Nothing like a little family help!

Well I had great plans to get a ton yesterday. I had just gotten out into the garage and started up the heaters when YimmyYo and Phil stopped by with a cooler full of beer. Well I grabbed a MBL from the fridge and joined them for a long hard look at the bike. After looking at the bike for around an hour (and 3 or 4 MBL's) we were almost ready to do something. Just at that moment JohnBoy and Bobberts showed up with another cooler full.

Around this time I gave up on getting any work done and we all turned our attention to drinking. Hell, it was 11:30 at this point. Almost noon on a Sunday and everyone knows that you can't get anything done after noon on Sunday.

A quick phone call and JC and Tish joined us. 7 people, 3 coolers and one small garage. Always a good time!

Well around 5 ish we got a call from Dallas. He was out at the farm BBQ'n a little of this and a little of that. So on the bus we got. I fired up the heater and the engine, let it warm up for a couple of minutes and off to Dallas's we went.

A couple of hours there, a quick stop by the Eagles on the way home for the drawing and in bed (drunk!) by 8:30! The old lady was soo happy!

Maybe we'll get a little more done next weekend....

4 years ago!

I found this old video of my bike. It's around 3 or 4 years old - taken just soon after I got the first set of pipes for it.

With any luck I can do a new one of it running in the next 5 or 6 weeks!

Motor Mounts (and a little help)

I spent the morning messing around on the tank again. A little more sanding and some more feeling around for high and lows. We are getting closer each time. If i can get over my mess-ups on the bottom lines of the tanks and allow someone else to see them before its painted, I will just take the tank on over to kennys next week to get some help getting it back to "perfect".

This afternoon Phil stopped by and we got the engine moved from the floor back to the bike stand and in the frame. I needed to get the engine back in there to start working on the mounts for the radiator and the new forward motor mounts.
For once it went smooth. I was able to get the motor into its 2 rear mount in around an hour. It would have been faster, but I had a little help from my little man.

Since we cut and stretched the frame, I had to cut off the forward motor mounts. The 110" engine has four large rubber mounts holding it to the frame. The forward lower mount isn't too much of an issue. The upper one is looking like a bitch. Once I have the lower done we will figure out if we can get by with skipping the upper one or if we are going to have to fab up something for it.
For the left side lower mount we just cut some 1/4" x 1" flat stock, drilled out some plug wholes for two 11/16" bolts and welded the bolts flush. (see below) Once we have the right side figured out, the flat stock + bolts mount will be welded to the inside of the frame and bolted to the extension that was used for the stock mounts.



Next with a little help from Dewey we will figure out the right side and post some pics of the first finished motor mount.

Maybe it should be a rat bike!

Well after a little more work the tank is looking very interesting. The photo doesnt do this justice. In person this looks amazing. Maybe I should be seal it and go with a rat bike build. Either way, here are a couple of shots of it after a little up-n-down sanding.

Tank - 90% done!

Well its been a long fucking time since I starting this tank project by cutting it in half.

We spent a couple of hours last night doing some more body work and I think we are around 90% of the way there. It LOOKS like a tank now and its been a while since it has done that.

I sprayed a light coat of cheap wal-mart black paint over the top coat of bondo. When dry I'll go back out and block sand it down to get the high and low points. The high points will get sanded and the low points will still show the black paint.

After one or two more round of this I'll take the tank to my buddy Kenny for the finish. He's a body man around here and should have no problem getting everything back to "perfect".

I'll post some more pics of the tank after a couple of rounds of block sanding.

I also managed to make a quick stop over to Rick's shop to grab some flat stock. I picked up 19 feet of 1/8" x 1.5". I'll only need a foot or so, but its better to have some stock around the shop when you need it since its a little tough to get to him or PMS to get steel on the weekends.

Everything moved!

We'll it has taken the better part of 8 months but I managed to move 75% of my shit 100 miles away and then back while only losing or fucking up around a third of it!


Fuck! The well laid plans of mice and men.....


Now that I am back in Chester and back with my old lady and my youngest son (Nate) I needed somewhere to go with all of the "shop" shit and bike stuff. I'd spent the last 4 years working out of my ol'mans place. Since we aren't really speaking still, I needed somewhere else to go with it. Lucky for me, my house has a huge garage. And by huge I mean freaking tiny! 21 x 12. So I had to take everything that I had in the shop in St Louis (which was around 4,500 sq ft) and move it into a 252 sq ft space. Not only did it all have to fit, but it had to be usable otherwise I wont have my bike back together by spring!


After a couple of weekends of moving and packing and moving again, I have most of what I need in the "shop" to finish the bike. Forget all of the car stuff and engines and sheet metal equipment. I was lucky to get a couple of benches in there plus a compressor, some welding and cutting stuff, a drill press and my small mill.


Here is what it is looking like now.