it's very narrow and there was no natural point at which it could be mated to the much wider frame spars of the Monster. Me, Ray and Max spent literally hours thinking about and discussing ideas, including Max proposing some way of semi-copying the way the Pani uses the engine as a load bearing member. The idea being to mount the top spar of the subframe to the engine and the bottom spar to the frame. Unfortunately, while on the left side there were a couple of handy looking empty threaded holes in the engine casing which could have been used, on the right hand side there were none (because that's where the belts are). The only feasible way to do it would be to use the complex, bendy rear part of the 899 subframe only, and chop it somewhere under the rider's seat pad area. The Monster frame would need to be chopped as far forward as possible, but no further forward than the shock mount (for obvious reasons) and some new bracing spars welded on to meet the stub of the 899 subframe. It could have been done, but it was a much bigger and complicated and potentially risky job. Risky not only in terms of how it would look once done, but also whether it would be safe. Plus it would have been a lot more expensive, not just in terms of workshop time, but also because the seat would need spraying and I would need new rearsets, pillion pegs, a pillion pad, a new rider's seat pad (which I pinched for my 900 project), a new lock for the seat cowl/pillion pad (it didn't come with a key) etc etc. All a bit of a ballache basically, so this was the (much simpler, safer and less expensive) route we decided to go down. For now at least..... @final_edition - PM me and I'll see if I can help. @Attila - Yes. It's an absolute hoot! It's especially good fun with the 520 14/39 sprocket set up on it now. It's running like crap at low revs though as I don't think it's happy with the pod filters, although strangely it was alright(ish) until the belts were changed. Ray is going to have a look at it next week. I also gave the clutch a bit of a hammering on the way home last night and it's started slipping again, so I'm going to swap a couple more friction plates later today. @Ducbird - What? A woman changing her mind? I know my job is to persuade people, but I seem to have pulled off some sort of miracle there.
It may sway me more if it was red Teenage sons!!!!! You don't look old enough I still think you can mess around and make it look better than it does Place rather than throw it together
Don't look old enough? I've also got a grown up daughter and a grandchild! I'm 45 but look quite a bit younger. My girlfriend is 33, but still gets ID'd for cigarettes, yet, as I never tire of reminding her, she's a step-grandmother.
Pillion update I took my best friend out on it today and we were out for around 4 hours. She says it's not as comfy as before, but there we no major issues. She effectively just hung on like a backpack and it was all good. Thankfully she's very petite, so it was manageable. If anything, because her weight was angled forwards, the bike is now easier to ride with a pillion because on a standard Monster, due to the low angle of the seat, the bike seemed to sag a lot at the rear and hence was prone to understeer. The riding position between you and your pillion is quite intimate though and I now know her a lot better than I did before today. I'm just worried she might be pregnant. :flushed:
I hated being pillion on monster it always felt like I was going to fall off backwards Nothing nicer than getting in closer lol
The low rear end of the OG Monsta is an easy fix, you could go with a trick piece of kit like this from S&P: Or source an eccentric shock link from an 851/888, or simply use longer rod ends and/or threaded standoffs. I personally love the huge headlight but I wanted something more modern that also worked better while still matching the rest of the bike so I went with this setup from Motodemic: The classic Monster is a very blank slate, easy to modify to suit your tastes. Best "standard" ever produced and the gobs of torque from the venerable 900 motors is more than satisfying for the street. I do, however, like how you've exposed the vertical cylinder with that 748 tank. Overall not for me, but a clean proper build nonetheless.
I think it looks great. Not a fan of the bikeshed lot but im talking about the ride twice a year and have someone build them a bike sort. Any self built jigsaw gets my vote. A couple on here dont like my monster but i too couldn't give a xxxx as i am not here to please them. Im a big fan of the non monster tank as i hate the shape of mine. Im thinking of an 848 tank for mine and a seat that's long enough to stop me getting a wet back every time i ride in the wet. Rick
I think an 848 tank would look amazing. I considered that myself but I already had the 748 tank, and also, the 848 tank has that extra bit underneath
Ive done a similar thing with the subframe of my m900, but then made my own tailpod, ill post pics soon, after taking it on the track and general blasting about i found i needed a bit more room for climbing about as the seat ramped up to sharply at the back, so it may be of use to know theres plenty of foam to be cut away towards the rear if it helped your positioning, although the lines of the seat itself still look good on yours.
