| Author | Message | ||
     Bomber |
I’ve told several and sundry of you that I’ll be going to Bonneville this coming September to kick, claw, whine and ride my way into the 130MPH club. No biggie, Bomber, you say -- youdurnedtootin, I sez, but big for me! This simple goal has, as they will, mission creeped (mission crept?) it’s way to the point that I barely recognize the project any more. Since I miss writing (what I used to do for a living), and Blake foolishly provides free bandwidth, I figured I’d tell the tale of the MaDeuce’s progress from sorta tired all rounder through it’s regrooving into a newer, faster, better looking scoot, the one I would have built the day I bought it, if buying it hadn’t strained the exchequer. The alert minded among you have already deduced a number of things about the project from the odd requests for data and parts, but, in the spirit of kindness, and also confining the drivel to one place to protect the innocent, I’ll post the adventure here. Christmas came to the Entropy Lab early this year, in the form of a 1250 kit for the Y2K MaDeuce, and as a motorcycle lift for me. The 1250 kit’s use is obvious to the most casual of observers. The motor was just a lil tired (no dishonor in that), and the cylinders coulda used a honing, at least. Some help from a friend (again!), and the kit arrived in the Entropy Lab, all ready to install! More motor cannot be but a good thing. The lift, however, is one of those things that will make this project possible, and end with my still having the ability to walk to the bike. An enthusiastic youth spent hurling myself at the planet repeatedly has left me with knees that are held together with cat gut and good intentions. Also, anyone who exercised their franchise to vote against Richard Nixon (or for him, for that matter) should neither be forced to kneel on a cold garage floor (I live a lil North of the Hog Butcher to the World), nor spend more than 5 minutes squatting for any reason whatsoever. The harbor freight lift means I will be forced to do neither. Big grins!  The pic shows one end of the other large project in the ELab – the families 31 Ford Model A Roadster – what this old lady needs is, well, big, and certainly outa scope for this board. The plan is to powder coat the frame (mebbe clear?) and assorted bits, install the 1250 bits on the motor (checking into cost for some head work), rebuild the forks, replace the stock and working but less than inspiring rear shock (hey, the M2 was build to a cost that allowed me to buy it – again, no dishonor, but I’d like to do better), and generally get the 6 years of grunge out of all the nooks and crannies (which I figure should be good for 3-4 pounds!). More as time passes and allows. | ||
| Ceejay |
MEBBE CLEAR Bombs ifnya get it done that way please post pics. I have tried to con a few pc'er types into doing it but to no avail. I was told, and it makes sense, that whilst it will look most excellent for the first year or two a spidery rusty haze will develop under the clear-causing no harm to man nor machine, but nontheless usually not desireable. I hope to read of a new inductee into the speed merchants fold... | ||
| Bomber |
CeeJay -- I am getting similar cousel -- which makes little sense to me -- if it'll rust under clear, why not under black, or fuscia, or mauve? | ||
| Lake_bueller |
Sir Bomber.....having seen an freshly blasted, unfinished and ready for coating frame....it's not really all that purdy. But then again....it's just my opinion  Oh yeah...how is that lift going to help the knees (and back, shoulders, arms, etc) if you don't raise it???  Glad to see the project is started. Having been in your position last year, I know your pains. But in the long run, it was much easier than anticipated. My only regret is that I didn't use new rear isolators. Because they were only 2 years old, I figured they'd be okay. But lo & behold, one went bad last summer. I'm looking forward to reading about your progress!! | ||
| Ceejay |
Bombs-I'm not dissuading you in the least as I want to do it also, but if it did under black or fuscia, or mauve, would you see it? Being that it's clear you can see it. I'm not sure if you've ever been around BMX bikes, but Schwinn (sp) made one called the el jeffe that was done this way. Full 4130 cromo and then cleared, so you could see all the heat stresses. Looked damn awesome, and since they probably had a paint chamber which was dried thus lacking any water content on the frame. I wanted to it similar, take the frame to 400g in a way that I and many people have done aluminum. Harley does it on some of thier fatboys but i think it's paint, as opposed to PC which I really don't understand why the bake process in the PC doesn't remove the possibility of rust. It might just be a liability thing don't know... | ||
| Bomber |
Ceej -- understood, sir, simply lookin for data -- I'll let you know what I find out -- Lake -- yep, the DISassembly went well -- so will assembly -- I took bunches of pics of the wiring harness was I took it down -- that's always the part that threw me (lemme see, just where did THIS wahr go -- BBBZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTPOP -- oh, not there) the lift raises just nicely, thanks (smart guy!) ;-} | ||
| Bomber |
Oh, by the way -- the ground strap will ALMOST support the weight of the engine/swingarm unit -- good idea to disconenct it first!  | ||
| Mikej |
My offer still stands to take the “A” off your hands and get it out of your way. I’m sure your response still applies that if the “A” ever departs the family then various of your body parts will become holiday tree decorations. So, on to other stuff….  I’m looking forward to reading of how you set the bike up, controls, handlebars, seat and bodywork, gearing, tires, so forth, and if you’ll be removing the front or rear brakes prior to the salt runs. Should be some good reading. I may have to take back up Scots/Scotch sippin’ for the reading if the winter ever actually arrives here. In the mean time I’m still messing with the 650 Maxim Yamaha and parting out an XS850 which I got for parts. We won’t talk about wiring issues. Funny how hundreds of little taped-on identifiers on wires and connectors seem to become un-taped sometime prior to reassembly no matter how careful I was. Mission creep being what it is, why limit yourself to the 130 club?????  ps, it’s not rust, it’s the art of metallurgy. | ||
| Bomber |
Mike -- brakes will stay (with pads pushed away from the disks) -- I plan on running the old dear pretty much in street trim -- gearing will be ez since I'm running a chain -- limited to 130 cuz: 1 -- it's my street/track/sport touring/fire trailing ride, and 2 -- funds being put away for the next scoot, a serious mile eater with minor fire trailing capabilities have fun with the maxims -- tough to kill scoots! | ||
| Blake |
Great stuff Bomber. Thanks for taking us all on your adventure. I can already tell that it is fixin' to be a great one. | ||
| Bomber |
Blake -- with the accomplises I'll have, I should start saving for bail! not only will the battery strap support the engine, so will the rear brake line  .go forward, break new ground, and make your OWN mistakes -- ;-} | ||
| Ceejay |
bombs-I've contacted a few experts in regards to your question-I'll let you know if I get an answer... | ||
| Bomber |
Ceej -- you're a prince of a guy! I'm talkin to a couple of folks as well, and will report on the findings -- | ||
| Road_thing |
...saving for bail... Remind me to tell you sometime about how I talked the Wendover police out of taking Paul Rogers to jail a couple of years ago... rt | ||
| Firemanjim |
Damn thing was drawn and quartered--looked kinda like a handgrenade went off in the first pics. And it is referred to as "Project Drift".I believe a wrote a short treatise on this very subject not long ago.  Looks like excellent fun,John. In regards to 130 club vs the 150 club, first off is price is substantially higher for 150 club, as are the requirements--bike is prepared the the same as one running for a record.On the plus side you get unlimited runs to get to your 150 goal and run on the regular course.130 club gets 5 runs and runs on a 1 mile course--basically it's a long drag race to get your 130 in that distance. But the 130 club is only offered at the USFRA meet in sept. SCTA does not have anything like it. Bub's has a "Run What Ya Brung" class that is similar to 130 but IIRC it is only 2 runs. You need to be aware of the "all leather" rule in SCTA/USFRA meets--- your leathers must have NO fabric inserts anywhere, so any newer leathers with kevlar or the like are out. And same goes for ventilation holes,very limited amount allowed and only behind the knees/armpits areas.Also helmuts must be Snell 2000(?) rated --might be off on this,may be newer still. | ||
| Bomber |
Jim -- yesswir, indeed good fun! got everything all stripped down, take the parts to the powder coater this weekend -- as a public service announcement, I am now equipped with an Oxy/acetylene outfit -- anyone got anything they need melted? | ||
| Road_thing |
Did Santa bring you a hot wrench? Remember the first rule of welding: rt | ||
| Reepicheep |
Isn't that fun? I now have family members bringing me old scrap metal for the "supply bin". I noticed the cast iron blade guard on my circular saw was cracked. Instead of thinking "how the *&^% did that happen &^%$#$", my first thought was "sweet! I bet I could braze that and it would look really cool!". | ||
| Bomber |
Thang -- the wimmin in my extended family are very good to me (far better than I deserve!), and, you're right! mild steel retains heat for a lllooonnngngggggggg time! Reep -- BIG fun -- already used it to do some long put-off chores -- the neighbors have started hiding things -- can't understand it! | ||
| Court |
What kind of rod do you use to weld a dog? | ||
| Bomber |
bacon make sure you wash all the flux off, though -- it is very corrosive | ||
| Road_thing |
Bomber--Court has one of my welding projects. Ask him if he's used it on Jack yet... rt | ||
| Bomber |
The frame and ancillary parts are at the powder coater -- they told the same tale Ceejay's shared -- that is, clear CAN work, but most often has rusty spider-webbie dealios showing up fairly soon after the coating is set up. I kept wondering why our frames didn't turn into powder-coating socks full of rust -- After thinking a bit (yes, it DID hurt a little), I came to the following conclusions: < rust requires ferris metal, and oxygen < there¡¦s certainly ferris metal (the frame being mild steel), and, unless the powder coating took place in some sort of environmentally controlled area, there¡¦s gonna be O2 available < the O2 starts the oxidation process, which rapidly halts once all the O2 trapped in/under the powder coating is used up Now, I make no claim as to the accuracy of this theory, but it fits the data I have, and it's allowed me to go on and wonder about other things -- like why the powder coating on my engine looked so awful. Looked. I'm in the last stages of removing it. There used to be a fair number of messages in the KV about cleaning, preserving and restoring the powder coating on tuber engines. Some of these messages were mine, and I found that, over time, there seemed to be little that would clean things like dried gas (spilled during the summer of the overflowing carb -- did you know you can use the petcock as a float valve? You can, though it takes some of the fun out of a spirited romp in the Kettle or near Holy Hill). So -- two long days in the Entropy Lab, armed with Aircraft Paint Stripper, assorted wiring brushes, and WXRT blasting on the box -- I've got an engine which is durned near powder coat free -- the substrate doesn¡¦t look quite as sand-casty as the coating did, but it's aluminum, it's rough lookin, and it's clean. A couple of folks have warned of dire consequences of running the bare alloy cases, stated that permanent staining and disfiguration would ensue instantly, bringing on heartbreak of Homeric proportions . . . I ran the primary cover bare for two years, and it seems no worse for wear, and cleans up much easier than the powder coat did -- time will, of course, tell. Break Break I was in the book store over the weekend, leafing through periodicals -- ain't it grand that no one rousts you while checking out the magazines, unlike the ancient guy next to the El station back in the day . . . . a 12-hyear-old looking at Argosy would send him into a rage that would do any Banana Republic dictator proud . . . I often take a look at woodworking magazines -- they have, from time to time, pieces on workshop design that intrigue me. My constant struggle with disorganization has me wistfully staring at the photos of shops without tools strewn around the joint, where benches are used for working on, as opposed to long term storage of unidentified objects, and in which the owner can walk unimpeded across the width and breadth of the structure without hopping, skipping, or jumping over/through/around the flotsam and jetsam of projects ongoing and gone by. "Hi, my name is Bomber, and I¡¦m a junk-a-holic." "Hi Bomber!" It's a 12-step program. One thing has struck me, while reading these rags -- there is a subset of woodworkers that have a near-religious relationship with their tools -- they build elaborate reliques in which to house their objects of veneration, and a short trip through eBay will illustrate the prices paid by some for old planes, bow saws, and braces. It also impinged on my noggin that, so far as I've discovered, there seems to be no analogous group of gear heads, fighting over old Craftsman combination wrenches at flea-markets -- or, if there are, they are few enough in number to keep the prices from soaring to worthy of Sunday Morning TV comment. While pondering these differences, I thought of my own collection of tools. While I've got a couple or three Snap-On tools, the majority of my kit is pretty random. There are wrenches I've had for decades, and some I bought last fall (the combo wrenches with the built in ratcheting box end are pretty darned zoomy, and cheap, at the local hardware store -- a joy to use, truly). Most came from hardware stores, purchased 30 seconds before closing to allow me to complete a repair that was necessary so I could get to work the next day, or grabbed at flea markets cuz ya never know when you might need a 12-point 11/32 deepwell socket, right? I don't polish em, make handcrafted containment vessels for them, or converse with other guys, bragging on my 40 year old hardware store 10/11mm open end wrench. I DO find myself, however, reaching more often for some of the older wrenches on a regular basis. None of the tools I own are my dad's or grandad's -- I'm a first generation gearhead. But I do use the older tools more often that the newer, shinier, more comfy in the hand wrenches I've purchased in the last few years -- and I have little idea as to why. Can it be the experiences embedded into the chrome vanadium? The midnight surges of wrench spinning in the company of good friends? The throwing of wrenches upon hearing that unmistakable "tink" after hours of trying to loosen a fastener that hasn't budged since the device left its birthplace decades before? The need to get the exhaust snugged up before the next heat at Sante Fe (only one speedway has a track of clay)? I dunno. The sharp minded among you are thinking, "Bomber, that bike would go together easier if you paid more attention during the tear down rather than thinking up silly stuff like this!" You are, of course, correct. Unlike you, though, I have little control over where my mind wanders. Lucky you!  | ||
| Mikej |
Just because it is snowing up here today (the snow you folks a bit further southward were supposed to get), when I get home tonight (assuming I get home tonight due to this blasted FastBoysFromIllinois-sent snowstorm) I will attempt to first find and then photo and upload a couple of pics of a couple of personally favorite tools of mine. Favorite, not because of how they perform (one has bit me and drew blood on more than one occasion), but more because of their form and original intention of use (which is rarely how I employ them). I, too, have been known to purchase a box lid of ancient tools at the closing minutes of an afternoon public auction simply because the tools were neat and the price was below a buck for the whole lot. Somewhere in here there are thoughts of relevant dialog towards the intended direction of discussion, to wit the Salt Shaker, but I digress. In the mean time I'll be down in the lunch room scavaging salt packets to sprinkle on my pickup tires so I can make it out of the parking later this afternoon. Looking forward to posted pics of the powder coated (should that be "power coated") frame before the rust spiders begin to spin their webs. | ||
| Road_thing |
"shops without tools strewn around the joint, where benches are used for working on, as opposed to long term storage of unidentified objects, and in which the owner can walk unimpeded across the width and breadth of the structure without hopping, skipping, or jumping over/through/around the flotsam and jetsam of projects ongoing and gone by" do not exist in real life. rt | ||
| Bomber |
Mike -- nope, I went with a slightly more traditional color scheme -- any rusty spiders will not be visible, unless one uses one's spidey sense RT -- I hear TELL of shops that are thusly arrayed -- clearly the product of a sick mind old wrench -- many missions, still surviving  | ||
| Ceejay |
messy garages are not caused by sick minds, they are merely a case study by those in the know as to find each man's breaking point-an area to which he states-"I'll pay someone to do that" This usually occurs because we are not able to find a tool as simple as a tape measure due to the fact that so many other projects were taking place the whole of the garage-save for a lone clear space between the cooler and ones favorite standing/sitting spot, has been runneth over. Can't multitask, ha! My garage is evidence. I have a bike in various states of assembly/dissably depending on point of view, two floors worth of hardwood flooring cut ends, a brake job on the SCU's vehicle in progress, shelving units in progress for the eldest, and a dog shelter almost finished/never done. The only problem I ever encounter is when I crack the top of a PBR-they put "playing cards" on thier bottle tops, I seem to lose an hours time trying to find the workings of a full house, or better yet four of a kind. What color did she end up anyways... | ||
| Lake_bueller |
What I want to know is...... How the wrench I used just 2 seconds ago can mysteriously disappear from the floor/bench/toolbox. I think there is a garage gremlin that moves tools just to get my ire up  | ||
| Road_thing |
Same thing happens to me, Lake. I often find the missing wrench stuck in my back pocket... ...other times it's near the ice chest! rt | ||
| Bomber |
Ceej -- I went totally and completely crazy, breaking with tradition, custom, and past practices . . . . . black ;-} once of an evening, I was trying to put the bike back together so I could go to owrk the next day (note to self, for top end jobs between heats, as it were, 2 strokes are better than 4). I had only three more things to button up before I could test start the beast, clean up, and catch a lil sack time before rising to lubricate the gears of industry with my sweat. I needed a 10mm combination to do all three things. Now, John Prine would have immediately identified my smile as extra legal, and some of Milwuakee's Finest had helped ease my way through the tasks, so I was, perhaps, less focused that I might have been, but I'd performed these same tasks so oftern than I should have been able to od it in my sleep (from which I was not far by this point -- to quote the old blues man, it was early in the morning, just about the break of day by this time). I wandered in the earlier version of the e-lab, like Moses in the desert, searching for said 10mm wrench. After, leterally, 20 minutes of wandering, I discovered it in my left hand. I made a satisfying sound and wrench shaped hole while exiting the e-lab through the flimsy wall. I finished the job with vise grips. Someday, Court should write a book, yes? (Message edited by bomber on January 15, 2007) |
