The Hardest Thing About My First Motorcycle Project

During this rebuild project, I’ve done plenty of hard things.

I slaved over the engine with brushes and chemicals to prep it for paint. I banged up my hands tapping out bearing races, struggling for each millimeter of movement.

I’ve made mistakes and wasted time. I’ve broken bolts off deep in the crankcase, cracked my piston, and busted bearings.

But the hardest part of this project has been handling the days when I flat-out don’t know what to do next. Days when it’s been weeks since I last touched the XL, when each day without progress leaves me sick to my stomach.

Working on this build has made me realize that sometimes following a difficult path is easier than not knowing where the path is at all.
 

The strange inertia of motorcycle projects

When I have a goal, something clear to work toward, it’s okay if the work is frustrating or tedious. At least I know I’m making progress. Every small success makes it easier to keep going.

It’s like scraping the burnt gaskets off the cylinder head. It was frustrating, ridiculous work, but flaking off even the tiniest piece gave me the resolve I needed to keep scraping.

It’s a kind of mental inertia: the very act of achieving something makes it easier to take the next step.

Of course, inertia works both ways. When I get stuck, when all my plans are foiled by missing parts, missing supplies, missing tools, I can feel it pull me down. I tell myself it’s okay to forget about the build, just for today, just for this week. Before long, I look up and wonder where the time went.

It’s hard not to berate myself for the lost time. I’ve made it so far already, shouldn’t I be past this kind of wayfinding?

But that’s not how it works. I’m learning as I go, and every new chapter of this project is an unknown. It’s unrealistic of me to expect that after I finished the engine I’d automatically know how to shape fenders. This isn’t a video game.

Rebuilding a motorcycle is a project of patience and persistence — especially if it’s your first. To get through, you have to stay with it, and keep making progress, even small progress, whenever you can.
 

A summer of slow steps

April was fast and magical. It was the last “good” month I’ve had for rebuild progress. In April, I finished rebuilding the engine and put it back in the frame.

In May, I busted up a lot of bearings. I had done a lot of wheel bearings by then, so I thought I knew what I was doing. But when you’re learning something new, there usually comes a moment of over-confidence. And in that over-confidence, you start making mistakes.

First, I busted a steering stem bearing by trying to install it with a pipe that was slightly too big. The pipe caught the outer ring of the bearing, and the bearing exploded spectacularly.

Next, I ruined a needle bearing tapping it into the swingarm. I had assumed it was the same method as all the other bearings I had installed … but no.

I installed the first one, then decided to check in case I had missed something. All the YouTube tutorials screamed at me — “Please don’t tap in this bearing!”

Hello, Partzilla? I’d like to order some new bearings, please.

In June, I realized one of my suspension linkage parts had been forgotten in the bottom of a box, and hadn’t been powdercoated. In July, I finally got my steering stem bearings sorted, which meant I could install my forks. I also found a high-temp engine paint that was a near-perfect match for my copper, so I painted my valve covers and exhaust headers — just for flair 😉

But I still needed that linkage part before I could put my wheels on. For months, getting the bike back on two wheels had been my finish line, so I held out, waiting to achieve that goal.

I knew I had two general tasks ahead: electrical and metalworking. But I didn’t know where to start with either, and I still didn’t have my linkage part back. With every day I grew more frustrated, more discouraged. Finally, I admitted it to myself: I needed help.

As you probably know by now, I’m a member of Matt McLeod’s custom motorcycle community (and, full disclosure, an affiliate). So I wrote a post explaining my situation.

The next day, I got a response from Matt, with some tips on cleaning up my wiring harness, and some resources from his Metalworking 2 course to look into so I could start working on the metalshaping.

There are still a lot of unknowns in this project, but at least now I know what I’m going to do when I get back out in the garage this weekend. And at least I know I have support when I need it.
 

Don’t make your project harder than it needs to be

One of the reasons I started this project was because I wanted to prove I could tackle a big, challenging, and impressive project, all on my own. But now, I’m starting to think that mindset might be leading me to be too hard on myself.

Building a custom motorcycle for the first time, without any prior experience, is hard. And that’s okay — I want it to be hard. I want to earn it.

But when I get so stuck that I start to get discouraged, that’s an inertia that can end a project. And the most important rule for finishing a motorcycle project, or any big project, is to keep going.

If you’re considering your first motorcycle rebuild, don’t underestimate the value of having a mentor. It’s been the top recommendation in two of my articles about vintage motorcycles for a reason.

No YouTube tutorial, no manual can take the place of asking a real, live, knowledgeable human for advice.

As for me… well, let’s just say the rest of my year isn’t getting less busy. But I’m confident that with a little help, I’ll make some great progress with the XL this winter.

I don’t want to jinx it but… I’m coming for ya, One Show 😉