Mike's Bike is (99.5%) DONE!

I completed nearly everything! I have to make one last trip to Home Depot to pick up one more hex head bolt in 6mmx1.00 thread, since I over estimated the length of one of the needed bolts and need to straighten that out. After that, the only thing left is to source to stainless locking nuts, the kind without the plastic locking insert, since I don't want any heat melting the inserts and allowing the battery tray to drop . . . That would be a bad thing. For sure. Let me show you what I am talking about!

Mockup . . . one of my favorite things. Measuring 2xelventy trillion times, cutting/welding/drilling once. It saves time in the long run!

Here's the battery tray (again):

Here is one of the flanges Dave helped make while I was working on something else:

I had to figure out a way to make those flanges stay on and support the battery tray in a secure manner. Normally, I would try to figure out a way to do so horizontally, but given the low profile and also the requirement to make things easily accessible, I chose to use existing threaded inserts in a clever way.

This is the existing threaded insert:

I simply drilled through the hole with a smaller bit (after centerpunching it to prevent the bit from wandering too much) and ran a tap through the hole and test it with a piece of threaded rod I had:

 Poifect! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

Here is the basic idea:

With that settled, I had to move on to figuring out how to secure the seat pan. Due to my design of the seat pan, I really only needed to ensure that the seat pan would not pop off the frame rails. The locator pieces lock the seat pan longitudinally, so I just had to make it so that the seat could come off fairly easily but not be accidently popped off.

Here is a view from the underside to refresh our memories of what everything looked like.

Hmmmm . . . That elliptical hole of the frame bracing looks pretty suspiciously well placed . . .

What if I made a plate to cover that, with a hole in the center that would be large enough to fit a stud through it, which would be welded on to the seat pan and then secured with a wing nut? Oh look! A suspiciously perfect stud ready to get welded to the seat pan!

I also took the liberty of cleaning up the edges of the curved section of the seat pan so that it was even all the way around.

Shazam! I distracted you long enough to have made a nice looking place from some stainless I had leftover from the handle of the charcoal started I had assembled for my father for Father's Day:

Now doesn't that look swanky?

Closeups are always good:

Back to the battery tray . . .

Here is one of the hex headed bolts.

Why did I bother with bolts? Well . . . I wanted somethign replaceable. I have seen way too many bolts get stripped out and if I welded something in place, it would make things a lot harder to replace in the future. With a bolt, you can simply unscrew it and replace it with another one. I couldn't find stainless bolts in the right size at Home Despot, so this will certainly do for now.

Here is a shot of how the bolt goes through the threaded insert and the hole that I drilled and tapped for the bolt:

I marked and drilled (intentionally) oversized holes (to allow for ease of installation):

Then noted that the "legs" of the brackets stuck up much too far:

I used a chisel point King Size Sharpie (thought I'd be done mentioning them, didn't you? HAH!) to get an approximation of how much I had to trim off. I fired up the band saw and got to sawing the excess off, cleaning them up on the belt/disc sander and ended up with this:

And then welded them on to the tray:

Not too shabby looking. Not perfect, but pretty decent. A locking nut will complete the kit when I can find some of those things, or Mike can find them, too. I'm not picky. heh

Magic tip time! I wanted to try something with making a spacer to prevent the seat pan from getting pulled too far down with the wing nut. I cut a small piece of 1/2" aluminum rod and evened up the ends. I wanted to drill a hole down the middle of the short section, but attempting to hold that in my fingers would be finger-a-cide, so I came up with a simple but highly effective clamp that gave me enough leverage to prevent the rod section from spinning.

It took a long time to tap this darn thing. I had forgotten my number drill set (you likely have no idea what I am talking about . . . unless you are a machinist or very familiar with drilling and tapping holes), so I didn't have exactly the right twist drill (commonly known as a drill bit, which isn't exactly correct) size on hand to make tapping through that section easy. But I managed. I so wanted a lathe. I would have been done in less than 5 minutes, including all the tool changes. LOL! Oh well . . .

This is what it ended up looking like:

But my measuring was off:

 Remember that whole measure a lot of times and cut/drill/weld once thing? Yeah . . . But, after testing things out, I determined that it wasn't necessary to have the spacer there at all, since the pan is 18g steel, it barely flexes when you crank on the wing nut . . . Next time, I think 20g will be easier and faster to work with. LOL!

Nearly final battery tray installed:

And the final profile view of the seat pan and battery tray on the frame:

It looks really sleek! I can't wait to see how the rest of the bike comes together! Mike's got some good plans. =) 

Ginourmous Update

Yesterday, I got a huge metric tonne of work done. Dave arrived in the morning and we set to work on his CB350 and Mike's CB750. Best get to the pics instead of jabbering on about what we did when you can see the work.

Oh! The next few pics are from earlier in the week and I hadn't had a chance to upload them yet, so I'll go in chronological order. 

Here is a view of the inside of the vertical brace on the front piece of the seat pan for Mike's CB750:

The angle is a bit funny, but you can see that the center line of the vertical brace matches the center line of the seat pan:

 I did this to try to ensure that the seat pan would stay longitudinally aligned with the frame.

Here is a view of the rear seat pan and rear vertical brace:

I started out with this:

 And ended up with lots of these:

The welds came out pretty darn well on the edges of all the pieces of the pan and tray! I actually enjoyed laying down those beads. =) I didn't get a pic of how I set the up to be welded, but basically I clamped them to the vertical sides of the stainless shelf I use as a welding table top, which allowed me easy access and a very good ground. Grounding is soooo important to welding!

After I got the seems welded together, I tackled welding the vertical braces, which was tricky to ensure that they fit the frame correctly (as the chassis braces are NOT exactly parallel to the frame tubes!) but I did a good job, I think. 

 Another view of the rear seat pan and the mini-magnets I used for positioning the braces for welding:

 Once I got the braces welded in, it was time to weld the front and rear sections together!

I used the clamp on the rear section with a piece of angle under the frame tubes to hold the rear section in place:

I tacked the front and rear together lightly, then held the front in place with some heavy stuff to keep it from pulling while I put more tacks to hold everything in place.

Side note:

 This is what happens to a pyrex cup when you drop them while they are hot! This is one of the main reasons why so many guys dislike the pyrex cups, but, I can honestly say I like them especially for tight work!

I didn't grad a pic of the tray welded together, but it fits REALLY well! (Dave can attest to that as he was surprised at how well it fits!)

The last major piece of the seat pan puzzle is the rear trim piece:

 This was what I started on yesterday morning. It kicked my butt for a while. I figure I will post my failings as often as I can so people can learn from them, and this is certainly a good time to learn. heh

Here is a shot of me starting to tack the ring I hand made previously that I thought would work really well:

 And . . . I was really wrong! As you can see in the next pic:

 The collar/ring/piece was curling way too much, to a much smaller radius than what I thought would happen. Here is the top view so you can see it from a different perspective:

Here's the whole thing with the bends slightly exaggerated after I trimmed the tacks off:

 I figured that if a ring-type section was curling too much, a straight piece should work just fine! I measured the inside cord length with the cardboard template I had used in mockup with another piece of cardboard I rolled up a bunch of times so I could match the inside radius:

I didn't get a lot of pics for a while since I was busy tacking and bending and generally making a mess of stuff. The straight piece of steel didn't want to bend enough. Instead of fighting, trying to make one piece of steel work, I just went simple and started cutting pieces:

 As you can see in the above pic, I welded those pieces on and that was a much better start than what I had before.

A view from the top:

Rear view:

 Pieces cut from the original ring-style trim piece:

Clamp and tack and weld and smack and tack and weld:

Some other crappily lit photos of the nearly finished product:

Weld closeup:

While I was working on the seat pan, I was also heavily involved in Dave's swing arm. He had previously had some bracing welded into the swing arm, and while I generally liked the look of it, I had my concerns about one area:

That thin spot has bothered me since I saw it months ago. I wanted Dave to do something about it. Well, I helped him do something about it! Recycling a piece that I had chopped of Mike's seat hoop, we cut the tube to match the contour of the bracing nicely, then I welded it in thusly:

You can also see some seam welding I did to make it easier for Dave to smooth out the area. It's not straight because I was just following the edge of the factory MIG welded that dave had already ground down. The seam welding will allow him to use less body filler and still have a strong swing arm without a cosmetically nice but structurally compromised unit.

More seam welding:

After the seam welding and additional bracing were completed, I finished up the welding on the seat pan and switched over to a thicker tungsten and got ready for some nasty aluminum welding! (Nasty because I was welding on cast crap, which is nearly always ugly.)

First up:

Dave wanted that nice new aluminum welded onto that brake lever. Note the rubber on the end of the lever . . .

Getting set up:

I also clamped the new piece to hold it in place. If you aren't familiar with welding aluminum, you have NO idea how frustrating an experience it can be. Aluminum acts like warm marshmallows when hot, with a gooey, weird consistency that can be hard to manage, especially as USED cast just sucks up so much gunk, grime and greasy stuff that comes out when heated up, exactly while you are attempting to weld pieces together. You MUST camp things in place, or at least prevent the pieces from moving around much until tacked well on two planes perpendicular to each other. (That is USUALLY enough for most things people are going to be welding.)

Be prepared for ugliness:

Pretty? No. I know it isn't. However . . . it IS solid. Once the welds are smoothed over, you will be hard pressed to tell that the pieces welded together were ever separate.

Dave has some cleanup to do and one hole to drill for the brake lever to function, and he might just want to get some new rubber for the end, also:

Ooooooops!

I don't envy him cleaning that off, either!

The next bit of aluminum welding is a repair to a brake drum for Mike's CB750:

The broken piece is the mount for the brake cable. Mike bought some 3/4" round stock and I cut a piece to fit, which you'll see in a moment, but I have to make a statement about something first.

NEVER give something this greasy and mucky to a welder!!!!

A welder shouldn't have to clean up a part all that much. Sure, some touchup is always necessary, but . . . this drum cover was really gross. I didn't pay much attention to it at first because just after Mike mailed it to me "shop," he said to ignore it because he was getting another sent to him in the mail. That one turned out to not be correct . . . so I had to fix his drum cover and deal with the nasty burny smokefest it created! BLECH!

Here is the mount after a thorough cleaning and shaping:

Again: CLAMP ALUMINUN IN PLACE!!!!!

 I flattened and beveled a side onto the round stock. This turned out really well.  I was happy with the fit you see in the previous pic!

 After:

Again, ugly, but solid. A bit more cleanup and a new hole drilled, and Mike will be ready to rock some rear (I think) brakes.

Dave also brought a new toy:

It's a 30" sheet metal brake. It's made decently well, especially for the price. I sure could have used it a couple of weeks ago when I started bending up Mike's stuff, but, I'll certainly be using it in the next few days after I clean up the packing grease on it.

Dave also brought a small steel table frame that, with some additional bracing, will be perfect for most of my welding! I'll grab pics of that after I clean up the shop tomorrow.

As to why I haven't been posting much the past two weeks, I'll write a separate blog entry about that later today, maybe.