The first major modification was to the seating area. The RD400 had a HUGE seat, and with my little legs, it made walking the bike about very difficult. So I needed a lower, two-up seat. I found some inspiration from our Australian brethren, who in turn, found inspiration from the land of the rising sun.The first order of business was some minor disassembly. I took off the side covers, removed the battery, then drained and removed the oil tank.

Then,  with much trepidation, I pulled out the hacksaw and chopped off the rear of the bike. I used a pneumatic, high-speed cutoff wheel and began cleaning up various brackets and whatnot.The cleanup went by quickly and within no time, I was ready to weld in the new piece...except I loaned my MIG to Mysta2. This left me with my TIG, of which I've little experience. So what should have taken an hour and produced good results took three hours and produced questionable results. The good news is that I'm getting better at TIG (I fucking love dipping the tungsten in the puddle!) and the welds are extremely strong. The bad news is they look like shit. Live and learn.

The shitty part is that I still need to MIG the underpart. I tried to TIG it but I couldn't get the torch in the right position, and when I did, I couldn't get the filler in.