day eighteen

here are the parts after getting them chrome plated, $130 not to bad in my book. a little chrome goes along way in my book. i also think the some times less is more though i am not usualy huge on the idea of tons of chrome.

jocky shift lever with shift knob screwed on.

here jeff and i are going to battle with the front tire. we ended up pinching the first tube under the bead on the tire, causing a hole to form in the tube.

here is jessica cleaning the rear wheel with some scotch brite and wd-40. 

day 17

day six teen

here are the triple clamps all broken down, painted and ready for assembly

when installing the risers make sure to use loc tite on all the fasteners and i am even going a step further and safe-T-wireing them since i would rather my bars didnt rattle off.

cut off a piece of wire the is 2.5 times longer then the distance between bolts. feed the wire through and around the shaft of the bolt ensuring that the loop is tightening the bolt if the bolt comes loose.

use your wire plires to twist the wire to 8-10 twists per inch. feed the wire through the next bolt in the tightening direction.
twist the remaining wire to the same 8-10twists per inch spec as before.

here is how you should bend the wire so that you do not stab your fingers later on down the road.

here is the triple clamps and bars all mounted up togeather.

day fifteen

here is the frame all finish welded, ground, sanded, and drilled. after pulling the bike down on to the ground and sitting on it i tor it all down and did all the final changes that neede to be made.(sorry about the lack of pics during that stage my camera hit the deck and exploded)
here is the frame in the paint booth after being returned from the sand blaster.

laying down a few coats of sealer will give your paint a good foundation to build on.

here is the first coat of dupont chroma base black.

here is the house of kolor dry metal flake being added into the dupont chroma clear.

when spraying the gold/clear make sure to do long strokes with your gun to ensure even flake distribution ( notice how the axel plates are dark, this area will need more attention to build up the gold flake)

here is a close up of the final product.

day 14

i machined a pair of bungs for mounting the fender to the sissy bar out of some 5/8 in round stock. i thought it would look cool to run some wingnuts jose de miguel style.

i broke our tubing bender the other day so now i am left doing these bends like a savage.

here are the fender struts tacked togeather on the bike. i feel it works allot better by just building the fender struts and sissy bar on the bike rather then on the bench, this way you know what your getting and that everything is going to line up exactly where you want it.

here it is again fully welded with the tail light in place.

here is the beginning of the sissy bar. i drew out what i was looking for on graph paper to make sure i was going to have enough room for the tail light to clear. on the drawing i also ploted out the location of the upper fender strut bosses, from there i drew out the bend on the sissy bar. after establishing the shape i wanted i started bending the stock and compairing it with the drawing untill everything matched.

here i am compairing each part to make sure they are all running at the same angle. always remeber to tack your parts in place, measure, adjust, measure, adjust, maybe cut and retack, measure one last time, .....then finish weld it.
here it is mounted on the bike, all squared up and finish welded .

here is a shot of the rear brake cable retainer i made, i just machined a counterbored boss on the lathe and cut a slot in the side for the cable to slip in to. make sure to do some really sturdy welds on this since its what makes the brakes work.

close up.

this phot kinda sucks but what this pic is showing is a lever stop that keeps the clutch (and brake) levers from flipping backward.

day13

for the back panel of the storage box i need a panel with a slight crown in both directions, an english wheel would make quick work of this but unfortunatly i dont have one...yet! so until then this is how you can do it.   cut a rectangle roughly to your desired size, i usualy over size it slightly that way you can trim it to fit perfectly. take your mallet and start lightly pounding out a line through the center of your panel. after you get a slight crown in your panel start working from the center outward in a spiral motion. 

clamp a dolly in the vise and start out using a soft hammer (i usualy use a dead blow hammer) by using a soft heavy hammer you can move your metal with out causing it to stretch, this will allow you to smooth out your panel which at this point probably looks like a bag of wall nuts.  when your panel is relativly smooth you can switch to a flat faced body hammer. using the body hammer you can strike the edges of your panel against the dolly and this will cause the panel to stretch out causing a crown in the panel. 

tig the panel into the box making sure to get good penatration on your welds. you are going to be filing most of the weld off so if you have to sacrafice a perfect looking weld for one with solid penatration focus on the penatration.

repeat the earlyer steps to build your bottom panel on your box.

here i am using a body file to bring the welds to a nice finish. i usualy grind the welds down a bit with a grinder then do the finish work with the body file. remember though your dealing with .032 al so dont grind to far.

so here is how it came out, its not perfect but after a little hammer and dolly work it will probably straighten out pretty well. if not i can always put a little mud on it i suppose.
here it is mocked up on the frame. now to figure out how to mount it to the frame.....

i am going to mount the coil in this box so i thought it would be cool to run the coil wires out the side through some swedged holes. i also was planning on mounting the reg/rec in the bottom of the box so i swedged these holes on the bottom to draw the heat from the reg/rec out of the box. since then i relocated the reg/rec to the down tubes on the frame, i just didnt want to risk over heating it.
here i just took a piece of 1 in X 1/8 in steel strap cut it to match the width and angle of the down tubes. mark the bolt hole locations with a transfer punch.

drill and tap the holes to 1/4 - 20, remember to use cutting fluid so you dont break your tap.

this mini mag digital protractor has saved me a bunch of times. i usually eyeball where i want the bracket to fit, tack one side, then you can bend that tack to get the bracket to sit level.
here it is all mounted up. seems to fit pretty well and now i dont have to worry about it overheating. 
i had a hard time figuring out where to put the huge capacitor that i am running ( this capacitor stabilizes the energy flow to the lights and horn). i finally came up with this bracket that will go on the back bone under the tank.

 
pretty basic i think you guys can figure this one out by now.

tack it, level it, tack it, finish weld it and your done.

here is the pattern i made for the storage box mounts. i always make patterns for anything i do with sheet metal, that way it goes smooth the first time. this is actualy a swedish fish box haha! give me a break thats all i had laying around.

a little 18g steel and a sharpie, i just use a transfer punch to mark the hole locations that way you dont have to try to cut holes in your pattern. you might want to use dotted lines on your bend lines too, trust me if you get going fast on the band saw you might forget what lines to cut and what lines to bend.

drill 1/8 in holes on your folded corners that way you dont get bunching of the metal in the corners. i also always drill all my holes while it is still in pattern mode.

here they are all folded welded and filed, i swedged the holes for a little extra umph. the mounting hoes are getting rubber soft mounts thats why they are so large.

here they are welded to the frame with the rubber mounts installed.