God a pretty solid amount of work done tonight…
Luke’s (Pirite) dad (known as “The Don”) came through with a 1/2" drill bit I needed to get the risers for the handlebars finished…
I posted steps one and two previously…cutting the existing “stem” off the bar clamps and start step-drilling up to 1/2"
drilling 1/2" today:
step 3: press a 4" piece of 1/2" bar stock into the hole drilled in the clamp, with about 3/16" left before being flush on the other side
step 4: weld the bar stock to the clamp (PISS, this pic came out blurry, sorry)
step 5: file the weld down so the clamp is functional again (GODDAMN auto flash sux!)
step 6: make a 1.25" sleeve out of some 3/4" tubing, then smash the top washer from the original mounts down to pinch the tubing against the clamp
step 7: Weld all that stuffs together
step 8: Tap the end for a nut
step 9: test mount
step 10: Paint and install (forgot to take pics close-up of the finished mounts)
In that last pic, you can see I ended up not liking the look or feel of the drag bars, so I put these cruiser style bars on that were kicking around. (also, there’s a lot of damn bikes in here)
Next, I decided that instead of trying to cram the battery and the starter solenoid into the lunchbox, it would be nice to have half of it available for storage for things like my phone and wallet and house keys while I ride, maybe a baseball hat too…So I decided to whip up a box to hang beneath the lunchbox to house the mini-battery I picked up and the starter solenoid (this will also make it super easy to charge the battery or connect for a jump should I ever run into a situation where I have a dead battery)
So I took some measurements and laid out a box template on some 1/16" steel plate and cut it out, and cut some grooves to make bending it nice and easy
finished pattern:
Then I bent it to shape and welded the corners:
Then I welded some bolts to the battery box
then I drilled holes through the little cage I made to hold the lunchbox, and also holes through the lunchbox
the bolts sandwich the battery box and the lunchbox around the cage and holds everything nicely in place. I used some rubber isolators to keep vibration down
(oh yeah, I also trimmed down the silicone elbows so they don’t look like dongs anymore)
Battery and solenoid trying out their new home:
Then I made some hooks and a divider so the stock battery rubber strap mount could be re-used and separate the battery from the solenoid, and made up some wires
I wrapped the battery in some rubber sheeting I had so it wont be able to bounce around, and has a nice snug fit into the box
The completed box back in it’s home:
Then I had luke take apart the bike pedal for the kickstarter and paint the inner piece black
Then I sat on it
Then we noticed that if I put my legs down on the ground, as if at a stop light, the kickstarter was kinda digging into my thigh, so we took it off and heated it up with a torch and massaged it to be tucked in more
Then we decided we should probably see how the old exhaust fits…it was pretty close as-is, but was swept up a little high and wouldn’t allow the lunchbox to be open. I also wanted it to be parallel with the bottom frame tube…so I mounted it up and bent it to where I wanted it and welded a mounting tab. I forgot to take pictures during this, but here’s the results
Then I sat on it again, and made some vroom vroom noises.
