Managed to get the oil tank end caps final welded today so I can move on to attaching the battery box to it now along with the mounting brackets.
Got the front indicators mounted today. The brackets on the forks need final welding & I'm not 100% certain that I'm happy with the shape of the mounting stalks, but I can make some new ones if need be. The Kellermann indicators themselves are very small, only around 9mm diameter at their widest & around 13mm in length. They are very bright too !
I've made a mounting bracket for my somewhat optimistic speedo over the last couple of days. Bent it up this morning & it seems to look ok. I just want to make an alloy case for it now, to mount the speedo in it & to attach the mounting bracket to. There are threaded holes in the back of the Motogadget unit to mount a bracket to, but I prefer it to have a case covering the back up & make it look a bit tidier. I doubt when the bike is running that it will ever get much over 70 mph, the other bike is happy around 55 ish & I expect that this one will be similar. The unit has idiot lights, just above the digital display window, for neutral, oil pressure, high beam & indicators. I chose this unit because of this, I didn't want to have to mount separate idiots lights somewhere & the only other option, (that I liked) was from Puca Instruments, but he was having great trouble getting hold of the movements during covid & then his supplier hiked the price up to make them un-economic to produce. The other beauty of the Puca option was that you could customise the clock face. Shame, but maybe at some point in the future he will be able to make some more & swopping over would be a quite simple job.
Started machining a case for my speedo. The existing speedo case does have three tapped holes to mount a bracket too, but I don't like that "look" ! I started by facing-off off one end & marking out the position of the three mounting holes. Hopefully they will align Ok once it's finished The main boring is done & the speedo seems to fit OK although the screws I fitted are a little tight in the holes, but I can open these holes out a bit once all the machining is done. I can't get the speedo fully located because the cable is not easily disconnectable, but it should be OK
I've got the basic shape now, I was a bit constrained by my lathe & the cutting tools/access available. After offering the case up to the bike the best cable exit point seemed to be in the centre of the back, not where I'd originally envisaged it would be, but that's the beauty of "making it up as you go" assembly ! So I put a hole there so I could at least fit the Motogadget speedo into the case. I also opened out the three mounting holes by 0.5mm, just to make it easier to align the three bolts & it works perfectly. I just need to counter-bore the holes to hide the socket head screws now. I'll also try & put a few shallow grooves in the body, just to add a bit of interest really as it looks a bit bland at the moment. Once I've bent the mounting bracket to follow the contour of the new case I'll be able to drill & tap the mounting holes & get rid of the brown tape ! Overall I'm quite happy with it, it ended up a bit longer than I envisaged too, but that was due to wanting to hide the cable & gland exiting the back of the speedo. I could have maybe disassembled it out of the original case & fitted it directly into my new case, but I preferred not to in case of warranty/moisture issues. Eventually I'll have the case anodised black when I get to the painting stage.
I've now counterbored the three speedo securing holes & drilled a small drain hole at the lowest point, just-in-case ! I also put a couple of grooves in the main body to hopefully get rid of the blandness. All that's left now to do is to open out the cable hole once the grommets arrive this coming week & drill & tap the two mounting holes in the case once I've bent the mounting bracket to follow the contour of the case. My friendly engineering company are just milling out a bit of square steel bar with the correct radius in. Once I have that I can put it in my press & bend it up to suit.
Another wet day in Stocky has confined me to the garage, there was an option to do a bit on our ensuite, but ...... I made a stand-off to mount the tax disc holder to the frame down-tube, because the "down-tube" is not a tube, but an I-beam it wasn't easy to just mount flat on the surface. I then moved on to tacking up the rear mount for the chain guard. I'd made the individual parts a while ago so after some fiddling about getting them in the correct positions, managed to get them tacked up ready for a mate to final weld for me.
Got the speedo mounted today after bending the mounting bracket to floor the contour of the speedo case. Made a couple of thin plastic washers to go between the alloy case & steel bracket just to stop any fretting between the alloy & steel. Also, made the parts for the chain-guard front mount. I'll tack that on tomorrow & it's ready to go & have the rear mudguard, under-seat cover & headstock cover made next month. That's a trip down to Brightlingsea, which hopefully will coincide with working at Stansted airport, fingers crossed !!
Faaaantastic. Really admire your skills. It’s a really interesting thread and build. Nice to see it coming along and it inspires me to do a build. However there’s one problem… I can design but I have no engineering skills. In fact there are two problems, the second one being I have to redesign and extend the current house first. Then build a mahousive garage, knock down the existing one, finish my classic car project, then I can have a look at building a Ducuati Sports Touring V4s. Don’t hold your breath. Er, that’s quite a lot of problems/solution opportunities. In the meantime this is great to see, great to follow and I look forward to your progress. Thanks for posting it.
I was going to go to the Stockport Motorcycle Show today, but the weather, once again, is shit !! So I did a bit on the Métis. The headlight connections on the Springer style headlight are made via a plastic block in the bottom of the headlight shell. I want to hide all my connections/plugs at the front of the bike, in the headlight so I removed this connecting block & replaced it with a grommet. I also removed the original earth connection to the shell so I could open out the hole & use it to route the speedo cable into the shell rather than route it to the bottom of the headlight & up through the grommet I'd put in the bottom of the shell. It made the cable run from the speedo look neater although it will mean having to de-pin the plug if I ever need to get the cable out.
The bike is ready for collection after having the rear mudguard, battery cover & headstock cover made. A few more jobs done, but that in turn creates even more jobs !! They also finished some welding for me on the oil tank/battery box & rear chain guard mount.
Got a bit of fettling done tonight on the headstock cover. It needed some holes & slots cutting in it to allow removal without having to break down the front brake hose, disconnect the clutch or de-pinning the front indicators. I started by opening out the hole in the support bracket, it's better to be too big than too small & as it's hidden by the headlight mounting bracket it doesn't really matter how big it is, you don't really see it unless you get right down & look up. I then cut. the holes & slots for the clutch cable, brake hose & indicators. Next job was finding out where I needed to mount a threaded spacer to hold the brake hose to the bottom yoke. I'll pre-drill the spacer on my lathe & then once it welded in place I can use the hole as a guide to drill the hole deep enough to take the P-clip screw. It'll still need some tidying up around the edges & smoothing off with some ScotchBrite.
Made the threaded spacer now & got it tacked into position on the lower yoke. Although it's only tacked in place I've drilled the hole deeper, into the yoke & threaded it so I can fix the hose in place. Once final welding is done I'll just run the tap back through it to clear the threads out. The only job left on the front end now is to fit a steering damper. I'm not sure it will need it, but it's better to do any welding now before it's painted. It'll be easy to leave it off rather than modifying it to fit one. I'm going to use one of the GPR rotary steering dampers like I used on the first bike, mounted to the underside of the lower yoke on the leaf spring clamping plate you can see in the picture above.
Machined up six mounts for my rear mudguard today. I'd already had the sheet metal parts laser cut a few years ago when I was doing the same job on the first bike. It's surprising how quick a day can go by, even when making just six simple bits ! I'll tack the lower & middle mounts up tomorrow & then I need some suitable grommets so that I know what size to make the stainless steel spacers so that when the bolts are tightened up they don't crush the grommets. The long bracket will hold the front, lower edge of the mudguard in position while the two short brackets will hold the middle of the mudguard. The two single mounts will go near the rear of the mudguard & attach to the frame via two lengths of steel tube. These will also hold the rear indicators & their wires will run inside the tubes to hide as much of the wires as possible.
Tacked up the rear mudguard brackets today & drilled the mudguard for the rear two mounts. Holes are just M6 at the moment while I'm sorting out fitting it all. I'll open the holes out once it's mounted to suit whatever grommets I get. Keeping the holes 6mm is beneficial at this stage as it allows the holes to be moved slightly when aligning everything. I had the 14mm spacer left from the last bike so it came in handy again to use to hold the parts in place while I tacked them in position. Once tacked, I cleaned them up a bit with a wire brush & then drilled the holes for the two rear mounts & screwed them in position. I need to get some suitable bits of tube now & get it bent so I can finish the mounts.
Got a bit more machining done today. Got the spacer for the steering damper started, it's machined to size, but now needs a section cutting out to allow the operating arm to rotate & the mounting screw holes drilling & tapping. Then it will just need welding to the underside of the leaf spring clamping plate. After that I need to get a new, longer operating arm made as the one the damper came with is not long enough to reach the clamp, which will mount to the front down-tube of the frame. Also, I got the spacers for the primary drive cover plate started. The plate will hold the left-hand footrest & gear lever in place when it's made & fitted. The spacers are not cut to their final length yet as I haven't got the clutch assembly (it's up at my mates getting a cover drawn up on CAD) to measure them, but I have a rough idea of their length from using the other bike, which has the same set-up fitted. Once they are machined to size I will be able to drill & tap the ends to mount the cover plate to.
Got the steering damper mounting bracket finished off today, it's already for welding in position now. Also made a couple of positioning jigs, one to correctly position the damper on the mounting bracket so I could mark the position of the dampers' two mounting bolts & the other to position the mounting plate on the leaf spring clamping plate ready for tack welding. Drilled & tapped the two mounting bolt holes too. Had to counter bore two holes to provide clearance for the two dome headed screws on the underside face of the damper otherwise it would not sit flush with the mount. All that's left now, prior to fitting, is to make sure the front suspension can move without fouling the damper, once it's in position. The engine is due to arrive next week so once that's fitted & there is a bit of weight on the front suspension I can check the damper for clearance & if alls well, tack the mount in position.
