Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Round two!!! Fight!!!

So yeah, it's been a long time. What's it been? Its been over two years or so?

Well I wish I could say that I spent those two years riding the snot out of my old lady of a bike. Unfortunately that's not the case. I only rode her for about a season and a half. After that season and a half she quit on me without a whimper to let me know what happened. The electrical just died. But I guess that's what you get for just throwing it together quick to get it on the road.

I was two hours away from home when she quit on me. Fortunately I had just got done visiting my good friend JD Blaine over at Panikswitch Cycles and a good samaritan trailered me back to his shop. We worked on it for a while to no avail. He ended up trailering me all the way back home. That's how good of a guy this man is. JD, if you're reading this I still owe you a beer, or two, or a case for that man!!!

Anyways, I've got a lot of photos of what I've been doing to the bike. They are spread over the course of a couple years and they aren't complete. What can I say, once I get wrenching I barely remember to eat let alone snap photos of what I'm doing.

So I decided to make a custom electronics box that would ride under the seat. First thing to do was to remove that piece of flat bar under the seat.

All removed.

Next create a paper template for the mold. I'll get into that later.

Next, mask off the area of the bike that's going to get fiber glassed so it doesn't stick to the frame.

Steal a couple of pieces of foam insulation form work as mold material.

Forget to take some photos of cutting it out and gluing it together.
Forget to take even more photos of shaping it and getting covered in lots of little foam pellets.

Tape up the mold so the fiberglass doesn't melt the styrofoam. Trust me, that gets messy.

This is how it will look once it's all done. Very low profile.

 Yup, then forget to take photos of the entire process of making the electronics box and the bike sitting there for almost a year untouched. Then move all your stuff across two states and rent a house in Brunswick. Then wait till it gets too cold to start working on the bike because you have so much shit stuffed in the garage that you can't move. Then haul the motorcycle down a tiny set of steps into the basement so you can work on it.

 More photos of all the cycle parts strewn about the basement.

 More parts.

 Alright I"m getting tired of typing and I still have a lot of photos to share. here I'm setting up to attempt a new seat pan design out of fiberglass.

 Cut off the old lower fender mount.

 Old lower fender mount on the floor.

 Electronics box that I forgot to take all those photos of. Not all of that stuff will be in there when the bike is done.

 Cardboard and aluminum tape mold prep so I don't destroy the bike.

 Lots of fun trying to turn a flat piece of cardboard into a double curved shape.

 Mold foundation all fixed up.

 Two layers of aluminum tape.

 Don't forget the wax so you can separate the fiberglass from the mold. Even with this stuff it's a bitch to get apart.


 Like I said. Once I get going I forget to take photos. This is two layers of glass fabric laid down.

 Four more layers of glass fabric and two layers of matt laid down and cut to shape.

 Underside with a cut line drawn out.

 More cutting.

 After cutting and shaping.

 Removed the old ugly ass neck gussets. Don't worry. New ones have already arrived from the inter webs.

 All those power tools in the basement and I still have to use a tiny saw blade and a needle file to shape the holes to accept T-Nuts in the seat pan so my ass doesn't fall off the bike.

 Close up.

 T-Nuts installed. Basically after this I realized I f'ed up on the whole process. I tried to account for full rear suspension travel so that the rear tire wouldn't hit the fender since the fender would be mounted to the frame now instead of the swing arm. It came out looking like Fido's butt after I installed the shocks.

Fido's butt. And that's after I played with it a while to try and make it look better. The fender is supposed to be snug under the seat pan. If it sat there it would look like a dirt bike fender. Not sure what I'm going to do. I'm quite frustrated and perplexed. So I moved onto the front end of the bike.

 Cut off all the ugly taps that weren't used on the lower triple tree.
Shaped it with a grinder and hand files. Dusted off the TIG welder and mounted a new headlight mount on the lower triple tree. Welds don't look TOO bad for not having welded in years. But lets put it this way, the headlight is  NOT going to fall off the bike.


Well that's it for now. More to follow for sure.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Annnnd......I'm Spent!!!

Well, it's been about a year and nine months since I started the build. It's no officially over. Words can no express how tired I am right now. Over the past two weeks all I've lived, breathed, dreamt, and spoke about has been finishing the bike. Well, I put over 70 miles on her today. Here she is in all her glory. My nasty, loud, foul smelling, evil bitch. GOD I LOVE HER!!!


Thank you all for the support. However, I do have to point out to the fat man two doors down. When you see me struggling to start at 36 year old motorcycle I've spent the last 21 months working on, shouting "Buy a Harley, Buy a Harley" is not appreciated you blabbering baboon. You sir can go get promiscuous with a rabid raccoon!!!


Her maiden voyage was not ALL grins however. She had several wiring gremlins, a kick start that wouldn't engage in the middle of traffic after I stalled her out, my ass went numb after about 15 minutes on the highway, and I think I might possibly be deaf. But her faults aside she's one wild ass ride. Hope to see you all out there. Drive safe!!!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Almost there!!!

Alright, Alright, Alright!!! Some of you have been pestering me for an update. Here it is. Yes I know I might have skipped a couple of crucial steps of the build in this blog. You'll just have to find it in your hearts to forgive me. It's too damn nice out to sitting in and writting a blog when I need to get shit done on the bike. IT'S GO TIME!!!

Left side of the bike.

Right side of the bike.

There's your update. Just waiting on a piece or two more to finish drying. Hopefully I'll see you all out on the roads soon enough.

Friday, March 8, 2013

License Plate and Tail Light Mount

On a random side-note. I think Harry Potter got buried in my yard that last snow storm.

Been shopping around for a Tail Light/License Plate mounting-thing-a-ma-jig for the bike. All the ones I saw that I liked were $150 plus. In hindsight I now know why. But the hell with it. Was a fun project to undertake. Okay, so lets start by buying the trailer tail-light from VIP down the road a piece.


First thing first. Cut off that ugly ass trailer mount that came with it. Done.


Next, buy some 16ga. steel from Home Depot, make a card board template and trace it onto said steel. Done.


Next, cut out said template with a jig saw. Make sure you AT LEAST get two metal splinters from the 100's of thousands that were created during the process. If you didn't then you're freaking doing it wrong. Done.


Next spend more minutes than you wanted to using various grinders and files to make that shape a finished product without sharp edges. Done


Drill all appropriate holes in the template and the trailer stop light. Then bend the top piece to a 30 degree angle and mount everything to see how it turned out so far. Done.


Find a random piece of 10ga. steel lieing around the shop and using poor man's lay out die (read that as Sharpie), various washers, rulers, scratch out the template for the bracket that will stiffen and mount the template previous cut out. Done.


Go at this new piece with the jig saw and make sure you get a least a few more metal splinters. Like the previous part, if you don't get a few you're doing it wrong. Drill some holes. Done. 


Take a block of steel, a vice, and a BFG (read big fucking hammer) and process to beat the ever loving piss out of the bracket until the two ears are bent 90 degrees. Done


Alright, at this point I got a little excited and forgot to take some photos. Needless to say you now need to spend a lot of time welding the two previous parts together, filling in any holes or craters created during welding (damn TIG welding can get frustrating at times to a novice), and sandblasting the part pretty and this is what you come out with. Done, Done, and Done.



Now, mount the brake light and license plate to the bracket. Then spend several frustrating minutes disassembling the rear wheel for the 1098172340987154290761209387523rd time during the build process and put it all back together for the 1098172340987154290761209387523rd time. Crack a beer, sit back, take a couple of photos, and enjoy your handy work. Done. Peace!!!!