It's DONE! Now the shipping adventure begins.

Justin got back to me with measurements on where to place the O2 sensor bung, so X marks the spot! I center punched the point, as anyone who has tried to drill round stuff knows that if you are doing it by hand, the bit will walk if you don't!

Here it is opened up to 3/8":

I used the bun to trace out how much it needed to be opened up, and it was a bit off from vertical:

I used my hanging grinder and an 1/8" carbide cutter to open up the hole thusly:

Looking good!

I happen to love this clamp! It isn't cheap, but it is very versatile, as it has swivel pads and is tension adjustable, so it will clamp down on anything from the thinnest sheet to up to about 4"!

http://www.lockjawpliers.com/ They are built very, very well. Better than real Vise-grips and faster to use. (Don't get me wrong, I still have and still love Vise-grips, but these things are just that much better!)

Here's the bung welded on:

And here is the finished product in all it's glory:

I had forgotten to get pics of the rest of the collector to downpipe welds:

I actually didn't like how the SS of the original header was welding. I just did the best I could. The good thing is that Justin isn't going to be driving this on the street anymore, and with the new support, I don't think there will be any cracking issues, at least where I welded on the header. heh

I'm getting better, but, still have consistency issues that I have nearly figured out:

Really concentrating on what was going on, I discovered that I am simply not rotating the torch enough. On small diameter pipe, the motion needed to keep the weld puddle consistent seems REALLY exaggerated, but it isn't. Once I realized that, my welds immediately became more consistent and regular. I will be using these techniques on my next several manifolds.

Now, how does one ship something so dang funky? Creatively and carefully. I wasn't going to find a normal rectangular box that would just work, so I made my own from Ikea desk box halves.

Here's the bottom piece, and me trying to figure out how best to do this:

I figured that my best bet was a clam-shell case, so, I started taping in foam supports to keep the header of the sides of the box and to keep it from pocking through, and also bent and taped the remainder of the box up in the back to make part of the tall side:

I stuffed in more packing to keep things in place in case of the worst disaster (I KNOW how "stuff-chuckers" work!):

Then I basically did the same thing for the top, and got it all connected and taped up:

I added sides to the box and then scribbled "THIS SIDE UP" on the top, and a few snarky comments on the rest of the box:

The lady at the FedEx office got a total kick out of the box and the attempt to have the box stay upright. She even had me plaster the box with "THIS SIDE UP" stickers that were bright read. She was laughing the whole time at my snarky asides on the box, and even offered to use some really wide packing tape to reinforce the corners, since she really liked the box. She also said that since it was a bit awkward and out of the ordinary (most of the weight is on the wide side), along with the placement of the address sticker and the "THIS SIDE UP" stickers, she thinks it has a good chance of getting to Colorado intact. We shall see . . . If the worst case happens, I declared a value of $499, which is more than enough to make a new header from scratch . . .  (I'm sneaky like that). 

Justin's header is nearly complete!

Lots of pics. I am beat. I will add in filler that most people don't read later. Pics.

Promised filler!

Here is my A6 block, head and pan on a stand, which is used for mock up!

End view of the Bisimoto header, with the collector trimmed to near final dimensions:

I finally got a good shot of the dang goilette, however that is spelled! I really, really dislike the poor craftsmanship exhibited. Blech:

 I am SURE this is like this or worse in most of the headers that have been sold. Look what less than 10 minutes with a small grinding stone did:

From another angle:

As you can see, it is much, much cleaner now. I didn't bother to take pics after I flap-wheeled everything inside and around the edges to clean up the burrs and smooth things out  and clean everything up for welding on the new downpipe. 

Checking fitment:

Nice and straight!

Compared to my "big" collector:

I had to come up with an easy way to hold things in place to asses the level and mark of any final trimming I needed to do to get the downpipe and the collector properly fitted up. I used some nearly useless for welding .023" 309 welding wire (way too thin for anything I will ever do, as I found out) and clamped the loop in place to keep it adjustable:

It worked very well!

Here's the downpipe fitted to the collector, held on with blue tape until I could tack it more permanently:

Round to cloverleaf? Yup, but it isn't that much of a problem as you'll see soon!

Tacked solidly in place!

Ickiest gap:

Another view and the other sides:

How does one make odd shapes fit? Beat the piss out of things!

I forgot to get pics of the welds, but you'll see them in the next blog post, which will be confusing to anyone reading my blog normally, from top down. heh

Anyway, test fitting:

Very good pan to downpipe fitment, but, the angle was off:

What to do? Use Math. Yes . . . I used math. I figured out that it was about 9* off from level (basic trig) then I did some more basic trig to figure out how much I needed to slice on a diagonal to rotate and weld the cut piece on to get it back to level. I didn't get pics of the whole process since most of it involved two hands, a knee and a magical metal fairy. I did, however, manage to lay down some much improved beads!

Now it is looking like it might be just right!

Justin needs his header ASAP, so I did a quick and dirty support using the stock exhaust hanger. Simple and effective is the name of the came:

And, showing that it is now level:

Oh. Yeah. I found my good camera, finally. It was in a really stupid place, and totally my fault. At least I can take decent pics now. Enjoy. 

LOTS of work done today!

Here's an update on Justin's header:

I got the megaphone tacked on today. It fits together so nicely! It's just really long! LOL! Check out the approximate fitment:

I think that I am almost ready to tack it into place on the header then check fitment. I really wish I had my spare mock-up block at the "shop," as that would make my life a whole lot simpler. I may just have to move it there soon, as I want to get Justin's header finished up so he can have it in time for his big spring debut. This thing sure is going to be a pain to ship, though. . . LOL!

While I was tacking Justin's header, I just noticed how groady the protective covers were on my welding helmet. (It's an older Miller Elite Big Window, with a push-to-turn-on setup, unlike the newer instant on helmets that are really insanely good.)

Just look what I was trying to see through:

That was the original protective cover that came with the helmet. I then realized that I had the spares that come with the dang helmet, toting them around all these years (the helmet is probably 6 years old now) so I dug them out and WOW! I could see again. LOL!

Clean and clear:

By this time I was starting to get on a roll. I tacked up the runners of my own header (well, Chris' header, but my design), and got that done except for one bend, as I forgot to mark the dang position in Sharpie. DUH! While I was doing that and getting settled in with the TIG welder, I took the opportunity to smooth out some of the previous welds around various places on Dave's bike's frame, re-welding some of them with my MIG welder until I ran out of wire (DANGIT!) then finished up with the TIG welder. dave was very impressed with how smooth and everything turned out. Just a little bit of time with a flap wheel will clean the leftovers up, and the body will be ready for whatever else Dave has for it. I didn't grab pics of everything that I filled in and touched up, but, we'll get some eventually. 

I didn't get an "after" of this spot, but, I TIG'ed this over and it ended up being much, much smoother and will clean up better than ever before: 

Dave spent his time prepping some pieces for his body reinforcements. I had some 3/4" square stock he wanted to use for stand offs for the bodywork, leaving room for rubber to dampen some of the vibrations of the bike. I convinced him that we should weld on baseplates between the frame and the standoffs, as that is just good practice, especially when welding anything substantial and perpendicular to thinner sheet metal, just like the plates welded in for a roll cage on a car. 

Once he finished up the plates, I tacked them in place, then laid down this beauty of a weld:

That was the most satisfying bead of the evening. It's not perfect, but given what I was welding on, I won't complain in the least!

Here are both plates welded in place:

The keen observer will note some "hot spots" (Yes, Remo, I know, I know) , especially on the left most plate, the bottom left corner, but, I had to do these welds "Army style," meaning hot as heck to burn the crap out of the area. heh 

The next order of business was to make a platform off the tail for the body to sit on, raised a bit off the patform. The issue was that the angle the hoop comes of the frame. The solution was to mock up a piece of angle (that I also had laying around) at the correct angle, using different thickness welding wire (thank you, Remo!) at the edge to correct the angle of the . . . angle. LOL! We figured out what would work best, and I tacked it into place:

Then we used some 1/2" square tubing and got everything where it should be. 

I made substantial tacks, then Dave and I tapped it into alignment with a big hammer:

Once the final adjustments where made, i ran beads up both sides, then added a third been in the middle to make sure the body wouldn't be going anywhere!

Testfittng after everything cooled down: 

After we got the rear body mount done, we could measure how tall we needed to make the middle standoff. Dave is gonna use 3/4" thick rubber on top of all these points to keep the vibrations down a bit. We got things measured up, and Dave started cutting the 3/4" square tubing to size. He did a decent enough job. We mocked everything up again, checked fit, and took measurements for the top, connecting piece of the standoff. Once Dave finished messing with that (while I finished welding up the last primary for his header), I got the legs welded onto the top bar, and it looked something like this:

Final tweaks didn't take too long at all, so I welded the standoff to the plates I welded onto the frame: 

Some of the welds were don't at fairly awkward angle, so I wasn't as steady as I would have liked to be. The footpedal that came with my welder is more fit for Herman Munster than normal sized people (even me with 13EEEE feet). It was an act of gymnastic ability to steady myself on one foot, control the arc with my other foot (I can do it almost as well with both feet, so does that make me ambipedrous?) feed the welding rod and move the torch, hunched over the frame. So, I'm OK with things not being perfect. More importantly, that standoff isn't going to move without a crapton of motivation, which would just bend the frame since we properly connected the standoff to the frame.

Here is the frame as it sits now:

Overall, it was a REALLY successful day. I had fun, Dave learned some stuff, we made a bunch of progress and I made progress on two other projects.

I've got a job interview this afternoon, too. So, I'm about to get ready for that. I want to make myself as presentable as I can, even if that is a bit of a stretch for my wardrobe at the moment. heh If I DO get this job, I'll have much more financial flexibility. The position is for an overnight emergency dispatcher for campus housing. Basically, any of the calls students or faculty make to housing/grounds/building maintenance are taken by a dispatcher, who appropriately routes the call. The expected call volume is 60-75 a week, more at the beginnings of semesters. The shift is one week a month. The "pay" is reimbursement for your housing costs. So . . . working one week a month, I would be living on campus for free. )(#(*$# yeah! I am pretty qualified for the position (Army emergency training, I worked as a service manager for a heating and air conditioning company (so I know how to deal with panicked/stupid/aggressively douchey  people, excellent communication skills and phone manner), but I don't have a resume at the moment . . . and that is a long story that I am not gonna get into now. heh

TTFN. I should have more updates on Monday, as my muffler came in and Monday is looking like a good day for working outside, or as good as it will get. I have a trip coming up next weekend and I don't want to hear the )(#*(#$ drone in my car on the highway. It is sooooo annoying.