Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Custom Corner hard tail kits

In talks with a shop in offering a hard tail kit for the America or speedy. They want to try to make it bolt on but I'm going to assume that it will have to be welded atleast at the top.. not sure yet.
They will use mine as the template, my set up will be 2 progressive drop in the front with a Bonneville tank. But I think the stock tank will look great too. This will not happen (even to my bike) if there is zero interest.

I know these guys well and they do great work.
So who would buy a 100% american made hardtail for your bike?

I would but not for a few years

I might if I could pick up a wrecked bike to do it to and the price wasn't crazy high.

I'm interested as long as the price is right. That would be a great project.

Here is one that might work?

That one fits the Bonnie....not America or Speedmaster

I'm talking to them again today, but it would be pretty close in price to that Bonneville one I'm sure. My big thing with doing this is these frames are all over ebay for cheap, and a used 790 is pretty darn cheap too.

http://www.bonnevilleamerica.com/forums/...ge=0#Post604777

looks like a steal to me.

Looking at making hard tail kits for sale, that's a chopper frame with triumph motor mounts. Big price difference in building a Harley with a triumph motor vrs using 60% of what you have like the all the sporty guys do. Its probably not going to happen.

But a agree, that's a steal.

i see what's going on. i posted without doing much reading, i guess. sorry.

a bolt on hardtail WOULD be pretty appealing, i'd have to say.

No worries. Id think they'd be a market for it.

i've been debating building and selling america/speedy hardtail kits for a couple of years myself- i never thought there would be enough interest to warrant the time involed in making it happen- but after reading this thread maybe there is a small market for them-
a few points to ponder:

they would definitely be weld on rear sections- the top would plug into the oe frame casting- the bottom would bolt to the removable lower frame rails and the unused lower hole in the engine case-

you would reuse the the stock rear wheel and possibly the brake caliper- but that's about it- basically everything else behind the motor would not be useable-

the rear section would be pretty wide in order to keep it symmetrical- with the motor being offset to the right in the frame for chain/tire clearance the factory also offset the swingarm- i don't like the look of offset rigid rears like you see on alot of old triumph 650 chops-

this could be offered as a kit or a service-

also this wouldn't be a "cheap" mod either- compared to the $200 made in china harley bigtwin or sportster rear sections that you see advertised on the web- this is huge undertaking and commitment to do it right-

any thought or feedback would be appreciated-
mods: this isn't a sales pitch- just testing the waters-

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking too as far as fitment.

This sounds interesting...

I talked with folks at modern British designs, makers of the Bonnie bolt on hard tail. Said they have no plans on doing one for the America. Thinks they may have even lost money in developing one for the Bonnie.

We found that there was little to no market for them.