Leather and Chrome and Help

There nothing like dressing up a bike to take it out with other bikers. The bike I bought already have a lot of nice accessories on it, but there were a few more things I wanted to do for finishing touches. The first four of these were chrome tips on the fenders (3) and a studded leather tank bra. I also intended to put visors on all five front lights, but these were all sent for the wrong model motorcycle and are on their way back west for replacements. All parts were standard issue Yamaha parts for the Roadstar. My daughter, Karyn, was over so I engaged her assistance in added the accessories I had purchased. It turned out that I couldn't have done the job without her assistance. She makes a great assistant when working on the bike and loves to go for a ride when the work is done. First, we tackled what I thought would be the easiest thing to do: the front fender tip. As it turned out it was the most difficult of the tips. It wasn't difficult, but it did take smaller hands than mine to reach under the fender with the lock washer and nut. The front fender back piece was easier and the back fender tip was the easiest of all. We had all three pieces on in a matter of about 15 minutes. Now, we had the tank bra. I thought this was going to be easy but in the first frustrating attempt it was apparent that there was more to this task than just laying leather over the tank. The added thickness under the instrument section made it nearly impossible to move the package down to where the screws aligned. This one simple piece took us over 20 minutes and 3 tries. We started from scratch on each try. This meant keeping the bra, instruments, and screw holes aligned. This became the most difficult task of the evening. Of course, when we finished, we wanted to ride. So, in spite of darkness, we took a ride and gathered a few bugs on the bike. On the way back I turned on the green underlighting and we had some fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get to detail the bike before taking these pictures, but I'll have more as the project is completed. The night would not have succeeded without Karyn's help. Thanks, Kiddo!