Knewman's Knuckle

Leave the coloring

Made a top motor mount. Nothing fancy here. I wasn’t feeling exceptionally inspired when I was designing it.

Used 1/8 filler rod which made blending the welds a lot simpler than the welds on the foot control bracket. Also made a fixture to hold everything true because I knew I was going to be putting a lot of heat into it. It pulled a little bit, but it pulled evenly, so I will probably have to run a .030 shim behind the center bolt.

Fit well. There will not be an issue with the rocker tins interfering… :wink:

Then got it polished up. Polish only took 3 hours which isn’t bad.

Any updates?

plenty…Christian Newman (@ctnewman) • Instagram photos and videos

He’s in a time crunch at the moment so going forward how much he devotes to social media will probably be limited.

Been doing a bad job of keeping the forum updated. Pretty current on Instagram though.

Made this trans plate from 316. Since I was making it to fit the trans case I had, I was able to maintain on;y .002 clearance fit on the alignment tabs on the bottom of the transmission so the belt adjustment stays super square.

Next I worked on some clutch linkage. All these parts are stainless and handmade, with the exception of the cone cable clamp nut. All parts have bronze bushings at pivot points. Cable rides around a pulley to actuate clutch throwout fork.

HERES A VIDEO THAT IS PROBABLY CLEARER: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUIrD-TFTqT

Then I pressure tested my frame since it’s also the oil lines. No leaks! Also added two ports with supermag drain plugs in it. Here’s a video describing the oil flow path: https://www.instagram.com/p/BUXdb6elmhX

I also had to make an NPT to banjo adapter so I started with an off the shelf fitting:

And made it nicer:

Next I made a kicker pedal shaft. I made it so that it folds in real far allowing me to get my foot on the pegs:

Then I made the actual pedal out of sheet metal.

How many hours per pedal? That looks absoultely insane.

Also isn’t a bad thing that when you touch the frame you will get burned because of the hot oil?

Thanks, the pedal took about 35 hours to make.

There are a million hot things on the motorcycle. Most will be hotter than the frame will get. It’s not like you really touch the frame ever anyway.

http://www.build-threads.com/build-threads/1940-ss-knucklehead-chopper/

OK. So here is the deal. It was madness trying to get the bike done before going to born free. Had first start the sunday before BF, then left monday morning. So far I have only ridden it a few hundred yards, but it works!

The trip out took 55 hours, including an 8 hour layover at the cagney’s (where most of these pictures were taken, click this link for image credits: http://imgur.com/a/WRaxl) The return trip took 47 hours with essentially zero breaks!

Here’s how it shook out.

Thursday night spent all night trying to get Brent’s knucklehead running for the PC show. He was one of the final 6 but I put running bikes before competion every time! Couldn’t get it going, but I am starting to think the timing was 180 out…

Friday night, I rode from the trailer to cooks and took people’s champ! It was my first time riding the bike… on gravel. scary. Won 1000 bucks from 805 beer, a whole bunch of cool stuff from Kenny Kirk, Showclass, Sweatshop industries, ghettotooth, chopper supply co. It was stiff competition. Vintagetechnologies especially brought the heat, but all the bikes were awesome.

The next day I rolled into the invited builders section at born free, a real honor. Got there early and rode into the show (well, just from the trailer) Lots of positive comments! Overheard some haters saying it was dumb but fuck em! That evening they announced the builder’s pics. Ringo chop shop and Cheetah.4d took slots 1 and 2. Their bikes are both amazing and I suggest looking them up. I didn’t place in top 3, BUT I was invited to Switzerland for the Art and Wheels Basel show, where they will fly me and my bike out next spring! I’m so excited and honored.

On sunday, I wound up winning BEST KNUCKLEHEAD, which is incredible, Vintage Technologies won BEST SPORTSTER with his amazing backwards head ironhead chopper. Then JP Cycles caught me as I was leaving and gave me their “best bike at born free” award! Rode the knuck out of the show feeling great!

Here’s a video riding out of born free: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVzyxvUFwHp/?taken-by=ctnewman

Here’s a video of the first ride, into cooks:https://www.instagram.com/p/BVssxdjl9HF/?taken-by=ctnewman

Huge thanks to everyone who voted in PC5, to showclass, my GF, everyone here who supported me, and to my painter Andy Zion, my motor work from BA Enterprises, Upholstery from Ginger @ newchurchmoto, everyone else who helped or supported me. My dad for letting me use his truck for a 5400 mile journey.

Here are some pics, see above link for image credits:

What were the haters saying? lol

Nice work! I can’t believe how skinny it looks from the front.

One good one I heard.

“This is why you shouldn’t let engineers try to build motorcycles”

Because it comes out way too awesome and his poor ass look like a hack or a cake decorator?

that’s like saying this is why you don’t let a virtuoso pick up an instrument

Congrats man! You poured everything into this build and it shows :tup:

This is the thing that really stands out at first IMO. Holy shit it’s like a piece of paper!

Shipping it to Europe will be easy, just get a large flat rate envelope from the post office and be done with it, lol. :tup:

Some images of the left side by instagram user @virninja

Amazing!! Congrats.

Were you at Smoke and Dagger by any chance?

Great work and congrats.

:tup: