December 2022 and my Guzzi build is finished, So onto the next project, a Ducati Multistrada 1000 DS. I bought this as an unfinished project and it has some nice parts with it... light wheels, 4 pad brakes, and many more nice parts. I wanted to make this build a bit different. I have in my head what it will look like, and some criteria for the build. It must be light, single seat, less old school, Carbs (I like carbs!) underslung exhaust... no tail piece, and above all minimal... I will ask myself do I need to fit this! Here is where it all starts! I have ordered a load of stuff, but due to strikes and the time of year nothing will be here till the new year… It was also very cold in the main workshop, and with the cost of heating I don’t want to put the central heating on in there so the first job on this build was to make the throttle of all things. I can do this in the side workshop which is small and cheap to heat! As I am using flat slides I want some positive means of closing them, which means a pull to open, pull to close set up. I tried splitters in the past to do this but disliked the action, so decided on a 4 cable throttle. I made similar for the Guzzi build and it worked well, so this is an enhanced version of that with a slightly smaller cable wheel as the Guzzi throttle is a little too quick… I refined my silver soldering technique after watching the repair shop, and I have to say it worked rather well!
As I wanted this to be different to the other builds, I tried several other tanks… I had an ST4 tank and a Monster tank that had too many holes to repair, so I cut these down… while I liked the ST tank, I couldn’t get the seat to tie in… I didn’t like the monster tank… So off to the bike breakers… he gave me the key to his storage unit... and said "say hi to the ghost!" I walked around looking at the hundreds of tanks in there, discounting the plastic ones, of which there were many… the slope of the frame makes the choices limited... Nothing took my eye. Its a VERY old building though, and I have to say it spooked me somewhat being in there on my own, lots of creaking noises, and scuttling sounds which were probably rats... I didn't stay longer than I needed! In the end I went back to the 999 tank I have used before. Another with some holes in the bottom where its rusted out.
While I love the look of a nice velocity stack they are not really practical for the road, hence while I make them for the photos I take, I like to use foam filters on the road. this of course means I need some suitable adaptors, which although you can buy them are REALLY expensive. these took a while to machine out of billet! I sometimes get asked where I get my material from for the lathe and miller. I am really lucky that there is a scrap yard locally that lets me hunt through the bins! They take scrap in from some of the aerospace companies so there are sometimes some nice bar ends in the skips. What is great about that is the bar ends are often etched with the material specification! I don’t usually pay as I take my scrap in there and he writes the value in the back of his desk diary, and then as I take stuff, he takes the value off! he has done this for me for over 30 years! A few years ago I went in early in the year… he was no longer there as he had retired and I learned that his grandson had taken the company over. We chatted and I mentioned about the diary as I had a few pounds credit… The lad said he knew all about it and it was in the back of the book!
Time to start the fabrication of the back end. I decided to use some rose joints as I like the look they bring to a build. Experience has taught me to tack everything up first before welding fully! its going to be a very stubby back end, I have also used three 10mm LED as a stop and tail light. they are amazingly bright
Making the exhaust retaining flange out of 15mm alloy plate was quick and easy… As an aside, that tin of marking blue is 50 years old, given to me by my Dad, along with one of my treasured possessions, a 0 – 1″ micrometre when I was 15 years old. Not much left in the tin now, but its still usable. The stainless steel collar however took an absolute age to make! I should have really used some stainless pipe, but its an odd size and I couldn’t get any that would fit, so I ended up machining it out of a solid piece of bar stock. I hate working with stainless… everything you do with it makes your life hard, just like the material!
I tried for a while to make a seat out of alloy sheet, and failed. the shape is just to complicated! in the end I decided on an alloy and glass fibre approach. I lifted the tank slightly so the finished seat will have some clearance, and then covered it with duct tape, followed by some tin foil to act a a release. This actually worked quite well! Cutting the foam to shape took a while and is a dusty job, but with the fan blowing on me and out the door it wasn't too bad. The key to using resin is the mix ratio... I used 2.5% as it was a cold day, in the summer that would have gone off in 5 mins! I will send it to the trimmer to do his magic... this is one of the few jobs I send out.
This looks great and very inspiring, as I have same model collecting dust in a dark corner at my basement.
To get the tank low, and get rid of the large pump mounting hole I had to cut the bottom out of the tank. easy enough with one of those 1mm cutting disks which I seem to use a lot of these days! I needed to make the infill patch and contour this to fit the hole. to make this easier I profiled it to the right shape by cutting some wood and pressing it to shape in the vice, then a bit of planishing to get it to the final shape. The aim is to get the gap as small as possible to facilitate a nice weld. I used some 1mm mild steel plate which matches the thickness of the tank, so TIG welding is no problem on a low amp setting. I used a couple of magnets to position it before adding a few tacks all round. At this point I ran out of Argon... The last refill I bought was £65.. now its £104! The outlet is made, but I need the filter fitting on the bike first so I can position it to get the pipe runs neat. Once this is welded on I can leak test.
Buzzer, you should seriously consider a youtube series. If anyone deserves to be making money doing this kind of thing it is you! Well done son!
+1 what laava said, I've spent far too long watching the likes of 'project binky' etc, Buzzer, you sir are a genius, I am in awe of your skills, YouTube is an ideal place for you.
I picked up the headlight and fuel filter brackets today... What a fantastic process waterjet cutting is! They were profile cutting a 150mm thick block of alloy while I was there! The jury is out on the brackets at the moment, but I am struggling to think of a better design
When i bought the bike it had a QD system on it… while I liked the concept, it was too big and heavy so I sold it on and decided to make an underslung exhaust of my own design. I wanted smaller and much lighter. I started with a mock-up of builders foam to get the shape and angles, and then moddled this in 3D. I did do a basic model on my iPad, but then found I had to pay to output it to a file! really frustrating! so I got my mate to do it and then had all the individual parts laser cut. The baffle plates have staggered holes, which should quieten it down somewhat, but if not, I have a backup plan! Who knows if this will kill any performance? if I lose a few BHP so be it… but you never know! here is a 1 min video of the process
Please feel to tell me to do one, but after all of the work you have put in, is there no better way of securing the battery?
I like it when people comment, makes me think! I may well do away with the box on this build and do the battery securing in a different way, but its position must stay, same with the plate as I need that to mount all the electrics on. the plate is also rubber mounted. When all the electrics are on there, I will reduce the size and shape accordingly
Apart from a polish the exhaust is welded up and finished. I didn’t want to have distortion and burn through when attaching the baffles, so for these I used TIG braze which worked quite well. The slip joints are held together with springs and to hold these I needed to make some spring hoops. These are actual quite difficult to make to get the bend just right and to a consistent shape. I made a little jig to make these.
here is everything to go to be powder coated. The swinging arm will be just blasted though as I will be polishing that. In some ways it was a shame to strip the wheels as they were perfect, but black, and I want silver. The powder coater insists they are stripped of the powder coat before I send them, as its so difficult for him to blast it off… in the past I have used industrial paint stripper but its expensive, and a terrible job to do. This time I took them to a local car wheel refurbishes and they put then in their stripping tank for a couple of hours.. they came out fantastic, the pain literally fell of! I left the disks on and they came out without any paint on as well. I will be taking my engine cases in next! last post for a month while we go and get some sun!
back from holiday, and the first job was a frame repair on a Triumph... I don't do work for other people these days, but one of my best mates asked me if I could repair this Triumph frame for him. How the hell do people think using rebar and welding like that is acceptable? all done now though and once its powder coated it will be like new.
