Kimjon

This womans about to be liberated! Cheers, looks like I've got a lot of learning opportunity ahead of me.

No ones really doing them, so either they suck balls or its pure untapped potential? I'm playing the it's better to fail while trying to innovate, than succeed in copying card. *probably just tidy it up and ride, no innovation required*

So, I'm the proud new owner of this Picking it up after lockdown is over. Not 100% what the plan is, but Google searching has given me a few ideas. I actually like the original version, and a real bonus is the paint colour matches my hair. So yeah - stay tuned I guess, new project coming to a channel near you soon.

Cable holder for dual throttle cables. Stops them getting pinched by the forks against the frame when it's parked up on the jiffystand. Marking out Putting the radius into it, using holesaw same diameter as backbone of frame. Cutting. Then sanded on linisher and polished it up on buffing wheel. Finger burning stuff... Sexy! Serves a couple purposes. Yeah, I'm happy with that, another win.

It's surprising how many hours and dollars go into these projects eh. I make life hard for myself by making as much as I can to try keep the overall price down (false economy, but also a weird sense of pride I get being able to say I made most of it). Initially I kept receipts, but when I got to 13K about 3 years ago I stopped adding it up, as it was far from finished then and at that point I realised I could probably import one already done from the States for money it was going to cost me when finished. 3 years later, I think the cost of it would buy me an RX7 or maybe half an RX3 coupe. And that's not including any of my time.

Smashing it today. Found some bolts, cut them down to fit and this allowed me to properly install the manifold for the first time ever. Then the carburetor Fucken stoked with this! Theoretically I could fire this up now. But nothing is really bolted down properly as I've always known that the bike needs to fully come apart again for paint. But yeah...fuck yeah!

Then, because I'm scratching for shit to do now, I I metal finished the engine steady mount, ready for chrome plating.

And small win, got the twin cable throttle controls working as it should. I've never seen this system before, but it appears to work pretty much as you'd expect.

Pleasant surprise. Fucking around trying to fit the intake manifold and discovered the heads have been ported. Didn't even know this had been done, as the engine builder stuffed rags in the holes to keep dust out and I've never looked under the rags until now. I was trying to bolt the manifold up. I scrounged through my bolts buckets and found 4x 5/16" unc bolts. But unfortunately it's not going to happen as they've gotta be cap heads, no room for hex heads due to the way it bolts up. So that's going to have to wait to later now.

Yes. Yes it would look better. That's what I'm contemplating doing...but I'm out of material now (stupid lockdown). Also want to flip that top bend around the other way to hide it behind the fork. Call this V1.0 and I'll revisit it when I get more stainless steel round bar.

Next up was the linkage arm that moves the brakes and now the fender too. I ran a straight edge down the centre of the caliper and figured out the spacer offset required for correct alignment, so it doesn't twist under load and warp the rotor. Nice little spacer i turned up on the lathe, made from stainless steel. View down the centreline. Perfect!

I painted the little tab black. I was just playing with it for something to do, however it makes it disappear quite well...so I'll do that on finished item. Up close And a few steps back and it's gone, disappears like magic! I'm out of material, but I am considering reversing that bend and doing it again but the bends the opposite direction. Will think on it???

Thanks. Yeah, it's so much better looking after all that work than it would've been if mounted 75mm above the tyre. My last couple days may seem obsessive, but fenders can make or brake a build. Like these two cars for example: Model A ford, this dudes boyfriend has a matching one too, but his is barbie pink. Versus Model A ford, same car as above (okay 3 window v 5 window), but my point been, this dude likes and gets pussy.

Fully committed now: That really cleaned up the front end. Much nicer now. Some bike porn shots It sits pretty well. I'm much happier now, with it tight like than. Just think, to get 6mm clearance on that internal bracket, the fender sits 25mm off the tyre ( I just measured it). So if it had to be mounted on the tabs with 50mm clearance, then the fender would have been 75mm above the tyre.

So my mig welder ran out of 0.8mm wire. Luckily I had a roll of 0.6mm, so I changed everything over to run that. Then it shat itself...and the roll feeder made out of cheap plastic fell to bits! A bit of "Coronanenuity" and it's now working again. Nothing a few old springs, a lathe and some galvanized washers couldn't fix... So onwards with the build: I machined this stuff up on the lathe, then stuck it together with the metal hot glue gun. @cletus An arm for the otherside all bent up. Then I jimmied it up with spacers and tape to set the required clearances etc. Tacked together And fully welded together inside and out. This bracket (factory) runs underneath the fender. It's about 6mm thick, so allowances need to be taken into consideration, I couldn't just gap off the tyre and fender and ignore this protrusion. See how close that bracket gets. But because it was taken into consideration it's not a problem. So that's it, fender now mounted as close as I'd dare to, with about 6mm gap from underside bracket, about 25mm from fender to tyre.

Could be worse.

It might become one of those items that's there for wofs and weirdly gets misplaced for 11 months and 29 days until the next one is due...

My mate is a very good painter, so I'll drop it off and pick it up when done. I doubt I'll be given much choice, as everytime I mention a concept he looks at me sideways and shakes his head in disbelief. We're at a stage where he can't look at me anymore as the disappointment is threatening our friendship. I really like poo brown metallic colours, like rootbeer or candy cola. This kind of thing: My friend...ummmm...yeah/nah, not so much. As long as it's not candy apple red, black, orange, yellow or silver I don't care what colour. Well maybe a little...

What, you don't like 1990's flames??? Dam it, I'll have to rethink my colours now

I was going to see how rigid the cantilever was. If needed I'll machine a plain oil life (sintered bronze plain bearing) into the spacer on the other side and mount off that with a connecting rod. I like the idea of a bump stop though. Will have to think on that one...thanks!

Any input is always welcome. We all see things through a different lens and sometimes the answer is obvious to anyone but the person who is looking for answers. Calc wise, I'm 95% confident. It's never going to fully compress those springs, just like your car never will either. But theoretically if it did, then theres approx 50mm of compression there to be had where the fender is mounted (87mm of tyre movement at the axle). So the fender has to be mounted bare minimum 50mm above the tyre if using those factory tabs on the front end. Which would look like this (or worse). Ugly!!! May as well be a MX bike with a fender that high... So I've mocked this up today, which takes the geometry out of the equation as it moves the fender over from the springs to the axle. Then its just 1:1 ratio. As in the fender moves with the tyre, the gap never changes. It's not finished, needs a tweak or two, but it will work. I just wish our laws were as relaxed as the US fucken A. Then I wouldn't run a front fender at all.

V1.0 Still sucks cock... but I'm stuck with either terrible high boy fender or persevering with this concept. I'll walk away from it and come back to it again later. Sometimes that's enough to allow for: A ) to accept this is an okay solution Or B ) a better idea comes to mind.

Next up, a problem I could solve. My mailbox had the correct banjo bolts in it this morning. Supplied free of charge because the dumb fucks sent the wrong ones a few weeks ago. Should just bolt straight on eh... WTF!!! That's the forward control, the rear was even worse. So I need to machine at least 1mm off the front banjo bolt, and 4mm off the rear one just to get them to fit. So: I made this collet to hold the bolts without fucking the fine thread. Mounted in the chuck. Machined down and a new countersink cut in, just like they came from the factory...but now shortened the required amount/s to fit. Front finished And the rear. So that's one less thing to do. Makes me wonder how people get on building this stuff if they don't have a lathe? Pretty much everything I buy online doesn't work first time, nothing just "bolts on" like its sold to you as.

Righto, did the real maths. So, ruler is back to front...but imagine it's the other way around and zero is where 3.5" is, then: 2" ÷ 3.5" = 0.57 ratio. What this means is for every 100mm the tyre moves, the guard only moves 57mm. Now looking at the springs, the average gap is 5mm. It ranged from 4 to 5.5mm but 5mm is good enough to use. There's 10 gaps, so: 10x 5mm = 50mm So maximum tyre movement is: 50mm ÷ 0.57ratio = 87mm suspension travel. Now...This is the fender mounted 30mm above the tyre. Looks okay, but not great. However 50mm, which is what's actually required for it not to contact the tyre will just look dumb! So that means doing what Beaver describes above, radius off the axle. Now I've confirmed that...just gotta make it look good???

Just realized anyone younger than 40 probably doesn't get jokes from 1980's movies.