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[Dan_Lockwood]

Hi all....

Well it started big time for this project yesterday about noon.

I picked up my new motor, trans, belt drive and starter.  Also picked up were a pair of Avon tires, 120/70-21 Cobra's.

I've attached a few pictures of the motor trans combo here and the rest are on my Picture Trail site.

Enjoy...









This is an Ultima 113" rated at 125 rwhp and 115 tq.  It comes with a Mikuni carb/A-C, heavy duty oil pump and adjustable single fire ignition.  I'll have to supply the single fire coil and point cover.  The trans is Ultima's 6 spd O/D model and I'll be converting it back to a chain drive.  It takes a standard electronic speedo sensor so I'll be using a speedo on this bike.  The belt drive is their 2" Old School with Barnnet clutches.  The starter is also an Ultima 1.75 Kw chrome version with a start button on the end of the solenoid if needed.

So as they say, "Let the games begin".

My frame, wheels, brakes, frontend etc should be here in a couple weeks.

I'll be posting updates as I progress.

As I said on another thread, I've painted cars before and done some of the new urethane painting, but not too much.  This is a small enough project that I'm going to try and do my own paint work.  I'll also be fabbing the gas tank and oil tank myself so I can get what I need to have to make it all come together.  I think the tank will be two tanks, one on each side.  One will be gas and the other side will probably be my oil and a gas reserve tank.  Having them split, I plan to do all the wiring and hide it within the two halves with a cover matching the tanks.  I'm still thinking of the issues and just what I want it to look like.

If anyone has suggestions or questions during my build, feel free to bring them up.  I'm learning as I go and I see others may be following this with a prospect of doing something similar.

If anyone wants to take a look at the rest of the Board Track photos, or some of my "other" projects that I've had, you can go to the following link.

www.picturetrail.com/Dan_Lockwood

Later dudes and dudettes...

Dan

[sadunbar]

This should be great fun and enjoyable to watch as you progress thru the build.  Thanks for sharing and include lots of pictures!   

[Hoist!]

This should be great fun and enjoyable to watch as you progress thru the build.  Thanks for sharing and include lots of pictures!   

I'm with Scott on this! Can't wait to see your progess reports thru this build! Good luck and have fun with it Dan! And you can be sure the peanut gallery won't be quiet! Cool project man!

Hoist!

[Rooster452]

Any plans for the color scheme yet?
Thanks for letting us tag along......

[Dan_Lockwood]

Any plans for the color scheme yet?
Thanks for letting us tag along......

I'm thinking about red.  Maybe two tone or three tone, not sure.  I'm thinking some pinstripes on the frame as in the "old" days might look good.

As I said before, my thought about the tank is to make it in two pieces, left and right halves.  The left half may have the oil tank up front with the rear portion being a reserve tank.  There may be some internal areas opened up so my wiring harness and the electrical controls can be hidden away.

I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate a speedo and tach, both 60mm or about 2-3/8" diameter.  I've ridden my buddy's Black Betty and without a speedo you end up going way too fast.

I'm also toying with the idea of converting to hydraulic clutch but not sure of the pay off on that.  Mirrors are another item that are hard to hide or to do right.  They have to fit the style of the bike without looking out of place. 

I know I'll be doing a spring leather seat, probably brown leather.  There are several companies making pretty cool seats.  Some are dirt cheep, about $70 with springs, and some approaching the $300 range.  Again the seat will need to sized large enough for my fat ass but not look too large for the bike.

The frame will be here in about two more weeks.  When it arrives I'll pop pictures and get them up for you all to view.

Thoughts and suggestions are always appreciated.

Thanks for the interest in my project.

My neighbor was over last night and looked in my garage and about crapped.  We live in a very small subdivision and I'm the only one on my street with a 3-car garage.  My wife does a little house cleaning for a few selected friends and one of them had a '96 Honda Helix from his father in-law with 598 miles.  It doesn't run and my wife said Dan can fix anything, so it's now in my garage with the nastyist smelling varnish for gas.  It reminds me of my very early years when I was learning mechanical chit from my dad.  We started a marina and I ended up being the mechanic.  Lots of old outboard motors came in just stinking of the gar turned varnish.  Once you smell it you can't get it out of your nose for nothing.

Speaking of the old marina back in the mid '60s to mid '70s, I started to do the work while in my mid highschool years.  To get started we had just a 55 gallon water drum and I had gas on the lake for sale.  Not much of a start but when we sold the marina we sold Johnson outboards, Mercury outboards, Polaris snowmobiles, Johnson snowmobiles, Arctic Cat snowmobiles, Four Winns boat, Crest pontoon boats and during our early years we sold Bridgestone motorcycles.  They were always a day late and a dollar short on their models and motor sizes.  When everyone else came out with 250 cc bikes, Bridgestone came out with the 175 cc bike.  When the other went to 450/500 cc bikes Bridgstone came out with the 350 cc bike.  I'll have to say though that they always ran better and faster than the "other" larger bikes.

I'm sorry for getting off track here, I was going down the path to what we expect from a service provider and how we perceive them.  I was about 15 when I started and people would bring in their motors for work and I also did service calls within about a 50 mile radius to all the lakes in our central Michigan rural area.  I never gave it a thought then that I was just a kid and these people respected our marina and just took it for granted that I would do the job needed to fix their toys.

Today I would no sooner take anything to a service facility and knowinly drop off my toy to a 15 or even 18 year old kid.

Back then it was just a different time and people trusted people.  The area had great trust and respect for my dad, so I was grandfathered in, so to speak.  I look today at all the young people getting out of school and most of them want to go to college for the big bucks, I can't blame them on that.  But what about the trades, where are we going to get qualified people to build our homes, schools, roads, or work on our cars and bikes?  We're losing our youth to the white collar jobs.

Okay, I'm rambling and once my fingers start talking, I can't shut them up.  Sorry for the trip down my memory lane.

Later to all and I'll keep you all posted as I go.  No time for spell chech, got to go.

 

[Rooster452]

I know that smell all to well. I like your plan to use newer technology with the old school look. Got sold on Hydraulic clutch on my off road bikes some years back when they first came out.

(I administrate trade schools now and served my apprenticeship in the '70's working in Palm Beach. We are not replacing the "mechanics" at the rate we are losing them and they will be missed in the near future. I remember when fathers were proud to have their kids in the trades.)

[Dan_Lockwood]

Fair worning, no speeel chcek on ths updat.  Sory...

Well people, it's been a long dry spell, but I've purchased items for my new project and that's got me working again.

So here are some updated pictures of the new boartrack custom project.  I say custom as I've changed gears, so to speak, and it's really not what I had envisioned in my minds eye when I started this project.

I had big hopes of having a coffin style dual sided gas/oil tank.  But when I got out the poster foam board and started to tape up and shape the tank with the amount of fuel I felt I needed, it looked VERY ugly, especially from the front.  So I found this pair of old FLH 5 gallon tank set at a swapmeet for $100 brand new.  Boy is it a lot nicer cutting and hacking on new metal versus the old painted crap.

So here are a few teaser pictures.  I'll give a brief description on each picture of what is new or relavant.   The rest of them can be seen on my Picture Trail account in my signature link.

Enjoy.


Good stuff first...  This is of course the side profile with the tank in just about the correct position.  I have to have forward slope on the bottom of the tanks to maintain oil circulation from rear to front.  I tried it low in the back but this really did look the best.


Just a side shot showing the battery tray removed behind the trans.  You can also see the rear fender that's been a very big and time consuming issue.  I bought a swapmeet fender for $10 and I thought it fit quite well, until I started to bend and roll the inner lip over to clean it up.  Also the front fork dimple on each side had to be hammered out as this is not a front fender anymore.  More about this later.


My new seat.  This is made by a young guy that's right here in the greater St. Louis area.  His name is Rich Phillips and his web site is www.bikersaddles.com and he has lots of leather seats to look at.  This is made custom for my wide ass.  He extended each side another 1" to fit me a bit better.  This seat goes for $149 and he charged me $175 for the wide load version.  This leather is all saddle quality leather and very thick.  We weren't sure about the color so I got the antique color and if I need to go black, it's an easy over dye, but you can't black back.  Is that politically correct enough for everyone?  He does a boardtrack seat that I liked, but not for $400.  I do have my limits.


Here's the tank as close as I can get to having tabs mounted.  I'm going to get the rear of the tank split a bit closer when I do the mounts.  It also shows my wiring junction block.  The inside of the right (oil) tank is all cut away right now.  I will be mounting my AGM battery on its side off the main frame backbone inside the cavity of the right tank.  I'll box in the right tank around the area I need for the battery.  I only need 4 quarts of oil so I have 1.5 gallon of "space" to play with.  If I have enough room, I'm going to swing the wiring block inside the right tank as well.  This will open up the tank split on top for a small electronic speedometer.


A better view of the wiring block.  This thing is all sealed in jell and has all the harness plugs underneith.  There is a handlebar harness, rear harness, indicator lights harneess and motor etc harness.  They are all prewired, color coded and labeled at both ends.  This kit was only $179 from Jireh Cycles.  This same kit, only another privite label name from Custom Chrome is over $400.  Jireh Cycles is where I bought the motor/trans/belt drive/starter from.  They handle only Mid West Cycles inventory, so you can't get everything you might want from them, but what they do sell is dirt cheap.


BDL billet hand controls with hydraulic clutch and 3-button left and right switch housings.  These retail for about $325 a side and I bought these at the swapmeet for $250 complete.  There are just a couple minor scratches on the top cover on the front brake, but nothing that can't be buffed out.  I'll have all the normal electrics on the bike.  The Hi/Low switch is a monentary and will operate a latching relay.  Push once for Hi, push again for Low, etc.


Side stand remounted and shortened to size.


My pride and joy so far of the project, my new '39 Chevy taillight.  I bought this at a Hot Rod shop and rotated the lens etc to be on the bottom.  Then I reused a hole on the left to start my turnsignal mounts.  I bought the turnsignals for $30/pr at the swapmeet and combined I think they look great.  See next couple pictures.





Sorry over limit on space so I'll do a second reply to finish up the little novel.

    

[Dan_Lockwood]

Here's the second installment, enjoy.



I started on Saturday to make my shifter mount and mount my '20s style Paughco running boards.  I made a sandwich mounting system off the original motormount as supplied my Milwaukee Iron.  I had a few bushings in my stash and have a nice solid mount made up.  I have to change out the lever on the inside for the shift link, but in general I think I have it all figured out now.




Here is the 2" belt drive with the decorative covers etc.  I'm going to have the entire belt drive chromed with the rest of my chroming needs.  I think it will look better with the running boards and the trans cover and chrome starter.

So for now, that's it.  I'll try to get some more pictures after next weekend and hopefully a fully mounted shifter, rear brake system and running boards.

Boy, this stuff takes lots of time.  I had this problem when I built my streetrod.  I made lots of custom stuff and I spend half or more of my time just looking at things figuring out what to do.  The tanks took a while to decide what to do and how to hide my battery.  I think it's going to end up okay.

I plan on using 3/8" stainless tubing for all my oil lines.  I have all the AN fittings, flaring tools and benders from my streetrod days.  3/8" stainless does not want to bend easily, but it does bend and when polished it looks kick ass.

On the rear fender I'm going to cut the pinch lip off the outer edge so I'm only one sheetmetal thick at the outer edge.  Then at work I'm going to waterjet two outer 3/16" thick cold rolled half rings.  The will be about 1/2" wide and will go over the outer flat of the rear fender.  I'll do the same for the inside but with 1/8" thick material.  I'll have waterjet holes about every 4" or so around the perimeter of the lip.  When sandwiched to the fender, I plan on mounting the center of the fender to the cross bar that the seat springs mount to.  Then in the front lower I'll mount the bottom of the fender to the "U" shaped part of the lower frame just behind the trans.  I'm hoping that with the 4-point mounting and the 3/16" & 1/8" sandwiched out fender lip, that I can just leave the rear of the fender free standing without any loop off the rear of the frame.  I'll see how strong it is when laminated together.

My color theme is going to be, at least right now, the same paint as my '08 SERK Annie.  I have a body shop owner friend and he can get me a mix with the flake and color almost the same.  For my use if it's a bit different, it won't matter, not like I was trying to paint bags for my SERK.

So if anyone has any suggestions so far, let them rip.  Color is still somewhat up in the air, but I think the Annie colors will look cool and not be too outrageous.  My hope is to not date the paint job, remember the pastels on the streetrods of the '80s, probably on a lot of bike of the time too.

I'll update you all again sooner than later.  Now that I'm going full bore on it, I'm sure it will be sooner.

Later dudes and dudettes.

    

[RayG]

Looking great Dan, I agree with the others, thanks a bunch for sharing your build. I'm jealous as hell, it's cold and crappy out and it looks like you found the ticket to utilize your time and skill. Like many others I'll be following your progress. Over the long winter I had planned a major motor build or a Jim's 131" installation on my twin to your SERK but some stupid thing called finances just derailed us. If I can just find the right financial path to take advantage of the economy upswing when it happens, and it will happen with or without me on board. I don't have a crystal ball but I have been studying the markets and other potential ways to take advantage of our current economic situation, there has to be something out there that I can take ownership now while most everything is at sale prices. If I do my homework right the build will happen and I might throw a few bucks towards my 61 Duo Glide Pan that just sits being neglected. I got lucky back in the 1990's doing that and took some profits to do a 3 week vacation/bowhunt in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Victoria falls with my wife. At that time the dollar value was 40 to 1, that was some kind of purchasing power. Today I'm paying for my poor financial planning and performance which reduced me to being a spectator. Things could be much worse for many of us so I'm thankfull of what I have. Looks like you planned well Dan and can take advantage of your skills thrown in with some hard work and the long hours you may be putting into your project.     

 You are going to have a well deserved blast!

Ray G.     

[Talon]

Dan, looks great! Keep sending pictures as you go!

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Another long weekend in the shop working on my new project.

Here are some pictures with descriptions of each.

I spend about half my time just sitting and looking at the bike wondering what or how to do something next.

It is lots of fun though.  My neighbors come over and drink a few sodas and we talk a bit.

Enjoy...


This shows the narrower stance of the rear of the tanks from last time I posted.  Even though the center doesn't look to be centered, cheap ass Tiawan tanks, the outside to outside from the frame center seems to be pretty good.  I have the rear mounts tack welded into place, but will finish welding when the motor is out.


This one shows the front of the tank opening and the battery mock up inside the right (oil) tank.  The gap in the middle will be tweaked to house my horn, so it will be centered and framed with the tank.  I also just have a couple pieces of angle iron tack welded to the front of each tank to do the locating for now.


Through spacer just tacked into the frame backbone for now.  This will be my upper front mount when finished.


Here is a picture of the new redesigned shifter pedal and linkage.  When I finished a week ago, I had to use what I had and I wasn't happy with the ratios of the two levers.  I had very little travel on the pedal to shift up or down.  Neutral would have been a bitch to find.  The shifter plate is laminated between the frame support and the outer running board mount.  I have it all bushed with two bushings so I shouldn't have issues later on.


You can see the bottom linkage arm.  This is now a lot shorter than my original up top arm and lets the pedal move a bit more.  I plan on taking the lower lever and cutting it a bit to let it curve up a bit towards the rear so it's up more level from front to rear.  I'll do that when I tear it all back down.


I took an extra swapmeet trans shifter arm that was not chromed and cut it up.  I think it was forged iron.  I cut it down and mounted it 90 degrees forward.  Then I cut up a cardboard template and did some tweaking.  I cut a 3/16" plate arm and TIG welded it to the cut down arm.  It's like a big "C" now hanging down.  The "C" in the arm allows the center section to clear a belt drive mounting boss for the transmission.  The bottom of the arm curves backward just a bit so it's just about below the trans shift shaft.  I made this arm about 2" longer than the original shorter upright chrome arm.  This gave me even more throw on the shift pedal.  It really feels good now.


No picture set is any good without a full frontal view.    
Both boards are equal length away from the frame.


Another view of the cut out of the oil tank and the mock battery kind of in place.  I made up a tray out of 14ga and broke the sides with curves on the ends to wrap around the main backbone.  I'll weld it all up later.


Picture of the rear brake pedal side.  Right now it looks a bit wide, but when I get the brake pedal designed and mounted along with the master cylinder, oh and maybe an exhaust pipe or two, it will look more in proportions with the other side.  I still have both rear running board mounts to make, but I need the brakes done first as well as what I'm going to be doing for the exhaust.  It all has to work together.


This is the revised now slightly wider mounting position for the left side running board.  The first mock up mounting was a bit too narrow.  When I added the pulley cover it got a bit too close for me.

Like I said, the planning, what little there is of it, takes tons of time.  In my old shop up in Michigan, I had my lathe setup along with 20T press and lots of other cool tools.  I also had lots more for raw materials.  I just haven't salvaged through out scrap metal here at work enough yet.

It's really gathering momentum now.  Things are getting a bit more easy to envision now.

I'll the next installment next week.

[Talon]

Nice! I like the bar design, might steal it when I get around to doing a bobber. Looking really good!

[09S/E roadglide]

lookin good

[SBB]

Dan

It is refreshing to see someone actually build a bike.
Anyone can take a bunch of parts and a wad of cash and say, build me a bike.
What your doing is very cool!
Can't wait to see the end result!
Good luck and keep the pictures coming.


                           

[hogasm]

Dan

It is refreshing to see someone actually build a bike.
Anyone can take a bunch of parts and a wad of cash and say, build me a bike.
What your doing is very cool!
Can't wait to see the end result!
Good luck and keep the pictures coming.


                           

Or buying a custom bagger already built......HUH

[SBB]

Or buying a custom bagger already built......HUH

Or take a nice bagger and spend boatloads of money to make it a custom bagger and wind up with,,,,,, .
And then spend even more money trying to put it back stock.

Yup, Dan has the best idea!

                 

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan

It is refreshing to see someone actually build a bike.
Anyone can take a bunch of parts and a wad of cash and say, build me a bike.
What your doing is very cool!
Can't wait to see the end result!
Good luck and keep the pictures coming.


                           

Silver-Black, you can't imagine the wasted time on this thing.  I just sit there giving it an evil stare sometimes for minutes.  Then I look for materials in my scrap bin to use.  Then I scrap the scrap and start all over again, like I did on the shift linkage on moving it from the top to bottom.

I'm having second thoughts on several different aspects of the bike right now.  So some changes may take place in the plan before I'm finished.  I'm still trying to figure out if the wiring block will fit inside the oil tank with the battery or if I have to keep it on top of the frame backbone like in the pictures.  If I can move it inside I have room to hide or countersink two gauges into the center section of the two tanks.

The seat guy will do a leather tank bib to match the seat if I need one, so that's an option to keep in my mind.

Right now I'm concerned about the air cleaner on the Ultima.  If I sit on the seat with my left leg comfortable on the running board, I can touch off on the tank with my left knee.  But on the right side my right leg just below the knee hits the air cleaner and getting comfortable on the running board is hard to do.  I took off the air cleaner and the problem is gone.  This is where I get cheap.  I love some of the air cleaners out there right now, but I'm not going to spend $300 to $400 for one, no matter how cool they are.  So I'll think of something to make that looks different.

Last night I was thinking about making a curved forward tube with two curved up "Y" tubes.  This would be similar to the old Pontiac Trans Am exhaust tips that were single with the double tips.  I would have them both slightly forward, like just above where a Heavy Breather filter would be.  Then I would mount two of the old school Hot Rod single pot round smooth or louvered chrome air cleaners.  This might look cool and the air cleaners with paper filters are just $10 each.  With the addition of K&N elements, the price would go up a little, but still not too high.

Who knows, the thoughts just come and go with me at this age.  The brain just isn't what it used to be.

I'm still thinking of my '08 SERK Annie paint colors.  I'd have copper on the frame with a mix of the black and copper on both the tank and rear fender.  I've checked into the gold leaf locally and it's available, so I'll try to use it like on the SERK for paint separation.  I'm thinking with the antique dyed seat, this might look okay.  I'm looking for a paint scheme to look cool without being too trendy.  I want flash without the gaud.

Next weekend brings the brake pedal install and possibly some work on boxing in the inside of the oil tank.

I bought a couple 1.75” “J” bends with about a 2.5” radius.  Along with them, I bought from Speedway Motors a miscellaneous bunch of 1.75” tubes with all sorts of bends.  There is 18’ of tubing from Speedway plus my two “J” bends to work with.  I looked at header kits for bikes and they wanted around $350 for them, without mufflers.  I have about $125 in all my tubing right now.  I bought all the exhaust flanges, rings and collars from J&P.

I have two ideas for the exhaust.  The first would be a similar design to the Krugger Half Day bike for the S&S anniversary show last year.  They look similar to the ‘60s Yamaha Big Bear scrambler with upswept pipes and mufflers, one on each side.  The other would be to make my muffler and put it under the transmission.  I'd have two inlets on the front of the muffler for the header pipes and then at the rear I would have two chrome outlets that just extend back just a bit and then sweep outward.  I've mocked up a foam board muffler and I'm having a problem with the size under the frame.  I plan to do all my exhaust in black satin ceramic inside and out with the chrome outlet tips for the lower style or all black for the upswept style.

As you all can see, I could have just bought a kit bike and bolted it together, but even with my street rods from 8 years ago, I tend to buy and then do my own thing.  I'm too fussy and that takes way more time than I should spend.

I think back to the "Build or Bust" show Mitchell hosted and how few of the contestants actually finished the bikes in 30 days.  I grant you, some of them made their own tanks and laced their own wheels, but if that's all I had to do for 30 days and had access to all the right tools and able to order parts to my liking, I can't see why a person couldn't get this done.  Some of those people were very ignorant about what they were actually doing.

I know, some people are bolt together people and others can't even do that.  My ex-father in-law was one of the latter.  When he would throw his belt on his lawnmower deck he would invariably get it back on wrong and it would reverse the blades.  When he painted things, he would get more spray paint on the surrounding area than what he was painting.  I know quite a few people like this.  Then there are the people that are not satisfied with what they get and modify it all.  I think I fall into that group of people.

It would have been just more money to buy everything Milwaukee Iron offered for the bike along with some forward controls that would have bolted on.  I could have been done by now going that route.  

So I have no one to blame for the time and troubles this project is presenting, but myself….

       

PS:  Thanks again for the encouragement and the kind comments.

Stay tuned for next weeks update.

       

[mr_magoo]

Looks like a first class job.

[SBB]

Silver-Black, you can't imagine the wasted time on this thing.  I just sit there giving it an evil stare sometimes for minutes.

Dan

Again I am impressed with your efforts.
I truly understand the "Just sit there and stare" position.
I recenly had to do the same in trying to mate the N-line trailer to the 09 SEUC.
I have a little roller seat that I use for pondering.
And the thought process always begins the same.
"How in the hell am I going to make this work?"

Good luck buddy and like I said,
KEEP THOSE PICTURES COMING!

              

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan

Again I am impressed with your efforts.
I truly understand the "Just sit there and stare" position.
I recently had to do the same in trying to mate the N-line trailer to the 09 SEUC.
I have a little roller seat that I use for pondering.
And the thought process always begins the same.
"How in the hell am I going to make this work?"

Good luck buddy and like I said,
KEEP THOSE PICTURES COMING!

              

Ya know, one of the best investments I made was probably about the same hydraulic roller seat.  I've got an old solo saddle I've been thinking about mounting, but there has always been more pressing things to do.

I've seen some of the hitch installs on this forum and some of them are very tricked out, hidden mounts etc.

I do really enjoy doing things and in a previous life in Michigan, our little network of neighbors really teamed up to be very helpful for each other.  When it came to motors, welding and metal type work in general, I was the one they came to.  When it came to wood working, cabinets, countertops, or any other wood type projects, my neighbor Dave was the best.  He was going to do a new Formica countertop for our house for only the material, no labor.  He volunteered to do the full wall backsplash too.  It just happened that while I was out on a startup somewhere he was done with the top.  He and another buddy of mine came to the house and did the entire install of both wall backsplashes and the countertop.  Wow, what a friend.  Dave's dad had a generator that wouldn't run and they worked on it themselves for some time.  I found out about it and they brought it over.  I got it going and set the 3,600 rpm governor for peak voltage and they were thrilled.  Dave's dad tried to give me money for the work and I told him that his son takes care of me, so forget about it.  My other side neighbor was also helpful with little things and lots of moral support.  You've all had projects that you just need moral support, and Mike was a great one to do that.

Sorry for rambling again.      

I think this forum has some pretty talented people on it.  This shows all the time with the way they work with their bikes or other projects they share here with us.

I know that some of you guys have only known each other through the forum, but when the opportunity has come up, many have traveled and met others here.  Some share bikes and their home to other than this forum, perfect strangers.  This is a bond that is hard to get nowadays.

Speaking of bonds and helping one another, I used to belong to the NSRA (National Street Rod Assoc).  They have a registry book with all the member's city and phone number listed.  While I was on my Ego Rama Shoot Out back in '01 with my Willys, I had driven from Michigan and made it as far as Cheyenne WY when I had an alternator let go on me.  I was at the hotel and I had my book with me.  I called one guy's number and got him out of a board meeting, but he answered.  He wasn't able to help, but he gave me another guy's number and I gave him a call.  This guy worked just down the road at an implement dealership.  He was at the hotel in about 15 minutes and drove me all over town finding an alternator for the car.  I got one and installed it while he waited.  After everything was okay, he parted and I thanked him very much. 

Now that's what I mean about groups or organizations with people made of the right stuff.

I'm sure any of us would do the same thing for someone going through our area.  I know the "who's got a trailer" thread listing is for that purpose too.

So the more I get to know everyone, the more comforable I feel here.  You'll all get to know that if I post you better get out the popcorn because it will probably be a while before you finish my post.      

Again if anyone has any suggestions, good or bad, I'm open to listening to them, or in this case reading them.  If anyone wants to call me about anything, PM me and I'll send my phone number.

Later dudes and dudettes...

Damn, I just did my preview and saw that when I was going to stop up near the top, that I ended up typing way too much....... Again.

[Talon]

Dan I agree with the above, it's like that around here too. I had to put my mother in the hospital yesterday, last night it snowed a little, I had to go to see my mom first thing today, when I got home my walks were shoveled.

As for this group, when I go on a long ride I'll be looking for people along the way if not for help, maybe meet for beer, or dinner. I would like to believe most all from this site would help a fellow member out if possible.

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Okay, this is installment four, so to speak...

Here are some more pictures in no particular order, but of course with the normal Dan descriptions that go on and on forever.      


This shows my new left rear running board mounting.  It goes from the board straight back to the bottom of the belt drive inner aluminum support.  I figured if my old FLH could use a cast on lug to the outer primary cover for the running board mount, this should work just a well.

I have a 1/4" plate with the 3/4" mount welded to it.  The plate has two 1/4" bolts on the leading end and then two more 5/16" bolts, one in the middle and one at the end.

I also welded on a 3/16" thick plate for the regulator to bolt to.  I countersunk 1/4" flatheads down from the top and then welded the head side to make them into studs for the regulator mounting.  I have at least a 1/4" gap between the very smooth upper side of the regulator plate and the bottom of my belt.  These belts run quite tight so I think I should be okay with that.  If not, I can space it down another 1/4" if needed.


Another view of the regulator and rear running board mount.  This is with the guard on and without belt.


This shows the modified front lower shift lever.  It used to be straight on the end and I cut and did a bit of welding on it to get it up just a bit closer to the cases.  Now when I shift it the clearance is just over an 1/8", can't get any closer than that.


This is my new brake pedal.  With all the brackets, levers and rods, it looks a lot better.  Before without all the brake stuff in there the running board just looked way out of place with nothing going on around it.


Another angle of the new brake pedal.  The brake pad is off a streetrod and is polished stainless.


This is my master cylinder mount.  I utilize three trans mount bolts so it should be very stout.  I had to make one a flathead to allow the master cylinder to lay flat up against the bracket.  I'll be replacing the other two bolts with chrome button heads when finished.  I'm going to have the bracket as well as the other brake parts chromed after I'm all finished with the pre-build.  I don't have a water jet at home so all the brackets like this I have to cut out on my band saw and then sand on the belt sander to get them contoured the way I want them.


I ended up making all the brackets.  Everything from the frame horn out, I made.  I have a 1/4" rod pressed into the bracket as a pedal return stop.  It will keep the angle of the brake pedal parallel with the cam case cover, just for the correct look.


Another front on picture of the pedal.  I'm so much happier with this pedal look than with the chrome Dyna pedal I bought at a swapmeet.


This kind of gives an idea of what I'm wanting to do for exhaust.  The front cylinder will go around to the left side and the Right side will do just what the picture shows.  They will both go back and I'll twin sided mufflers going upward slightly and just inside the rear downtubes to the rear axle.  This will fill in some of the extra width in the frame that was bothering me.

Time for a second post for this update...

Sorry for the length of this.      

[Dan_Lockwood]

Second installment of part four:



I'm going to be using Dunstall reverse cone shorty mufflers and they are the same length as this piece of tubing, 17".  The tubing is heatriser hot air tubing that used to be used on exhaust manifolds and then up to the air cleaners for cold weather start up on cars and trucks.  I bought 2" so that if it fits, I know that my 1-3/4" tubing will fit.  I don't have the mufflers yet, but I think they get out to 4" at the largest diameter.  So the inside of the muffler will be parallel with the fender and tire with a slight outward angle to the mufflers at the ends.  This is similar to the Krugger Half Day bike from Belgium, only his is stainless and I'm going to black ceramic coat mine including the mufflers.


Right side starting point.


Just a picture of my under slung shift linkage.


This shows my highly modified trans lever.  As I said very early on, the ratios were just way to high and I only needed to move my shifter about an inch and it was fully shifted.  This would have been a nightmare finding neutral.  I've been able to vary the length of the levers to gain length to my shifter.  The modified lever here is a cut down cast iron that I welded a 3/16" plate to.  I had to lengthen it to slow down the shifting.  It also had to curve forward to clear an inner mounting lug of the inner belt drive plate.  This ended up working just great.

So next week I may have some of my exhaust mocked up and I'll be working on the oil tank getting it all boxed back in on the inside around the battery.

Thanks for taking the time to take a look.

Later dudes and dudettes...

    

PS:  While previewing the post, I remembered that I now want to make a new shifter so it will be curvy like the brake pedal.  I'll make it out of 1/2" round cold roll so it will be very similar to the brake pedal.  Gotta keep everything even, ya know...  So I just keep making more work for myself.  This is why I don't get anything done.  For what you see in this post I spent pretty much all weekend building.  Wow, I could have just bought forward controls and bolted them on, NOT...

[naitram]

lookin good, cant wait for next update

[spydglide]

Very cool, Dan.  I love the custom/one-off brackets, etc.  Cool brake ped/lever.  That's going to be a mighty tight bend on that rear exhaust.....will it cause problems?  I'm loving this vicarious build.  har!  spyder

[Dan_Lockwood]

Very cool, Dan.  I love the custom/one-off brackets, etc.  Cool brake ped/lever.  That's going to be a mighty tight bend on that rear exhaust.....will it cause problems?  I'm loving this vicarious build.  har!  spyder

I'm cheating on the exhaust pipes.  I bought two "J" bends with a 2.5" radius.  The short leg is 8" and the long leg is 15".  I'll take a picture tonight of it in place and post it tomorrow.  Like I said in another post, I bought 18' of tubing with bends of all different sorts of curves and angles.  I had some experience before with cutting tubing and then welding it all back together.



This isn't the best picture to show for this.  But from the bottom of the picture just above the first bends up from the collector, I cut all four pipes off.  The headers were for a fenderwell big block Chevy and of course the motor was a 392 Hemi.  I bought flanges and 2" long tubes pre-welded from Headers by Ed.  I bolted up the flanges and then tried to fit the Chevy headers to the flanges.  The one major problem I had was that the rear cylinder on the heads had to curve way forward, so in essence I moved all the pipes forward one hole and rerouted the front to the back.  I had all four pipes on both sides just cut to pieces.  In that case I had tons of mandrel bent 2" tubing and I just kept cutting and splicing until I got what I wanted.  I made all the rear exhaust system out of 3".  I tapped out of the rear of the header collector with the 3" 90 degree elbow and made the rest.

I look forward to getting this all done this weekend.  I'll have the new Dunstall reverse cone shorty mufflers before the weekend so I'll be having some fun then.

This is really a lot of fun to do.  I took me a bit to get into it again, so now I'm on a roll and just can't stop.  I have lots of little obstacles to overcome, but nothing that should be a show stopper.

Thanks again for the comments and I'll keep posting as I get more done.  I'm sure glad I don't do this for a living, I'd starve.  Although if I did, I would have all this stuff setup and I wouldn't have my lathe torn apart and up in my garage attic.  I just don't have room for the stuff like I had in my work shop in Michigan.  I've not been using my TIG welder simply because I don't have it set up all the time.

Later all...

 

[MrFeexit]

OH MAN!!! Dan this is an amazing build!  I see you are from Ofallon, I will be passing somewhat by that way come June 11th? Around there anyway. I'm riding down to Marshall Texas to visit my brother around then. If it's ready I would love to come by and see this machine in person. WOW My skill set is in cabinetry and wood work. You obviously have a metal working gene going on big time.

[Talon]

Dan, really like the bike! the handle bars, brake pedal and floor boards look really good. I'm not being an ass, just my 2 cents, but the air cleaner you describe sounds cool, but not sure it fits the style of the bike. Everything else flows with the board track theme, really like the old ford brake pedal. 

Maybe something like this, $130 on ebay. Knuckle head not included! 

[Dan_Lockwood]

Very cool, Dan.  I love the custom/one-off brackets, etc.  Cool brake ped/lever.  That's going to be a mighty tight bend on that rear exhaust.....will it cause problems?  I'm loving this vicarious build.  har!  spyder

As promised, here is a picture of what I have in my collection of tubing for the exhaust.



You can see that I have about the same bend in both the heat riser tubing and the "J" bend 1-3/4" tubing.

Neither of the two "J" bends that I have are a true 180 degree bend.  I'll have to pull the tube ends together just a bit to get my true 180 on the inlet / outlet.

I think overall it will be a good fit.  Like I said, I'll have my mufflers on Friday so I'll be able to get some work done over the weekend.

    

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan, really like the bike! the handle bars, brake pedal and floor boards look really good. I'm not being an ass, just my 2 cents, but the air cleaner you describe sounds cool, but not sure it fits the style of the bike. Everything else flows with the board track theme, really like the old ford brake pedal. 

Maybe something like this, $130 on ebay. Knuckle head not included! 

Talon, you are so very correct on the air cleaner look.

I can't tell you how many different headlights, tail lights etc I bought for my '33 Dodge street rod project and not of them really hit the mark I was looking for.

As of right now I'm not sure that the old school Stromberg 97 air cleaners are going to "fit" my theme either.  But for about $40 I thought it might be worth a try.  I can return the air cleaners, which is probably what I'll do.

I'll take a look at noon for the air cleaner you have shown.  If I cannot find it, can you post a link to the auction site for this particular item?  Thanks.

You know, when I started I wanted to have a coffin style Harley teens type tank.  They look very cool but to get what I wanted for capacity, it really looked bad.  Then I found these tanks for $100 and thought, why not?  They are great to work with being new and not having any paint to deal with.  They are however very poor quality.  Not that they aren't going to be strong enough, they are, but the quality of the stamping leaves a lot to be desired.  But hey, I'll be doing so much to them it's not a big deal in my mind.

Now with the newer style tank I lost some of the boardtrack flair I was hoping to stay with.  So just as I compromised on my Willys, I now compromize on the bike.  It will still look okay, but not what I had envisioned in my mind's eye.

I'm going to be taking the shifter off, as I mentioned in a previous post, and make a new curved shifter to kind of match the brake pedal.  Albeit 3/4" on the brake pedal and 1/2" on the shifter, but as long as the bend is similar the two will look good together and compliment each other.  I think I'll just drill the curved horizontal upper end of the new shift lever and screw straight in the shifter pad/post, whatever you want to call the thing you hook your toe under....

So thanks a lot for the comments and the interest in keeping me on track.

    

[Talon]

So that type of shifter are you going to use on the arm? I have a friend that going to turn a fake bullet, the shell will be the shifter, the bullet, will have a threaded rod in it and be on the other side of the arm. Not sure how it will look, but trying something different, won't cost much.

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

So that type of shifter are you going to use on the arm? I have a friend that going to turn a fake bullet, the shell will be the shifter, the bullet, will have a threaded rod in it and be on the other side of the arm. Not sure how it will look, but trying something different, won't cost much.

Craig

Right now I have the old style rubber hand grips with a slight end lip with just circular rings around the grip area and the old stock rubber toe shifter doesn't look too bad with the grips.  All I know right now is that I'll have the 5/16" fine thread on the end and anything I choose to use will just screw in.  So if I get other grips, which I might do, I'll just get the matching toe shifter piece to match.

Thanks again for the input.  I enjoy comments that make me think about my process and scope on this thing.

    

[Dan_Lockwood]

Well folks, here's another installment of the ongoing saga of Dan's boardtrack custom hardtail....

Again, I didn't get as much done as I had thought, but it is moving forward with everyday of work.

Keep in mind that the exhaust including the mufflers will be ceramic coated in satin black.  I'll do the inside and out for the pipes and just the outside on the mufflers.  The mufflers are just a straight through with the perforated core.  About 3/4 the way through there is a perforated plate across the throat, other than that, straight through.  The reverse cone comes off, but the baffles do not come out.


This is the semi welded up pipe assembly with the Dunstall type reverse cone muffler in place.  I don't have the muffler bracket made up yet so for right now it's just a piece of strap metal tack welded to the frame for mocking up the pipe.


Here is a rear 3/4 view showing the muffler inside the rear down tube legs.  This frame was original made to take a larger rear tire and wheel, up to a 250.  So to distract from the width around the rear tire and fender, I decided that running the mufflers inside the frame rails will make it appear more engineered.


This is a front 3/4 shot and shows the angle I have on the forward looped pipe.  I have the top section slightly in compared to the lower return pipe.  this should give me a bit more clearance on the leg.


This really shows the muffler inside the rear frame down tube.  I have about 1/2" clearance on the fender side and about 1/4" on the top and side.  Being how the muffler will be mounted right behind the down tube, it should stay put very well and not bounce around and let the muffler hit the frame.


After making the new brake pedal last weekend, I got to thinking that the old original shifter what was just cast chromed, didn't really go with the curvy brake pedal.  So I made up a new shifter and feel better about it staying in style with the brake pedal.

On the front loop pipe, I'll be making a leg guard out of small diameter rods.  I'll curve them around and will have probably about four of them.  I'll have round ends that all four rods will weld to.  I'll TIG nuts on the pipes and then I can bolt on the leg guard.  I'll have the leg guard chromed with the rest of my chroming.  I think with the satin black ceramic pipes and the chrome leg guard, it should be just enough to accent the pipe a bit.

One last item or question.

When you see all the forward controls that are available, you see that they are all chromed or polished.  With my chrome running boards, I'm leaning towards just carrying on out the paint from my front motor mount perches.  If I don't like the paint continuing on out, I can take all the mounts and pedals off next winter and get them chromed.

Just a reminder, I'm still leaning towards my '08 SERK Annie paint scheme.  So the frame would be the copper with just the tank and fender getting the black treatment.  So when I was talking about the forward controls being painted, they would be the copper color.  Again, I'm not really sold yet on this, but I have a hunch not too bad.

Anyone have any thoughts?  Suggestions are always welcome.

[spydglide]

Cool looking progress, Dan.  Those pipes remind me of something.....maybe a 441 BSA or one of the earlier 'scramblers'..not sure what exactly.  But cool with the twists and reverse megs.  Are you going to make some sort of heat shield for the part up by your leg?  And you are dead on about the shifter matching the curved brake pedal.  This is more fun than a barrel of monkeys......watching your creativity materialize.     har!  spyder

[Rooster452]

Can't wait to see the finished product. Nice job Dan!

[Dan_Lockwood]

Mid week addition to the project.

Here is a picture of the bike with the original Ultima air cleaner installed.  Sorry about the blue tape and the white foam board, just there for protection during the build.





Here's a picture of the new addition, a new air cleaner with a bit more flare to it.



Here are a few up close and personal pictures.







I'd like to thank Talon/Craig for turning me on to this air cleaner.  I bought it from Old-Stf Cycle and Choppers out of Northern CA.  Mike there is great to work with and will spend time with you talking through items rather than just take or leave it attitude.

Just for another added note here, I'm still very concerned about the long "looking" area between the muffler and the "S" bend I have tack welded in place.  It just looks tooooo long there and it really distracts me to no end.

I think first off on Saturday morning I'll pop the tack welds loose and move the "S" bend rearward about 4" to kind of try and fill up the void that's just a bit too open for me.  One thing that hurts me just a bit is the 2" stretch in the rear of the frame.  Great for locating a battery or added fender room, but it only adds here to my personal concerns about the openness between the muffler and the bends.

On the other side over the belt drive, I'm going to have enough going on with the belt drive and extra bends that I don't think that will become an issue for me.

If you guys haven't guessed by now, I tend to over think things to a fault.  And I'm soooo out of practice on welding, it's scaring me to death.  What I though would be just a simple TIG weld has turned into a nightmare for me and required lots of additional work.  But I'm a bit too proud to farm out the welding, I'll just put up with the extra work.  It's going to be satin black ceramic anyway, so imperfections will not show up as they would in near chrome ceramic or actual chrome plating.

So I'll post more pictures late next weekend or on Monday.

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

    

[Talon]

Hey Dan, how is the from pipe going to route, on the left side?

P.S.  On the air cleaner, I really like the style on older looking bikes.

Craig

[naitram]

new A/C fits well to the overall look

[Dan_Lockwood]

Hey Dan, how is the from pipe going to route, on the left side?

P.S.  On the air cleaner, I really like the style on older looking bikes.

Craig

Craig, thanks for the  on the air cleaner.

Naitram, thanks for the vote of confidence too.

Craig, as far as the left side goes, I'll be running the front exhaust around the front inside the downtube and above the oil filter.  It will come back down the left side just above the timing inspection plug.  I plan on not just running a straight pipe, but one that has some character with slight curves and bends to go back over the starter area and meet up with the muffler.

The left and right muffler will be on the same plain and the pipe on the left going into the muffler should be parallel with the right side pipe.  At least for a short distance.  This should keep some symmetry from side to side as you'll be able to see straight through to both pipes from either side of the bike.

I really want to keep that, "how does it run, I don't see a battery, wiring or oil tank", kind of look.  So trying to keep the area above the trans open and uncluttered was my original goal.

Now I'm kind of think, just a little mind you, about having my leather guy make me a hanging tool box that would have a strap down flap top on it.  I would put studs on the lower seat spring mounts instead of bolts.  This would allow me to just lift up the seat that's already hinged in the front of the mount.  This might be a good look, not sure though.  My leather guy is going to make me a bib for the tank seam with the same tanning as the seat.  I think that will flow well that way.

Again guys, my fingers just took off a run'nnnn and I could get them stopped quick enough.... Sorry!

Thanks again Craig for the help on spotting the air cleaner.

I should have the right side pipe tweaked and the left side done this weekend.  If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I'll keep posting and you guys/gals keep enjoying.

    

[Talon]

Hey Dan, no problem, I'm really good at spending other people's money! Yea, like you were saying if you move the bend back a little might make that pipe not look as long, still looks good as is. I was trying to imagine the tool bag. you might make one out of cardboard and set it in just to visualize it. The bike looks kick ass so far.

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Well folks, it's that time of the week again and I have more to post on the progress of my new project.

As you will remember from last week, I was not too keen on the close proximity of the "S" bend on the right side pipe to the front "U" curve.  The first think I did Saturday morning was move the "S" back 3.5" and now I think it spreads out from the front and fills in the wide open space a bit more over the transmission area.


This is the reworked right side pipe with the 3.5" move rearward of the "S" bend.


Here's my new left side pipe as it meanders down and over the belt drive system.  I kept the front rise high enough to get to the timing plug just underneath.  I'm not too sure about this, but I do think it's better than just running a straight pipe down the side of the bike.  I like to have a little character on my stuff.


Another view of the left side pipe with the muffler at the end.


One last left side view from the rear.


Here's a right side from the rear.


Straight on from rear with the two mufflers sticking right out there.  After looking at this view, I decided that now might be a good time to ditch my rear license plate from a not yet made bracket directly in the center.  With both mufflers right at the top and behind where the plate would be, I don't want the license plate getting all carboned up from the exhaust.  So I think a horizontal plate mounted on the lower left side might work out just right.


I ran out of welding wire just when I going to weld on the two rear pipe hangers.  I'll have a mount on the cross tube and then the ears coming up from the pipes.  I think these will keep everything nice and secure.


In keeping with my flared swoopy look of the brake pedal and shifter, I bent up these 90 degree .5" rear muffler brackets.  I drilled the frame and the bracket comes out the bottom side just a bit and then I'll plug weld them from the under side.  I'll run a small bead around the top as well.  The mufflers have a slide bracket like lots of other aftermarket mufflers.


This is a view of the underside of the muffler bracket.  I have the inside end running further in than just the muffler bracket mount.  I tapped the end of the .5" rod and will be able to use both the ends, left and right side, to go up to the fender for a fender brace.  I thought I'd need a fender bracket at some time, but with the width of the rear end and the mufflers, I didn't know how to pull it off without having these really two big braces going up one from each side.  Now I'll piggy back off the inside of the muffler bracket and I'll have nice thin bracket on each side that will be pretty much hidden out of the way.


One added picture.  This is the start of my right side grill guard for the "U" front bend.  I'll roll round half circle for each end and weld them on.  I'll have three narrow strips on the back to strategically mount the grill to the pipe with previously welded on nuts as stand off spacers etc.  Still lots of work to do.

Now I'm in the process of making the leg guard for the right side pipe.  I have 3/16" rods bent in three "U" shaped curves, each slightly larger than the first.  I'll weld them up with rounded ends and then weld nuts to the pipe to attach them with.  Like I said before, the pipes will be black and the leg grill will be chromed.

My next project will be getting the oil tank boxed in on the inside to house (cover) the battery.  Then I have to mount the wiring and pre wire the bike.  Then I think it will be tear down time and start finishing all the grinding and welding.

Both pipes look a little weird right now because of the belt sanding marks and how the light reflects off the pipes.  Once they are sand blasted and ceramic coated, they will look a lot different.

If anyone sees anything that could be improved or just comments, let em rip.

Enjoy.

    

[Talon]

Dan looks great any thoughts on paint, I may have missed this, but getting close to that time! 

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan looks great any thoughts on paint, I may have missed this, but getting close to that time! 

Craig

Craig, actually I've discussed this, but believe me I know how hard it is to follow one of my threads.  They is usually just a page or two short of a novel to read and keeping up with everything is next to impossible.

I'll preface this by saying that at this point I'm leaning towards my '08 SERK Annie colors.



I plan on the frame being the copper, I call it rootbeer, color.  The handle bars will be chromed so the frontend will all be chrome.  The tank will have the center portion the rootbeer color and then black onyx on the sides with a stripe of sorts of the gold leaf as a separator.  The rear fender will have black on the sides with the rootbeer down the middle in some type of design.  There will be limited gold leaf stripes between the sides of the black and rootbeer.  There will hopefully be a red'ish pin stripe over the edge of the gold leaf on the tanks and the rear fender.  The leather guy will do a bib for the tank seam to match my seat.  I may end up dying the seat black instead of the antique brown on it now, just depends on how it looks on the rootbeer color.  I just have to take the seat to the SERK and see what it looks like, but haven't done it yet.

I know the paint colors look good, but just not sure about them on this type of bike though.  Although they looked good on the Annie Dyna and the Annie Springer, so maybe they'll be cool on this custom as well.

As I said in my last update, the pipes look a bit goofy right now with all the shine in spots etc.  I think I'll just spray them flat black for right now just to get a better idea of their look before I have them ceramic coated.  With black pipes, I'm really sure that the mufflers need to be black as well.  I really don't think they'll look good chrome as they will just stand out like an afterthought.

Sorry Craig, see what you got yourself into by just asking one simple questions?

Thanks again for your interest in my project.  I can hardly wait to hear this thing running.

Later dudes and dudettes.....

    

[Talon]

Colors would look good, black sound nice for the exhaust, then if you want some small heat shields, nit that you'll need them with ceramic, but got could do a stainless of low lister silver. Not exactly what I would do but here's a pic, to square for me.

[porthole]

And some of think we're big shots when we change the cams

Very cool build to follow.

[Talon]

Forgot to add, I think the rear exhaust looks better with the bends moved back. 

[screem]

great looking bike Dan...and an awesome collection of pics and narative...lookin forward to your next installment

[Gettinold]

Dan just found this thread, What an awesome build. Realy like the tail light and cant wait to see it complete in the "rootbeer" color. 

               Dave

[Dan_Lockwood]

Well folks, here's a somewhat smaller update as I had too much other stuff to do this past weekend to spend as much time as I would have liked on the new bike project.


To start with, this is what my garage looks like right now.  Kind of cluttered but the important stuff is ready and available to be used.  I could not imagine how hard it would be to build a bike like this without a lift of some sort.


I didn't have any flat black paint, but did want them black to see kind of what the pipes will look like.  Remember the mufflers will also be flat black.  I'm leaning at this time to keep the muffler reverse cone tips in chrome just as an accent.  Kind of like Rineharts in reverse.

I also have the rear mounting tabs welded on now so they will hold the pipes, both left and right side from the head flange to the rear muffler mount.


Right side pipe with the new rearward "S" bend.

Okay, now I need some advise on what you all like best.


The idea sounded great, but when completed it looked TOO big for the purpose of just a leg heat guard.  With this one I would have to decide how to mount it, two bolts per cross bar or just one offset bolt on each of the three cross mount tabs.

Not sure about this one so here's another one to look at.


This is basically all mounted other than finish welding the nuts to the pipes that I have the tab mounting bolts run through.  This one looks a bit better in size, but still not 100% sold on it.

I don't want to do the overlay of another size pipe over the pipe, but I do want to have something there just in case I bump my leg and I also like it for character.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the oil tank, boxing in the battery box.  The project didn't go so well and I spun my wheels most of the time.  I thought it would be easy to just insert a box and fill in the gaps.  Wrong-O-Buckaroo...  So cut, weld, break loose welds, cut some more, start over, weld, cut loose, start over; you all get the idea.  Well at this time I do have a plan and it will probably have to wait now till the weekend.

I have to travel for work this week going out to the Aberdeen MD area for a long day, short night and another long day with flying home at the end, hopefully.

So I'll get you guys caught up after more work has been done.

Let me know your thoughts on the leg heat guard.  You won't hurt my feelings and I can take a little constructive criticism.

And finally, here's my new oil filter mount adapter, courtesy the big HD-Dude, Jim....     

Thanks...


It's a good thing I had a guy locally here check is Ultima and give me the height that the oil filter adapter will come upward from the mount area.  It almost looks like I had planned it to fit right under the header pipe.      

Thanks again for looking and enjoy.

    

[MrFeexit]

MAN OH MAN OH MAN!!! Those pipes are perfection! What an awesome looking bike. At the point its at I love the industrial quality to it. My own tastes would have me keeping it very base metal looking but what ever you do will be dynamite. So cool!

[porthole]

How about just wrapping the pipes?

[Talon]

Pipes look good! I think your right leave the pipes chrome, can you post one more pic of the entire bike from the side, after you painted the pipes?

[Dan_Lockwood]

Pipes look good! I think your right leave the pipes chrome, can you post one more pic of the entire bike from the side, after you painted the pipes?

Thanks to all for the comments.

Craig, here are a few more pictures.  I hope one is what you were looking for.

Again, my original plan was to do flat black ceramic coating on the pipes as well as the mufflers.  Only this weekend I was thinking about possibly just leaving the 'removable tips' of the mufflers chrome for just a bit of flash at the ends, but still not certain about that look either. 

I think right now, even though the pipes are black, they are not flat black.  I think the shine is giving me the wrong impression of the pipes right now.  I will probably get some flat black spray paint and repaint the pipes as well as the mufflers to see what they look like done in that manner. 

I think if I leave the mufflers chrome and the pipes flat black, the mufflers will kind of just be sticking out there with not much of a connection to the bike.  Don't really know, but that's what it looks like right now.


Full side view with the two wire leg guard in place.


Right side rear 3/4 view.


Left side rear 3/4 view.

Again, comments welcome.  I know I'll end up doing what I feel is best, but sometimes just bouncing things off of people with an eye for bikes is better than letting my wife review my work.

Thanks again for the interest in my little project.

Later dudes and dudettes....

    

[naitram]

Dan, i think the 2 wire guard looks beetter then the 3 wire one

[spydglide]

My 2 cents.......I gotta agreed on chroming the pipes and leaving the reverse cones all chrome.  They're good looking the way you made them and will stand out more in chrome.  Unique.     spyder

[Talon]

Thanks Dan, that picture gives a better look at the pipes, seeing the whole bike. I agree with you, leave the mufflers chrome, ceramic coat the pipes black, it breaks it up the length. Looks good, your making good progress!

Craig

[screem]

Geez we need to start a pipe poll...i too like the black pipes, chrome mufflers...maybe do the cones black....the double heat guard looks better than the triple. good luck Dan...your gaining quite a cheering section in here

[Talon]

I know you said you used the gloss just because you didn't have any flat black, I thing matte or flat black would look better.

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Here we are at update HUIT, seven...

No pictures this week.  All I did this weekend was work on the oil tank and gas tank.

I have the inside of the oil tank all boxed in now and had some small pin holes that I had to fix, reweld.  I have to do something about the core in my MIG cable as the wire is just jerking along and sometimes it just flies out and other times it just sticks a bit.  This Miller is not that old, only burned a 2# spool through it since I move down here.

I would be using my TIG but I'm out of Argon and this tank is not up to date lease wise and it's from Michigan, not St. Louis area.  So my MIG is what I have to work with.  I'm using 16 ga. for my boxing in materials, but the China tanks are 20 ga. and it's a bit of a trick welding the tank with my on/off again MIG wire feed issues.  But hey, nobody said I can't go back over welds and fix any small leaks. 

Back to the tanks.  I got permanent front mounting tabs made from 11 ga. and have them mounted and finished welded inside the fronts of each tank.  I'm using the stock rear mounts for each tank.  I still need to come up with a front lower means to stabilize the tanks.  With just the two mounts on each tank, they're pretty stout but if I try to push them up or down they do move a bit and I don't want them to vibrate and break loose later.  If I can't have a front lower mount for each to the frame, maybe just a mount at the bottom to each other will help.  That should keep them from twisting separately.

I was also afraid that when I was finished with the boxing in of the battery that I might not have enough volume for oil in the tank.  Before I finished the pin hole plugging, I took the oil tank into the kitchen and filled it up with a pint measruing cup.  With the water level just below the main filler cap neck, it holds 6 quarts.  At that amount of available oil space, I think that I'll probably run with 5 quarts in the tank.  That along with the large long oil filter, I should have more than enough oil to help keep things cool enough without running an oil cooler.

One other thing that I hadn't thought about seriously early on, but on Saturday I thought WTF did I do this for?  I'm talking about hiding the battery inside the oil tank.

I got to thinking that with the oil tank probably running in the range of low 200 degrees, I might give the battery some issues.  I have at least 1/2" on front, top, end and rear.  The bottom side of the battery is wide open down to the heads, about 4" away.  So air circulation should be really good.  Then I got to thinking about all the oil bags with the battery mounting inside them and stuffed under a seat without much air flow at all.  At that point the battery heat issue just went away for me.  Any thoughts on this from any of you guys?

So now I have to still work on what I'm going to do for the main harness block.  I was going to put it between the two tanks mounted to the main frame back bone, but I think I need to keep that area open for battery terminal access and maybe even dropping the speedo into the tank gap.

So as life goes on in Dan's garage, I should have more again next week.

If anyone has any thoughts about what or how I'm going to do something, by all means, let me know.  I'm not professing to be an expert on this project, in fact this is my first one, so I'm engineering and building as I go.  If someone has been there done that before and can stop me from making a mistake, I would greatly appreciate it.  I already have left over parts that I'm not going to use because I've changed my mind on the looks and function of some of the parts I bought.  One comes to mind, I have the new EVO style oil filter adapter HD-Dude, Jim, helped me out with and that's going to be used on the bike.  But I had purchased an early style remote oil filter with the cartridge style and through bolt.  Then I was at a swap meet and found a better looking one with a spin on filter, but still didn't want to muddy up the looks of the bike with a remote filter.  So the EVO style really made the difference for me; thanks again Jim...  I have a headlight now, but I'm not going to use it as it and the turn signals won't match each other.  After I made up the tail light with the bullet turn signals mounted to it, the short British style headlight just doesn't look right.  But a too long bullet headlight will not go with the theme of the bike, so I have to be someone choosy on what I get.  So today I think I'm going to order another headlight.  And while I was writing the above verbiage about finding a new place to put my main wiring module, I just thought that I might be able to hide it inside the new longer bullet headlight.  This would only leave wiring harnesses to deal with.

Like I said, I'm doing this by the seat of my pants.  If something doesn't look just right, I change it and start over.  If I have bought a KIT with all the parts assembly proven, it would have been a lot easier.  But if it were that easy, it would take all the fun out of it.

Okay, enough for today.

Later dudes and dudettes...

    

[spydglide]

Just a thought to follow along with your concern of the battery in the oil bag......any other place would be better for the longevity of the battery as we all know from the older HD's that used that configuration.  Clean out of the way look, but at a cost.  spyder

[johnnymap]

Dan,

I have truly enjoyed watching the progress on you project.  It is something most of us would love to do, assuming we had the time and expertise, of which you must loads of.

It I could, regarding the color of the pipes.  If you go with the flat black, and since you are considering the annie colors, with the shiny black, is the flat black going to look out of place on the pipes and/or mufflers?  I am all for flat black on bikes, but it was a thought.

I know you have enough thoughts going on in your head, but I thought you needed one more.

Continue on, it is fun following.

john

[Dan_Lockwood]

Spyder,

I plan on using an AGM battery and they don't have any liquid inside and they do have vents, so I'm just not sure of what I'll be getting into with the mounting location currently being used.

I think I'll call some of the AGM battery guys and see what they list for air around the battery and what the ambient temp can be.  Worse case, if I use a battery every two years, I could live with that.  Also the length of duration on the rides will be less than a normal bike would see.



Johnnymap,

I still think there is some confusion on what my plans are for the exhaust.  In my posts I've said that I plan on stripping the chrome from the mufflers, but had thought that just maybe, leaving the muffler reverse cone tips stay chrome for a bit of flair at the end.  If that's not a good look, I'll have them ceramic coated as well.  But I think when I mentioned the chrome tip staying that way, it was taken as the mufflers would stay chrome and I really don't think black pipes and chrome mufflers will look good, at least on this type of bike.

I plan on getting some flat black spray and redoing the pipes in flat black as well as doing the mufflers to see what it looks like.

Jet-Hot has what they call their Sterling finish and they claim it to look as good as highly polished aluminum.  If my pipes were a bit better in looks and finish, I might be tempted to do the near chrome on them.  But alas, my work was not that great and the finish would really look better with it being flat black to hide some of the imperfections.

I bought an assortment from Speedway Motors of 1.75" pipe with lots of different bends and lengths of pipe for about $80.  They were supposed to have been 16 ga. but they were 18 ga.  So the "U" bends I bought from Summit Racing that are indeed 16 ga., so in combining the two sizes, there were some minor size differences at the welds.  I did the best I could with an expander to re-size the pipes for the best match, but it was just a bit better than doing nothing.  Also the tubes from Speedway were not very nice.  When the bender clamped onto them for the bending process, they left gripper marks like little hatch marks and some of the pipes were undersized at the clamp point.  I could not use all the pipes because of this issue.  I still have a few minor weld pot marks that I need to touch up weld and regrind a little.  All in all I do like the pipes, but if I get real serious about it I can buy some true "U" bends of 16 ga. material and make another set of pipes.  With what I know now and with the right tubing, read more expensive, I could make a set of pipes in a weekend.

Also the more I look at the leg guard on the right pipe, the more I'm not sold on it; even with the two rods instead of the three rods.  I guess I could just get a nice clean piece of 2" and overlay a piece with some holes drilled into it, but everyone uses the overlay pipes and I just wanted to be a bit different.

Thanks again guys for the input and prompting my thought process.

One last note on the paint color.  Up until I buy the paint, the plan is still to go with the Annie '08 colors.  But a lot can change between now and that time.  So time will tell.  I think a red and red two tone bike might look kind of classy, but there are just so many red bikes.  I know, I know, if it were red it would be VERY fast...     

That's it for now guys.  Keep the thoughts and questions coming.

  

[Talon]

Dan, not sure if this would work, or if you'd like it, but here's a battery mount in the side cover for the open primary. Maybe you could modify you side cover if you really want to hide the battery? It would have to be a small battery. Well the link starts from the first page, it's on page 25.

http://limpnickielot.com/lnbm/index.html

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan, not sure if this would work, or if you'd like it, but here's a battery mount in the side cover for the open primary. Maybe you could modify you side cover if you really want to hide the battery? It would have to be a small battery. Well the link starts from the first page, it's on page 25.

http://limpnickielot.com/lnbm/index.html

Craig

Yeah, that would be cool if I were going to be a kick only bike, but alas, my electric start is a killer for the battery being small.

I did find an article in a mag that had a link to a new Lithium polymer battery.  It's about 1/3 the size of a normal battery and the guy dry cranked his bike with the plug wires off for a couple minutes.  He let the starter cool off and did it again without compression releases too.  I thought this is just what the doctor ordered.  They didn't have a price on the web site, but I found a dealer for them and asked for pricing.  The battery was over $900 and that's when I decided to slap it in the tank.

I'm thinking that I'll be okay with the amount of air I have going through the center tank area along with the bottom being open.

I appreciate the effort in helping me out on this.

I should have more pictures after this weekend is over.  We'll make it to part eight pretty soon.

Thanks again for the link.  At least that site has some good ideas in the catalog.

    

[SBB]

Dan

Click on picture to enlarge!


Thanks

Chip

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan

Click on picture to enlarge!


Thanks

Chip

Chip, it was nice talking to you this evening.

I see what you mean now from the picture.

I'll give it some thought and get back with you.

Dan

[Talon]

Dan I forget and can't find it, is your oil tank under the trans? If not id the room for a gel battery on it side under there? If not I think your running out of options.

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan I forget and can't find it, is your oil tank under the trans? If not id the room for a gel battery on it side under there? If not I think your running out of options.

Craig

Craig, I have not even thought about it going under the trans between the frame rails.  I'll check that out.  If that's possible, I can use the vacant space in the oil tank for the electrical and have way more room than I'd have the way I'm heading right now.  I was kind of thinking about the space down there being used for an oil cooler, but with the right side of the dual tanks being used for my oil tank, it will hold an easy 5 quarts of oil.  So that should help on the oil cooling a bit.  Anyway, I'll check out how much room I'll have down there for a battery.

Also guys, my wife has been giving me some grief about this being a solo bike and that I might just be leaving her a bit too often riding solo.  Just for a joke I remembered in one of my old Harley history books of seeing a very early dual seat arrangement that just might be the ticket.

Again, this started off in my mind as a joke, but the more I think about it I think it has some merit.

What do you guys think?


Here's the more complete setup with lots of bracing included.


This is an earlier one with just the fender used for fore and aft support of the buddy seat.

What I was thinking was that I could weld in four blind tapped holes on the two rear frame down legs to the rear axle.  These would be drilled and tapped for 3/8" bolts with just a slight shoulder on them.  I may just install them and use a thin fiber or nylon washer and a nice chrome button head Allen bolt to plug the four holes.  Then at a later time I would make up a mini frame work and have another seat made to match.  I could than just bolt on the rear seat assembly if needed.  Granted, it would not be a super comfortable BSR seat, but the bike wasn't intended for comfort and long hauls anyway.

After showing this to my neighbors, who both ride, I'm getting a more warm and fuzzy feeling about this.

I would have to say that it would be unique and would stand out wherever we would go.  Keep in mind without it bolted on, all I would have to show for it was just four nicely chromed button heads strategically placed in the rear frame down legs.

So what's everyones thoughts on something as AB Normal at this?

    

[Dan_Lockwood]

Nine may be a lucky number for me, so here goes.

I had a chance to get it out in the sun this past weekend.


This picture shows a mock up of the bike with a front fender and sporting the new headlight with the new turn signals installed.  I had a headlight bought for the bike but it is a British style and a bit too short and stocky looking.  This one is a keeper I do believe.  It fits real well with the looks of the bike, not too pro street at all.

I like the "old" look of the bike with the front fender on, but you all know how hard it is to mount a close fitting front fender to a springer.  I had a guy at work tell me that if I've done all the other stuff on the bike, the fender should be piece of cake.  BUT, I'll probably not mount it and just run naked up front.


Just another view of the bike from the left side.


A 3/4 front view.

I've been working on the front of the tanks to fill in the gap a bit.  I was going to just hang my horn in the somewhat round gap, but I got tired of fitting it so I'm just moving inside between the front of the two tanks.  It's plenty open enough and it will make plenty of noise there.  I'm filling in the front gap with sheet metal rolled to curve around the front of the tanks.  I plan on have about a 3/16" parallel gap running vertically up the front just stopping short of the bottom of the main frame back bone.  I'll need room to route my wiring from the the headlight and the handlebars.

I ordered my battery today.  I got it from Jegs and it's a Braille brand battery AGM type.  It's 11.5# and 5.8" x 3.32" x 5.8" and has 360cca @ 0°, 486cca @ 32° and 904cca @ 80°.  This is the highest cca battery I've found for the size, other than the new Lithium Ion Polymer battery I found on a website.  It's about 1/2 the size of what I just bought and it can crank a 120" motor with the plug wires off for over 2 minutes.  They let the starter cool off and then cranked it again for 2 minutes with plenty of reserve available still.  I eventually found a price, over $900 for the bugger.  No way from this guy...

So I'll mount my new battery on its side up under the tank with still lots of open air around and under.

I'll get more pictures soon.

Later dudes and dudettes...

    

[Gettinold]

Coming along nice Dan. Thanks for the the update. 




                                                           Dave

[spydglide]

Dan, did you say how much 'useable' fuel the gas tank holds?  I can't remember.  It is amazing how good that bike has come together.  The headlight balances out the taillight (to me, anyway).  It all goes together very well.  Too cool.  har!  spyder

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan, did you say how much 'useable' fuel the gas tank holds?  I can't remember.  It is amazing how good that bike has come together.  The headlight balances out the taillight (to me, anyway).  It all goes together very well.  Too cool.  har!  spyder

The gas portion will only be 2.5 gallons so it won't get me too far.

I really like the headlight with the turn signals attached.

A place called Demon's Cycles in Florida has some great prices and great service. This headlight was only $35 with free shipping. I'd recommend them highly.

I'm getting tired of finger typing on my iPhone.

Later......

[spydglide]

The gas portion will only be 2.5 gallons so it won't get me too far.

I really like the headlight with the turn signals attached.

A place called Demon's Cycles in Florida has some great prices and great service. This headlight was only $35 with free shipping. I'd recommend them highly.

I'm getting tired of finger typing on my iPhone.
Later......

I found this nifty lil fold out blue tooth keyboard that I use with my blackberry......you might find one for the IPhone.  har!  spyder

[Dan_Lockwood]

I found this nifty lil fold out blue tooth keyboard that I use with my blackberry......you might find one for the IPhone.  har!  spyder

I've seen those on TV before.  The problem with me is that I'm usually watching TV while I'm doing my browsing on the Internet.  So a very flexible keyboard would not work well with my somewhat uneven lap.  We can't have our phones on any more at work so I can't use one at work either.  When I do my serious browsing, it's with my desktop anyway, but I do get a kick out of answering people when I see a message etc.

There seems to be a lot of new stuff coming very soon for the iPhone 3G, software and hardware.  I'll keep my eyes open.

    

[spydglide]

I've seen those on TV before.  The problem with me is that I'm usually watching TV while I'm doing my browsing on the Internet.  So a very flexible keyboard would not work well with my somewhat uneven lap.  We can't have our phones on any more at work so I can't use one at work either.  When I do my serious browsing, it's with my desktop anyway, but I do get a kick out of answering people when I see a message etc.

There seems to be a lot of new stuff coming very soon for the iPhone 3G, software and hardware.  I'll keep my eyes open.

    

This lil deal is not flexible.....it is very small, folds in half, but locks into a solid keyboard when opened. Has a neat little leather carrying case that's 4"X5.5" so it's truly portable.  The name is: Freedom Universal Keyboard.  Works well.  spyder

[Talon]

Dan, the bikes looks great! I like it better without the fender. If you run a fender and want it close to the tire, you have to make a mount that goes to the axle. But I like it better off! That was cheep for a headlight, I'll have to check them out.

[Talon]

One more.

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan, the bikes looks great! I like it better without the fender. If you run a fender and want it close to the tire, you have to make a mount that goes to the axle. But I like it better off! That was cheep for a headlight, I'll have to check them out.

First Spyder, I was not aware of the folding ones, only one I had looked at was a bit on the flimsy flexible side.  But one that will fold and lock may be a lot better option.  I'll research it some and see what is available for the iPhone.

Craig, I've been torn between the naked front look and the fender front look.

I know these are not terms used generally when describing bikes, but it changes the look of the bike from an aggressive look without the fender to a more passive submissive look with the fender.  Maybe chopper to cruiser.  My original thoughts in building the bike was to have it look as old as possible with maybe even two tone, like red on red, with pinstripes to fancy it up a bit.  But when I couldn't get the tank just the way I wanted to do it and ended up with the FLH type tanks, the bike took on another life, one that was a bit more aggressive.

I tend to do WAY too much analyzing of things while I'm building them.  It drives me wife crazy.  I'm that way when I'm looking to buy something big, new TV, new bike, new truck/car, even furniture.  You should have been around when I was picking out wheels for the Willys streetrod project, man did she hit the roof on that one.

So with that being said, I'm starting to have second thoughts about the pipes on the bike.  I'm just thinking that I could do a better job if I were to do it all again.  There may even be some different shapes I could do that might be more flattering on the bike.  I really like the mufflers, but in between them and the heads is my problem, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with what I have now, but I've just got that feeling that something is just not exactly right.  You guys, if anyone can, can imagine my pain on this.  I know the materials I bought for the pipes could have been better quality, but for the amount I looked and at a fair price, this is what I got.

So back to the basic bike, I really like the look with the tail light and the head light, they work together very well.  The seat and the tank compliment the bike and I do like the mufflers and the pipes are so so.  Picking the correct paint color is going to make or break the project.  I'm still leaning towards the '08 SE Anniversary copper/black.  I still think this will look classy rather than sassy or loud.  If I ran the fender up front, it would add more color to the bike rather than just chrome up front. 

In the pictures you attached, the rocker was different in leverage than mine.  The one you showed had a long front end from the riser fork to the axle and short from the riser fork to the main down tubes.  Mine is long from the down tubes to the riser point and short from the riser forward to the axle.  Mine is not quite 2:1.  Either way though, mounting the fender to the axle motion in some way is necessary to maintain fender to tire clearances.  I have the two positions on the main down tubes for the caliper link rod mounting point that I can use for a stabilizer link to keep the fender in place.  If it were a shrouded fender bike, like a FLH type setup, doing a fork riser mount on the front fender would be no problem and I could use the available clamp mount with the two "T" brackets for the fender.  Can you imagine what it would be like to hit a hole or a bump in the road and have the tire smash into the fender; instant brakes man.

Sorry for rambling.  I'm just thinking out loud so to speak.

I may take off the pipes leaving the mufflers in place and take a picture of each side of the bike.  I can then get some clear laminate and overlay my new pipe design over the bike.  Kind of like the "old" days when you had a "girly" calendar with a bikini on.  You lifted up the plastic overlay to remove the clothes.  Not sure what I would do if I were to do it again though.  I do know that if I get the bike done, that would be it and no redesign would get done after the fact.

Again on the suggestions, if anyone has ideas, I'm way open to hear them and discuss them.  Or I could just shut up and finish the bike the way it is and move on with my life.

Thanks for the input guys.

    

[Talon]

Don, I sympathize with you, I'm the same way when I do a project, I try to walk through all the details, looking for info on the internet, reading books, drawing it all out in my mind. The worse part is when I do a major project, I do my best thinking at night in bed. I'll lay there for hours and think of different scenarios and ideas, working out the details, then in the morning I'm dead tired!

Pipes are a hard thing to work out, especially if your building custom ones. I have an old sporty I'm thinking about building a bobber out of, already have the bike, so wouldn't cost a lot, Ha, Ha! But pipes are one of the big issues, I have two basic designs I'm looking at now, but this is like the fifth idea so far. I'm looking at a high pipe, either 2:1 or two straight pipes something like this, but different muffler design. I was going to look for an old set of 2:1's and cut off the 2:1 part and go from there. Good Luck!

Craig

[Talon]

Or like this, without the fishtails, or wrap, or big whites, just the pipes. 

[Dan_Lockwood]

Or like this, without the fishtails, or wrap, or big whites, just the pipes. 

I'm not sure what company these belong to, but this is my buddy's "Black Betty" bike.  I kind of like these pipes, but I've seen some that are like this with the bottom pipe up about like the one in your last picture.






I kind of like the wrapped pipes, but I know how they tear up the pipes underneath.  But at this point I feel too many people are just wrapping the pipes to keep cost down and that makes them a bit too common for my taste.  But they do look good in some cases.  I think the lighter tan like in your picture looks good.

I too really like the upper flow of the pipes.  I'm really happy with my mufflers, like I said before.  I reminds me of my younger days when I rode scrambler type bikes in the '60s.

Maybe it's the curve and then straight that makes me wonder about my pipes.  Although I really like the new Freddie Krugger "Half Day" bike he built for the S&S 50th Anniversary show.





Other than the fact that Krugger's Half Day is a soft tail, is a Panhead, is a standard wheelbase, it's just like my project bike.      

All kidding a side, I really like this Krugger bike.  I love the pipes and it's loosely what I based mine on and the fact that my frame was so wide you could drive a freight truck between the tire and the frame rails.

Thanks for posting your pictures, I love to look at other bike with fancy things on them.  I came very close up front to buying the Arlen Ness Sportster Boardtrack frame.  They are out of production now, but they still have a couple for sale.  I ended up with a new motor option rather than buying a used Sportster as a donor bike.

Later...

    

[Talon]

Yea, Dan I have a picture of those pipes, there are several makers of this style, I think those are V&H. Speaking of Freddie Krugger, have you ever been to the site below? They do some really cool fab and cad stuff. They feature Kruggers bike there a lot.

http://www.markvanderkwaak.com/

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Yea, Dan I have a picture of those pipes, there are several makers of this style, I think those are V&H. Speaking of Freddie Krugger, have you ever been to the site below? They do some really cool fab and cad stuff. They feature Kruggers bike there a lot.

http://www.markvanderkwaak.com/

Craig

Cool site Craig.  I'll spend more time tonight looking it over a bit more thoroughly.

Thanks for the link.

    

[Talon]

Dan, what's new with the board track project? 

Craig

[Dan_Lockwood]

Dan, what's new with the board track project? 

Craig

Sorry about the repeat on the pictures, I forgot I'd posted them before.  Oh well.....

Craig, it's like this, I've been too lazy to get my ass out there and work on it.

Really though, I was sick for one of the past weekends, then I had to go to Joplin for a week to do a new line startup for one of our customers.  That's when I had dinner with Don and Travis, great guys with lots of great stories.

Back to my project bike.

I have a battery now that I bought from Jegs.  It's a Braille brand AGM type.

"No-Weight" Racing Battery
11.5 lbs
5.8'' (L) x 3.4'' (W) x 5.8'' (H)
Pulse Cranking Amps (PCA) 5 sec @ 80° F: 904
Pulse Cranking Amps (PCA) 10 sec @ 80° F: 791
Pulse Cranking Amps 20 sec @ 80° F: 698
Cranking Amps 30 sec @ 80° F: 585
Cranking Amps 30 sec @ 32° F: 486
Cold Cranking Amps 30 sec @ 0° F: 360

This is far more potent than anything I could find in any motorcycle website, other than the new Lithium Polymer batterys @ over $900.

I measured under the trans inside the frame and there is NOT enough room to do a battery there without it hanging down looking very unsightly.

I think lots of us guys could get some better deals if we wander from motorcycles once in awhile and take a look through catalogs like Summit Racing, Jegs, Speedway Motors etc.  Lots of parts can be used in other applications, even headlights and tailights.  I have a streetrod brake pedal pad on the new project that looks awesome on the bike.

At this point I have the oil take welded and leak tested, but I still have concerns for vibration causing issues later on.  I've been looking for body filler that can be used on high temp applications.  Alvin Products makes a filler called Lab-metal and High Temp Lab-metal.  The regular is good up to about 425° for a short period and the High Temp Lab-metal is good up to about 1100°.  The hight temp has to be cured in an over for about half an hour at 425° to gas out any trapped gasses and to final harden the material.

The assorted bends I used on my pipes had clamping marks that did not grind out so I may have to use some type of high temp filler there too.  I checked with Jet-Hot and they said it would probably not be an issue getting their ceramic coating to cover with minor amounts of this filler being used.

So for right now I need to finalize the tank filler strips on the front to box in the main frame gap.  I have my horn mounted inside between the two tanks.  It will be plenty loud enough as the bottom area is wide open and the horn is VERY loud.

I had a wiring module with plugs on the under side for all my harnesses to plug in but it was getting too tight where I wanted to locate it.  So I sent it back and got the one with all the wires prewired to the module and it's about 2/3 the size.  It has all the relays, self cancelling turn signal module, starter relays etc built in so all I have to do is the wiring.  It's color coded and all marked with tags around each wire.  I have several wiring label machines at work and I'll probably use one to mark all the outer ends.

Along with the purchase of the battery, I bought another headlight for the bike.  This one works a lot better, especially with the home made tailight I have on it.  I got this from Demon's Cycles in FL.  They have great products, but at VERY low prices and the service is really fast.  If it's on the website, they have it in stock.  I paid $35 for the headlight and I had $40 in the turn signals.

I mounted the turn signals just like I did on the tailight, but rotated them down just a bit from horizontal for a slightly better look, at least that's what I think.

Here's a few pictures of the bike finally outside on the driveway.







I'm really down to finishing the tank and trim like I said above, and then I wire it up.  I have to do all the oil lines once I weld in the bungs on the oil tank, or figure out where I want them.  My oil return will be coming in from the rear of the tank and that's why I have the forward downward slant to the tanks.  I want good ciculation of the oil and use as much of the tank for cooling that I can.

Once I pre-finish the bike, I tear it all back down for final frame finishing of the welds and grinding that I've done all over on it.  Then comes the paint.  I also have to mill out the radius in the lower head bearing cap.  The internal turning stop is way to shallow.  I can't turn this around in my driveway.  I'll trim out a bit on each end to let the head rotate about another 15° so it will steer better for me.

I'll be working on it again soon and post more pictures.

Thanks for keeping me going, it really helps me stay motivated.

Later dudes and dudettes.