D.I.Y. fender struts

because I hate borrowing a welder to finish weld my rear fender on, I decided to make some attachment struts for it. cool thing is that i got to play with the shop plasma cutter. I still need to work on symetry but they look pretty good and for now seem to work for what i want to accomplish. they are riveted on with aluminum rivets for now while i got all the spacing worked out. i'll drill the rivets out, paint the fender and struts then use stainless steel to reapply.

ummm... okay whatever

Went home sick from work an hour early today. crashed on the couch for a few hours then work up feeling good enough to spend 10 minutes in the garage finishing this little project. for function and clean look it gets an A.  however, there is now a large gap underneath that looks like it needs something. I still have to make new battery cables because the old ones are too short now, i may make my "mean little sucker" intake extend even further down and collect lower. I am rather happy with how clean all these wires are hidden. I may have to put the wires on a diet and lose some of the wires that I'm not using. but at least i found the camera and can take a pictures of it.

Rollin' backwards

So today i spent the better part of 4 hours going backwards. this morning in had a roller, now i have a basket case. i pulled off the air pods and electrical bag (paint can) as well as the battery. because i have "can't leave well enough alone eitis " i started making my own intake as well as modifying some scrap metal into a new electrical bag for all the ugly wiring. cut up an old belt to make a hold down for the battery. this should look much cleaner and take care of my erradic air fuel problems that are currently only regulated with the choke. maybe one day i'll be done with this bike and can take it for a ride. (fat fuckin' chance of that happening)

no pictures to post because i am too depressed about my degress

family is family

recently i've been frequenting a new motor cycle web forum than my usual. nothing against the chopper charles gang but its nice to change the scenery every once in a while. the new site i'm trolling is Thechopperunderground.com. if you've never been on it and this is your kinda thing i suggest you give it a look. lots of cool bikes, very supportive people who aren't harley snobs, purist snobs etc. i posted pictures of my bike and got several compliments and i'm a whore for compliments. so, in honor of my new friends i adorned my electrics bag with the TCU motto.

also, new video i took last weekend of the bike running with normal jetting. didn't want to run unless the choke was shut today so i'm pretty sure a rejet is going to be needed.

it is finished?

the  question mark is because i don't know what the hell is wrong with it. i put the choke cable on, fixed the coolant leak, replaced the cooling fans with smaller ones that pull fewer amps and sealed my brake caliper and bled it. the bleeder screws i got were all the wrong size and 1 attempt actually blew the threads out of the casting. i tapped the hole with the nearest tap i could find the right size. i still didn't have the right size bleeder so i ran a bolt in there. works fine so i'm going to leave it alone for a while til i get the right size bleeder screw. I went to start the bike and holy shit did it give me troubles! back fired so loud i thought my neighbors were going to call the cops! i spent an hour scratching my head and looking over the fsm, even asked a guy on facebook who knows about these bikes. in the meantime i hooked the bike up to a battery charger because i tried to crank it so many times i know the battery was weak. i've let it charge for about 5 hours and went out for a cigarette and for shits and grins i hit the starter button. fucking started no problems. i'm calling it done.  ITS FINISHED!

11-29 update. still doesnt want to start and idle right. i found a vacuum leak that i will repair this week. hopefully it will start and idle like it did before and i can say with confidence its done. right now its tore down again while i fix a small fuel leak and the aforementioned vacuum leak

12- 4:idle is correct. choke operation is correct. BIKE IS FINISHED!! now just needs license and insurnace.

back tracking

good news, i took the bike for a short test run to check for bugs

bad news, i found a shit load of them. coolant leak, cooling fan draws too much current, fuel started to leak.

comforting news, bike road good, i didn't drop it, road more comfortably then i thought it would for a hardtail, seat springs absorbed any vibration. bike is loud as a mutha.

already started to tear down, first order removed the cooling fan. it was built for a honda civic and draws like 8 amps when it kicks on. stalled the bike at idle. i'll scavenge some pc fans out of the old computer i''ve been waiting to part out. that should be less than an amp and still suficently cool the radiator.
next i will deal with the pissing cross over pipes, while the radiator is off i'm going to fix the broken oil pressure light and relocate it and my neutral light to  a more convient location. fuel leaks are gonna suck because the carb is buried in the frame. i was hoping to be done before this coming thursday, my pads are due on tuesday or wednesday. looks like this won't be happening unless i conger up a miracle

old gremlins

cleaning up the garage today so i moved the bike to the driveway. i've let it run to operating temperature before but never hot enough to get the fan to kick on so i started it up and just let it idle. after about 10 minutes the fan kicked on. then i started to see a drip, further investigation led to the coolant cross over pipes that i thought i had sealed up with the correct o- rings were leaking. i did this back like 6 months ago and i thought all my cooling system issues were behind me. quick venture to the auto parts store came back with red high temp silicone. sealed all the locations that showed a leak and will let it dry for a few days before starting it up again. my biggest fear right now is that i saw the coolant leaking from there and made the leap of faith that it was collecting right near my left side head where it meets the block. i will be royally pissed if i have a head gasket thats leaking. only time will tell.

also i am ordering the last of the parts i need for the front brake so i will have those on by thursday and the horn attached at the same time. if my coolant leaks are solved it will be 99.9% finished. i just have to reattach the viynl on the seat that i pulled loose to attach my seat springs.