Got the paddock stand & rear exhaust mount welded up today. This is the bike now as it currently stands. Next job on the list will be to try & get the seat suspension sorted & then get the handle bars bent up & welded in place.
Got the handle bars shortened & tacked in place today. Should be a lot easier to manouver around now, it was becoming a pain trying to steer it using the leaf spring as a tiller !!
Made a bit more progress today, got the headlight/horn mounting bracket finished. Just got to make up a few spacers & cut a few bolts down in length. Eventually I'll get a cover made to fit between the headlight & horn so that all you will see is the headlight & horn. The mounting bracket, wiring, etc will all be hidden. The headlight mount itself is a repro Indian 4 part.
My handle bar switches & grips turned up today, well impressed with the quality & made here in the UK too
WCP, they are from this guy over here in Diss, Norfolk, https://demeanourcustoms.com/ They do two versions, with integral lever mounts or without like I have Just make sure you're sat down when you check the price !
Got the oil tank filler neck & oil level sight glass tacked into position on one of the end caps yesterday. Hopefully will get the two forward tank mounts tacked in place today.
Got the two oil tank mounting bungs tacked in place today & slaved the battery box in place after trimming in down a bit more so that it cleared the chainguard.
After a bit more garage time today I've managed to get the oil tank ready for final welding. Just holding back on that at the moment now until I get the Maxton unit for the seat suspension & ensure there is enough clearance for that. Just in case I need to adjust the oil tank/battery box mounting positions. Oil feed to the engine, Perforated screen to help remove air bubbles from the returning oil from the scavenge pump/oil filter. Upper left-hand fitting is the engine vent, upper right-hand fitting is the return oil from the filter & lower right-hand fitting is the magnetic oil drain plug. Oil filler neck & oil level sight window.
Managed to get to my welding mate's place today & one of his lads welded up the oil tank fittings that I'd tacked into place. Just wish my welding was good enough to do these sorts of jobs as it would save me loads of hours !! I do have moments of brilliance, but they are very few & very far apart !! I need Maxton now to sort out the suspension unit they are doing for me for my seat suspension before I get the oil tank & battery box welded together.
Thanks for absorbing the pain the arse it is to document this stuff, really enjoying it, some great solutions. Thoughts on finishes? Loving the au naturale look of the fabrication work, gritty = good!
I'll run the bike unpainted for a good few miles to make sure it all works & to ensure I don't need to add any brackets, alter anything or drill any holes, etc before it's painted. I did the same approach with the first one & it just saves finishing & painting it only to find you need to weld something else or make any modifications, which would ruin the paintwork. Colour scheme wise, it will be along the lines of this Indian 4, bark blue & light blue, but with the Métis name on the tank instead of the Indian's head, although Métis is a Canadian Indian tribe, which is where my use of the name comes from. My version of the above will use a S&S Panhead engine, have no front mudguard, 21" front wheel & the headlight & horn will be the other way round. It will also have the same perimeter front disc brake as my first build has, (I had two discs made when I did the first bike). Next time I'm home from work I'll get the paddock stand painted the dark blue just to check I'm happy with the shade. Again, I did the same with the first bike, which is maroon.
Progress has been a bit er, sloooooow of late. However, today I've managed to get the two seat suspension lower mounting tabs tacked in place & I quite happy with their positioning. I was going to use a Maxton unit, laid on it's side & mounted behind the battery box & operated via two arms & bell cranks. But, for a few reasons I've ended up using a couple of bicycle suspension units. This time I've used Rock Shox air suspension units instead of the things I used on the first bike. That has about an inch of travel, if I'm lucky whereas these air units have 60mm of travel. Hopeful this new bike will be a little easier on my back !!! I've got some reduced head cap head screws coming for the two lower shock mounts so once they turn up I'll machine up some suitable alloy washers, very similar to the type on my 750SS fairing.
Progress has been very slow of late, but I've managed to get a bit done over this long weekend. I got the end caps tacked into place on the oil tank so I just need to get down to a mates now, who's a far better welder than me so that he can do the final welding. Once that's done I can set about attaching the battery box section to the oil tank. The box itself is ready to go, I just need to come up with a neat way of making the joints & ones that allow access of the TIG torch !! Another job I've been putting off for a while, mainly because it involved changing over chucks on my lathe from a 3-jaw to a 4-jaw, not a big job in itself, but ........... The oil filter housing had a lip around it, which was a bit too high & it stopped the screw-on oil filter from fully tightening, which in turn prevented the oil seal from compressing. I did look at a few different filter manufacturer's, but they all seemed pretty much the same in terms of fit/size in the affected area. Because of the shape of the filter housing it needed mounting in a 4-jaw chuck & machining down a couple of millimeters, which I have now done ! Next jobs on the never ending list involves getting CAD drawings done/modified so that I can align the gearbox correctly with the rear wheel, or in particular to align the gearbox sprocket with the rear wheel sprocket. As I'm using the earlier pre-unit Harley type engine/gearbox set-up, once you have your rear wheel central in the frame you then choose a rear wheel sprocket to allow the chain or belt to pass the by tyre with a little clearance. You then choose a suitable gearbox mounting plate and/or sprocket to align the gearbox/final drive/rear wheel up. There are various gearbox mounting plates & sprockets available, but these only readily come with either zero off-set or 1/4", 1/2", 3/4" or 1" off-sets. I'm looking at around 4mm off-set so will need to get something specifically made to be sure of correct alignment. It struck me when I was building the first bike that when you see these places in the States building the bikes they do you never really see how they go about this particular stage of their builds. Do they just use the "standard" parts that are available off-the-shelf or do they have these parts made specifically, I'm guessing they use standard parts & live with small amounts of mis-alignment ? Who knows ! Learnt today that the Triumph behemoth, whatever it's called, actually has some front wheel/rear wheel misalignment built-in because of the huge rear tyre !!
