Category Archives: Wrenching

Mechanical and DIY

These Guys Built a Motorcycle Out Of Harbor Freight Parts

Bikes and Beards has done some crazy stuff over the years, but this takes the cake. Using only items that you can buy at Harbor Freight, they’ve built a complete street legal (mostly) motorcycle. Seriously. You have to see it to believe it.

I once built a Harbor Freight trailer, back when they sold them as kits. While it never fell apart on me, the electrical system needed to be completely replaced with something that actually works. This is the same company that recalled its jack stands for failing, and replaced them with jack stands that later also got recalled for failing. Would you trust your life to Harbor Freight parts? I wouldn’t. But these guys did, and I admire them for it.

These Guys Built an Electric Honda CB750 for $4,000

When you think of electric bikes, you probably think of Zero, LiveWire, and so on. You certainly don’t think of the Honda CB750, the bike that established the superbike category when it first came out in 1969. Yet RideApart brings us these guys, who took an old dismantled CB750 and turned it into a custom electric cafe racer on a shoestring budget.

I think converting old gas-burners to electric is going to become more and more common, particularly as electric vehicles slowly replace gas ones. It’s a great way to keep older bikes (and cars) on the road. Also, by modifying an existing bike, you already have a VIN to register, making it easy to keep them street legal. And, as the Inja shows, it’s not as difficult as you may think to learn how electric bikes work, making them easy to build and maintain.