Moving right along...

I've made a lot of good progress over the last couple of weeks. Before we get to that, though, I promised a few photos of the new and improved garage work space.

The grinding station.

Here's the great bench design that I found. Lots of storage.

Ok, so the battery box was the project that I had been trying to wrap up earlier. I wanted to keep the battery and some of the electronics tucked away under the seat, so I put together a compartment out of aluminum. I came up with a way to mount it by resting it on the inside of the frame rails and securing it with bolts that run through the threaded holes for the original battery box.

Trying to use as many of the original threaded holes as possible. 

The Shorai battery saves a lot of space.

The next project is the one that I have been looking forward to and dreading at the same time: the seat cowl. I had put together the basic foam form a while ago, and have been waiting until the battery box was finished to start. Before I could actually start cutting out the seat, I needed to make a couple of additional frame rails for the pan to sit on. The battery doesn't stick out much, but I just needed a little more height to get over it, and also some more support where I will be sitting. So I picked up some square steel, cut them to the width of the frame, and notched out the bottoms so that the weren't resting on the small lip of the frame (which would bend under pressure). 

Once those were completed, the foam cutting could commence! That stuff is great to work with, but it is very messy. I drew out the basic shape on the side of the form, then roughly cut it out with a keyhole saw and hacksaw blade. After that, I used some 400 grit sandpaper to get the shape the way I wanted it. I had to cut out a large section of the rear so that it would sit over the cross bar at the back of the frame, but that hole won't be there later. 

Once the shape was to my liking, the mold needed to be covered with masking tape and carnuba wax to help prevent the fiberglass from sticking to it. I used some rope as ribbing to give the pan some depth where the seat cushion is going to sit.

Next up: Fiberglass and bike disassembly!

Back at it!

So... It's been about 9 months since my last entry. But that doesn't mean that I haven't gotten anything done, so don't be so quick to judge. Yes, the winter was harsh and with no heat in the garage, I didn't have the fortitude to make much progress. I just had time to come up with more ideas and make changes to my original plan from the comfort of my living room while drinking coffee. And playing Diablo III.

My last post was about getting my wheels painted and assembled. Much has happened since then, so here we go. Please keep in mind that this timeline may be wrong since I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, never mind what I've done over the last 9 months.

Once the wheels were assembled, I got the tires mounted and then put the wheels on the bike. I tried and failed to true them up, so I'll be recruiting a professional to do it and hopefully teach me a thing or two about it. Next in line was motor clean up and reassembly. I had purchased new gaskets and a hardware kit which worked out great. As much as I like a nice polished motor, I don't have the patience  or desire to make that happen for this bike, so a good general clean up and a bit of aluminum polish did the trick.

Next I had to get the motor back into the bike so that I could start working on the exhaust, shift linkages, and air intakes. I had a rough idea of how the exhaust needed to mount, and I made an attempt to fabricate some brackets with a piece of scrap metal that I had hanging around. It didn't work out, and I abandoned that project for a bit.

At this point I also started tearing into the carbs. They were a bit gummed up and in need of a cleaning. Both of the floats had been previously repaired, and one of them still had a leak, so I needed to drain it and re-solder it where the leak was. Of course, none of that got done until about 3 weeks ago, so I'm getting ahead of myself.

The rear sets that I had bought for the bike were a good fit, but they weren't going to work with the shift/brake links or the exhaust placement. I needed a replacement. Fast forward to March.

Somewhere along the line, I got sick of my workspace being cluttered and difficult to navigate. It was in desperate need of a serious douching and some organization. I found a great set of plans for a solid 6ft workbench on this Family Handyman Magazine website. I'm not putting a link in here because their site sucks and is wicked slow, but if you have some time on your hands and are looking for a nice bench, grab a cup of coffee and google it. The bench design is basic, but very strong.  I'll get some photos of the finished product in the next post.

Its 12ft across the back of the garage, so I just needed to build two of them and get a solid sheet for the top. As luck would have it, the workbench that we had in the basement was 12ft across, and I figured it would just be best to take it apart and move it. Even after the big bench was done, I had enough extra materials to build a second bench on the side wall, so I made one that I could use for putting the grinder and vise on. Worked out great.

Fast forward again. Just a little bit. I've gone around and around with ideas for the seat. I've thought of reusing the original pan, building the pan/cowl out of wood, making one out of fiberglass, and just not using one and standing up all the time.  I finally committed to fiberglass. There is an excellent video by Dime City Cycles that shows exactly how to do it, and it didn't look too bad, so I got started.

I haven't committed to a shape yet, but I'm leaning toward something like a Ducati Monster tail section. The design might require that I eliminate the rear fender completely and just attach the tail light directly to the cowl, but that has yet to be determined for sure. 

Moving on, the air intakes were another puzzle that still needed to be solved. Because the frame has a large square down-tube in the middle, there is no way to directly attach pod filters (or even velocity stacks) to the carbs. I had to work out a way to sneak the filters out past the frame. After going to virtually every place in town that might potentially sell tube or hose that would work for this purpose, I managed to find what I needed. 

Two different kinds of radiator hose got the job done. I'll get some clamps on there and figure out some way to make it look a bit more uniform. Probably some kind of black tape over the small hose the match the OD with the other hose. That should double as a stop when putting it all together. The filters tuck in pretty well, so I don't think there will be any leg clearance issues. 

Shift linkages have been the bane of my existence for the last month or so, but I finally got it worked out. The star of the show is the new rear sets that I bought. Dime City Cycles makes some great gear, and these are no exception. They are fully indexable, which is perfect for these kinds of projects where a good amount of flexibility is needed. 

The brake side proved to be the most difficult. The stock linkage tucks in near the bottom of the engine, which is a very different location than where it needs to be now. I ended up having to flip the arm for the brake to face upward, bend the rod, cut it shorter, and re-thread it. That did the job pretty well. Now I just have to replace the brake pads, since i can tell that there is waaaay to much play in the pedal throw. Since the bike only has 3500ish miles on it, I would be surprised it they've ever been replaced, so its probably a good idea anyway.

The shifter side was a bit easier. Rather than buying a new shifter arm, I decided to modify the stock one. I cut the peg off, shortened the arm a bit, and drilled a hole for the shift linkage to connect to it. That was about all. 

Ah, yes. Exhaust brackets. The mufflers came with long chrome mounts for custom applications, so I decided to try and use them. I was able to use one of the existing threaded holes from the passenger foot pegs to mount the exhaust brackets. I had to cut them to length, drill a hole at the end, and bend each end of the bracket a little bit to fit right. It works great. The mufflers are solid, and the clamps aren't even tight yet.

Ok, two other kick ass updates. Thanks to the generous support of my father-in-law, the shop is now equipped with a hydraulic bike lift. This has made progress over the last few weeks go immensely faster and easier. My back is very grateful. So a big thanks to Mike! I have also acquired a coal stove from some family members who were replacing it with a pellet stove. I have all year to get it hooked up and ready to go, so I don't have any excuses for not getting any work done next winter. Thanks to Brenda and Bob for that!

More updates to come.

Slow and Painful.

This is going to be a short post, but you can rest assured that the process was long. I finally painted my wheels, and it was time to lace them up. That is something I have not had the misfortune of doing previously. I'm glad that I took a lot of photos before I took the bike apart, because this was like trying to solve a puzzle.

The black wheels and hubs look great with the steel spokes. I'm very happy about that. I did manage to scratch the wheels up pretty bad during this process, so now I'm going to have to repaint the wheels anyway. Rather than take them all apart again to do so, I'm just going to tape up the spokes. I guarantee that it will take less time than re-lacing them.

That's all for now. I told you it was going to be short.

I see some bike parts and I want to paint them black...

Progress has been scattered, but significant. The garage was in desperate need of an overhaul, and I also needed another work bench, so I used all the scrap wood that was taking up space and made one. This worked out quite nicely, and it's been a hell of a lot easier to work on the frame up there. It's also become my painting table.

I picked up a few new goodies for the bike, and my "to buy" list is steadily shrinking. The tail light and turn signals are going to work perfectly, and look great. The tail light is going to be one of the few chrome parts on the bike by the time I'm done with it. The turn signals are aluminum.

I also picked up some awesome Gilles rear sets that needed to be mounted up. I was going to try and make it work with only the brackets that are on the bike, but it became clear very quickly that some welding was going to be needed. For that, I took a trip over to see my friend Andrew. We figured out where the controls would work out best, and welded up the new brackets.

The controls needed to be set out about 3/4", so I had to make some spacers. I also used some metal putty like caulk to smooth over the welds and make the transition from the frame more gradual. I still need to sand it down, but once its painted, you won't even notice it.

I've spent most of my time recently working on getting parts ready to be painted, and painting them. I decided that the smaller parts (hubs, brackets, etc.) would be best painted with aerosol cans since I still have yet to use the paint gun, and the frame is going to be a better place to practice.

Ceramic paint for the headers.

Shock cover prepped.

Shock cover painted.

Painting station.

So at this point the hubs are done, headlight trim ring is done, the engine mount brackets are done, and the one of the shock covers is done. The front fender is primed, but I'll probably wait to paint that when I do the frame. The headers need another coat or two. The wheels are next on the list. Once those are completed, I can lace the wheels and get a rolling chassis together. It will also be nice not to have as many parts floating around the garage. I finished up with cleaning the spokes as well. Now they just need to be polished up a bit.

Shiny!