Triumph 500 unit bobber

[gazguy]

I mulled over that exhsust last night and I wasn't 100% on it so I had a rethink and decided the other side would run over the top of the timing cover. And the right side would go straight out and down. It was a bit of mish getting the tubes to run parallel with both the down tube and bottom frame rails but I got there in the end. On to the other side when I get more tube.

[gazguy]

I found some old bends in my box and had a go at the other exhaust. I was gonna tig it together but I ran out of argon. I'm thinking of buying a 90 bend to replace the tube that runs across the timing cover so there's less welds and overall better finish

[gazguy]

Once I got the bends I ordered from Uniweld I slowly started piecing them together.  I pretty much redid the whole top pipe with a 90° which looks so much nicer.  Then I added 2 straights with a 45° at each end. To get the tubes to line up nice for welding then metal finishing I made a clamp made from some bits of 25mm angle, some round bar and 2 hose clamps

[gazguy]

Once i got the 45 degree bends positioned to where i wanted i set about making the tailpipes. Originally I wanted rippled pipes and tried having a bash myself with no real results to show for it as the tube was too heavy a gauge, so ive settled for just straight pipes with a flared end which i made myself by making a tapered die on the lathe at work and used my hydraulic press to put the flare in. Id used a tow ball for my 1st goes which looked not too bad but it was hard to get the tow ball to sit perfect and it would give an uneven flare.

Overall im quite happy with how the exhaust has turned out, I'll sort the mounts out and fully weld it up once I redo the hardtail, its pointless doing the same job twice.  

[gazguy]

I bought a different rear wheel over the weekend from a mate. It ticked all the boxes for me. 16 inch chrome rim, conical hub and half decent tyre. The only thing i need to source is an axle.

Once Ive finished the a50 Im going to give most of my time to getting this thing at least close to finished this or next year.

Things I'm going to change/ redo

1. Remake the hardtail. I want to shorten it up, different mounts to the front loop. Its going to be easier to make a new one than mess about and modify this one.
2. Remake the exhaust, as my skills and tools have progressed I'm going to make the exhaust out of stainless. It'll look cooler and save me having to chrome it, maybe do a different design?
3. Different front wheel, I robbed the front wheel to put on my CG125. Turns out its a CL175 hub laced to a 21inch rim and I got some CL175 forks from my best mate Lee. Its temporarely  going to be replaced with an SL125 front wheel until I find a 21 front that I really like, I have a couple of twin leading edge honda hubs lying about so might get one laced to a 21inch rim with good chrome