day twentysix

so i rode the bike around for a while pretty much everything went well, it is super fast, brakes work good minus the back brake doesnt return like i would like. oh the kick stand sucks too. then this happens...... yeah the bolts on the stator rattled loose and ran into the flywheel. yeah it pretty much destoyed everything. hmm how am i going to fix this with like t minus 5 hours????

here is the carnage, so i called around no one had a banshee stator plate... well the dealer had one for $600.... yeah right! so i hopped in the car and went to my parents house to rob one off my moms banshee, sorry mom.

after a bit of work with the mill and the tig i had it all straightened out.

here it is at like 1000 rpm.

to fix the back brake problem i built this bracket that hooks to the lever arm on the drum, from here i hooked a spring to the frame.

here we are just before we headed out to arizona for our adventure. jess, me, jeff, and jake.

i 15 on the maiden voyage!!! feels pretty good, well worth the long nights.

day 2-5

so the last week and a half i have been staying until about 2am or so trying to play catch up. here is whats happens when you are half asleep trying to use an angle grinder. no fun.

here is the bike back down on the ground, i love how light & low it is i cant wait to ride it.

tank mounted.

the stupid this will not start, not even a hint of starting. straight up stone wallin me. here i am trying to ajust the timing on the cam sensor.

we even tried to bump start it...... bad idea it doesnt work, or at least i couldnt get it to hahaha

at least we had a good support crew jessica and jeffs wife nikki kept our spirits up. jess went to the mexican market and bought us some of the good sodas you know the ones with real sugar not the corn syrup trash they put in the american garbage.

here i am at like 2:30 am the day we are supposed to leave for AZ. i still cant get the bike to start, my friend james sudgested that i put my new larger jets in. i pulled the carbs and cleaned everything out turouly and installed the new jets. after installing the carbs back on sure enough the bike fired right up! it fired like second kick, i was shocked, it even ideled pretty close to where i wanted it.

day 24.

i had a problem when i went to remove the exhaust from the bike after mocking it all up. i couldnt get this pipe off. this is what i did. cut the pipe in half and insert a slip joint.

i already had all the mounts and everything in place so everything had to stay in the same place so i just measued the area to be trimmed and the lenght of the slip joint subtracted the diffrence and thats how much i removed off the rear section of the pipe.

with the slip joint welded on i took a washer bent it up in the break and welded it on.

this spring will hold the pipes togeather and alwos a little bit of flex in the system this will increase the life of all the exhaust mounts too, an aded bonus.
well like all projects that come down to the wire something has to go wrong, i put the oil in the motor and this is what i have on my table a few min later. apparently that clutch pushrod seal that i installed isnt doing its job.

so the real promlem here is that it is 24hrs before we need to leave and no one that i know of in the salt lake valley has a pushrod seal for an xs. i did find an rd350 seal that has the same shaft size but the out side diameter is smaller then the xs part.

i took a chunk of aluminum and got to work making an adapter sleave.

here is the adapter after the lathe work.


i had to machine a flat on one side so that it would clear part of the casting on the block.
here it is installed in the tansmission. excuse the messy grease all over the seal, at this point i was running around like a mad man trying to get this thing togeather so i could at least ride it around the parking loit before having to ride the 750 miles to cotton wood.

day two three

i recruited my dad to build the wiring harness for the bike. its getting down to the wire on getting the bike done for the smoke out so i can use all the help i can get. my dad has wired everything from little tiny prototype lights to airplanes.

here is jess displaying the tail light fender combo.

i welded some tabs on the underside of the fender to hold the wires off the tire. i used tefzel wire for these wires since they are going to take some abuse.

this shot shows the fender, sissy, and engine installed.

here is the tank in primer with the first skim coat of filler sanded, awaiting the second primer coat.

second primer coat complete.

this is the first coat of the ivory base coat.

i did two coats of base and 2 coats of clear, i cleared it so that i didn't risk harming the base when i did the masking for the graphics.

here is jessica color sanding the clear with some 1500, sorry about the pants jess. i got an added bonus of g-star denim dye on the tank.

for the graphics i masked the entire tank off with 3m blue masking tape. make sure all your tape joints are stuck down really well. run over all the surfaces with a squeegee.

for the circles i just made a compass that originated off the center of the gas cap hole. you have to use your best judgement when finalizing the lines because some of them didn't wind up exactly right visually due to the shape of the tank.

here it is after having my way with the x-acto knife. try not to press hard cause you don't want to cut the clear coat. use a brand new blade lightly.

first coat of black base.

the black base with the masking removed.

here it is after being cleared.

day 22

here is a little piece of leather that i stamped out to place between the box and the frame, this will stop any sqeeks that this joint might be inclined to produce.

here is the box mounted on the frame with the highbeam and horn switches on the box.

here is my pangea emblem mounted on the lower triple clamp cover

so i wanted to utalize the choke on this bike, i am all about riding these bikes so standing around with my hand on the throttle waiting for my bike to warm up isnt an option.


i took the stock hand controll that had the choke lever built in and raan it through the band saw.

after the saw i clamped it in the lathe and gave the bottom a nice flat plane.

i had to make a short little pull cable to actuate the choke so i cut down the stock cable then took some .25 in steel rod and drilled a hole through the center.

after drilling the rod i cut it off too about .25in long, then i continued to weld the rod to the shortened cable.

here is the set up all mounted on the carbs. it is pretty discrete and really easy to get to, just the way i like it.

day twenty one

here is the tank and fender with the sealer sprayed on them.  ALWAYS spray your raw metal with sealer before puting any filler down. what allot of people dont understand is that when you mix up filler it causes a chemical reaction that creats heat. heat on metal will draw moistier out of the metal causing condensation to form between your metal and filler. then you get rust forming under your filler, ever wonder why those hack fill jobs always wind up with rust under the filler. well thats why.

  
so it only took one skim coat on this fender to get it where i wanted but if it needed more filler another coat of sealer would be needed.

here i sprayed down some primer, then misted some flat black over the top. this is called a guid coat. when you sand the fender any low spots will show up with black in them. when you can sand it and have zero black you know your part is pretty flat. (always use a block)

here is the storage box after a skim coat ready for the first coat of primer. it took a few coats to get this thing right.

here it is with primer and guide coat.

i built this profile tool by just roughly cutting the shape of the edge out of a paint stick. after cutting the stick put down some packing tape on the fender. put some body filler on the tape then smash the stick into the filler. when it is cured you can pop the stick off the fender and sand down the extra filler. now you can swipe the profile guide through some filler to create an even detail line on the fender edge.

here are the box and the fender right before i sprayed the black  base coat down.

if you have the chance to use an oven it makes the painting go a little faster.