What a tough crowd you are folks, leave the bloke alone as he's building his dream bike and Not yours.
In fairness, I wouldn't say it was my dream bike, or even close to it to be honest. I just like that style of bobber & I had parts left over from the first one. Plus, I always need to have something to tinker on in the garage !! Thank you for your support though ! My mate took the p***s for ten years while I was building the first one & I always said to him if you ever see me with anything H****y branded on, or anything associated with riding a "tractor", such as chaps, then for Gods sake shoot me. To this day I have been true to my word, he on the other hand has not. He's since bought one & got the matching gear Something like this might be next !
Fuel tank caps arrived today from the good old USofA ! It's always a bit of a lottery when you buy parts over the internet & you never really know what to expect until they actually arrive, but these caps are beautifully made, (in Japan) & I am very please indeed with them. Just need to make some weld-in bungs for them now & then get the fuel tanks made.
You go boy! Can’t think of the last time I saw a really ground breaking “now that’s fresh!” Ducati build, so you’re already well in front.
Sadly it won't have a Ducati engine in it, sorry to be the bearer of bad news !! Engine will be a S&S Panhead, at the moment anyway or at least something with the same mountings !!
Got the brackets I tacked on, final welded the other day so yesterday & today I spent making parts. Rear wheel centralised & the two spacers machined up & fitted. Made a brass washer for the top steering bearing. Made the right-hand footrest mount & a couple of countersunk washers for the mounting screws. The fuel tank caps came with steel weld-in bungs so had to make a couple of aluminium versions. Also made an adaptor for the fuel tap, I thought I'd already made one some time ago, but couldn't find it anywhere. And finally, after the first bike's fuel tank sprang a leak around one of the mounts, (victim of vibration I think !!) I re-made the lower mounts with a bigger diameter. Tomorrow is cleaning up day, the garage is a tip !!
Someone I know has a similar bike, says it is the best one he has. Which is saying something if you could see the rest of the collection...
That does look nice indeed, I'll have to see if my Son's interested in going halves with me !! We could do it as a joint project as he would like another bike other than the MT125 he uses for work !! I've got another mate who's building a Duc based spepcial with a carbon single sided swing arm, Maxton front forks & hopefully a Stradafab titanium frame. He's working on the rear suspension linkage at the moment, the shocker will be mounted horizontally, under the seat & once he's sure it all works & he's got the frame side plates machined up he'll be ordering the frame. It promises to be an impressive bike as he is a perfectionist.
Got the two fuel cap weld-in adaptors finished today. Bit of a boring job, drilling & tapping sixteen small holes !! But, at least everything lined up !! Also, the gearbox turned up so I got that slaved in ready to work out what off-sets I might need on the mounting plate and/or gearbox sprocket. Using a straight edge it looks like I need a zero off-set sprocket although the gearbox mounting plate I've used has 25mm of off-set on it. I need to get it up on the ramp now & have a proper look at it all. I've got a few other gearbox mounting plates, but I think they all have bigger off-sets than the plate I've used. It'll come out in the wash, as they say !!
Primary drive arrived today. One of the dowel holes is a bit tight so I'll have a look at that tomorrow. Also, had a go at getting the pulley off the gearbox, but even with some blow lamp heat & an impact gun it showed no signs of coming off. I had the same issue with the other bike, but it eventually came off, I gave up today before I broke something !! Did a bit on the paddock stand yesterday & I've got to a point where I need the brackets on the bike frame now in order to mock it up ready for narrowing & welding. When I did the first bike & got two sets of brackets laser cut, one pair 8mm thick & one pair 10mm thick. I used the 8mm ones after deciding the 10mm one looked too thick so this time I'll use the remaining pair, but mill them down to 8mm. This is the first bike's set-up & this new one will be the same.
Realised the other day there was a clearance issue with my modified paddock stand, good job I hadn't got it welded up yet !! Fortunately the issue is just on one side. The bolt head securing the rear brake torque arm to the rear caliper holder fouled the adaptor on the stand so I had to have a bit of a rethink. The left-hand side, (above) is OK so that can stay as it was, with the delrin adaptor mounted in the centre of the paddock stand leg. Ended up making a new, slightly different delrin adaptor, (below) that now mounts on the side of the paddock stand leg instead of in the centre of the leg, like the other side. Also, I'll have to put some spacers inbetween the frame & frame brackets & turn the mounting screws round that hold the adaptors to the paddock stand. The stand is now ready for cutting & re-welding.
Had a bit of garage time yesterday & first job was to get the belt pulley off the gearbox, or rather the nut that was holding it on ! These nuts are notouriously tight, loctited & a bugger to get off without "proper" tools. I know this from experience when trying to get the same nut off my first build bike. This time I was prepared & bought this bad boy. Had the nut off within seconds of pulling the trigger, no pre-heating !! With that pulley off I could fit a spare sprocket I had, just to get an initail idea what gearbox mounting plate/sprocket off-set I might need to get the gearbox & rear wheel sprocket to line up. Next job was to try & get the paddock stand mounts fitted so I can get the paddock stand itself re-welded back together. That will make a lot easier when working on the bike in it's current state, i.e. no side/main stand. The left hand side was straight forward, but I had to re-think the right hand side because of clearance issues with the rear brake torque arm bolt. I ended up just moving the plastic bobbin from the centre of the stand to the inside of the upright. Just need to cut the stand down now to refit the handle & then get it all rewelded. The fuel tanks were also finished & they are both now fitted in place. I just need to make up the balance pipe that will link the two tanks together & then I can fuel test them & check what capacity they have. I certain they won't leak, MCS Engineering's work is always first class, but you have to check, just in case !! Capacity I'm expecting is around the 14 litre mark, which will be good news. Because the previous bike's tank fitted between the frame tubes it's capacity was limited, 9 litres, which has caused me to run out of fuel a few times, four times so far !!
Bit more garage time today. Got the link pipe made up for the fuel tanks. Measured up the gearbox & rear wheel sprockets for alignment to see what combination of gearbox sprocket/gearbox mount I might need. Turns out the gearbox sprocket I had left over from the previous build will be perfect, that had 0.75" off-set & a zero off-set gearbox mount made the two sprockets out of alignment by 5mm. So, I can just get a new gearbox mounting plate made up to the 5mm off-set & that should be perfect. Finally turned up the parts to make the rear exhaust mount. Hopefully I'll finish them tomorrow, make a welding jig & at least get them tacked up to check before final welding.
Got the exhaust mount tacked up today. Started by drilling & tapping the lower point on the frame where it will mount. Then filed up a couple of short bits of tube to join the main components of the mount. Assembled it all in my makeshift welding jig & tacked it together. My welding isn't good enough to do the final welding so I'll take that to a good friend who'll do the honours !! With it tacked together I drilled & tapped the upper mounting hole.
