Angelina: Build Story of my 4-wheeled Motorcycle

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I just got my Forte' TKX spacer kit -- well made and simple (just how I like it), and it matches my planned height of my stacked-up spacer washers (mockup only)

Forte' TKX spacers1.jpg Forte' TKX spacers2.jpg

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

Believe it or not, I used up all of my 25' roll of off-brand Stainless Steel annealed 3/16" tubing while bending and flaring the hardline for my rear brakes. This would've been the final, largest piece. Since my flares split and I had already bent the whole line to shape, I decided to get some more tubing, and keep this piece for scrap extra...

I decided this time to get straight sections from Holley (Earl's branded). After trying my first flare, success! Then I cut that off and tried another -- success! I'm sensing a pattern here

It's still early days to celebrate, and since I also decided to change my bulkhead "stick-out" dimension at the bottom of my floorpan, I really don't have much to show this update. Here's a picture of that 1st flare attempt on the Earl's line anyway...
Earl's SS annealed flare.jpg

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I got my "production-intent" Craig-Brake bracket cut, bent, filed, and fitted to the trans tunnel frame tubing. Recall that my 1st bracket was set up for the shifter in the forward position. I wanted to try it in the rearward position (about 3" rearward from the forward position), and so far it fits well and I like the layout. There's only so much room for all the stuff so my design (as of right now) is not conducive to a single bracket for both positions. I'll have to think more on that...

I'm planning to use nut-certs on the right-side main tunnel tubing so that the passenger-side cockpit panel isn't affected, and likely thru-bolt holes on the diagonal tubing (since there's room for that).

Here's a picture with the initial hole cut for the shifter Craig-Brake production-intent3.jpg

I'm debating whether to simply enlarge the hole or add a dimple-die flare to this hole (since the rubber boot is touching). I'm leaning towards the dimple-die for strength and coolness factor, but am worried that the bending in the shop press might warp the flatness of the bracket bottom. I ordered some dimple-dies from Eastwood since they appeared to be on sale and will experiment on a scrap piece of my 14ga steel sometime this week

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I went ahead and purchased a dimple-die set from Eastwood and decided to practice on a test panel. The instructions said that the quality of the pilot hole essentially dictates the final result...

Knowing that I just have big-box-store hole saws that aren't concentric, I decided to cut a slightly smaller hole and file and sand it out to get a good fit into the die. Furthermore, I've seen panels warp from deforming the metal this way, so I wanted to try it out on the practice panel. Here's the setup of the die and panel in the press dimple-die press setup.jpg

Here's right after fully seating the die against the practice panel practice panel completely pressed.jpg and the final result practice panel result with die set.jpg

Looks good! Onto the real thing...

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

Fresh from my scrap panel dimpling success, I prepped the real panel and proceeded to add a dimple to allow for shift boot clearance. The test fit looked good, so the next step was to cut, file, and drill out the slots and holes necessary to mount the Lokar handbrake assembly to my bracket. Here's a picture dimpled and slotted.jpg

Since the shifter was moved to the rearward position, there was slightly less room overall than on my prototype piece. Still have decent clearance to the bracketry and the clevis, but it is close enough to the shifter boot rubber for me to pay attention to it once I start the go-cart phase. I'm pretty glad I used the solid engine mounts too, since any drivetrain torque reaction makes that clearance even smaller. Here's an underside picture handbrake fits close to shifter housing.jpg

Lastly, here's a picture of it bolted together. handbrake bolted to bracket.jpg Those extra washers are just temporary spacers. I've got an extra coil-over spacer that I'll probably cut-down to fit at the back two bolts...

Next, drilling and bolting into the frame tubes...

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

Hope you had a Nice Easter weekend! I took advantage of the extra day off from work to measure hole locations for drilling and installing my Craig-Brake bracket panel onto the trans tunnel frame tubes. There's not a lot of room to get the holes drilled correctly -- fortunately, I had a right-angle drill attachment that worked out well. I also made sure to pre-punch for the holes, drilled pilot holes, and used 3 different step-bits to get the final result where I wanted it. I only had to get out the Dremel tool to correct 2 out of the 6 pilot holes...

I also decided to use "low-profile" nutserts, since I wasn't sure the standard ones would fit my bracket (accounting for all the stack-up). The nutserts installed well with a wrench-style tool and look great. Here's a picture trans tunnel low profile nutserts2.jpg. My only other concern was the twist-out torque for these nutserts. There really is a dramatic installed height difference between the low-profile and standard. I hope it'll be OK. I think my design is solid with mostly orthogonal loads on the fasteners, but time will tell. I used 1/4-20 nutserts and bolts with lockwashers.

Here's a picture of the bracket bolted-in bracket bolted into place.jpg and of the whole assembly before being sent off to the powder coater final mock-up before powder coating.jpg

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I got my Craig-Brake panels back from the powder-coater and he did a great job (as always). It's a satin finish (not sure the code number) and while it doesn't exactly match the factory finish, it is good enough for me! Here's a picture Craig-Brake brackets after powder coating.jpg

Next up...prep for powertrain removal...

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

Now that I know how my Craig-Brake will fit with my powertrain, it's time to remove the engine/transmission to get back to other tasks...

But before I do, I wanted to get some pictures of the headers mocked into place so I can visualize where I'd like to add heat shielding to my engine-bay-side foot-box panels. Here's some pictures so that I can come back to them for visual reference when I build the heat shields later:
driver's side header installed to visualize where the heat shield will go1.jpg driver's side header installed to visualize where the heat shield will go2.jpg driver's side header installed to visualize where the heat shield will go3.jpg driver's side header installed to visualize where the heat shield will go4.jpg passenger side headers to see where the heat shield goes1.jpg passenger side headers to see where the heat shield goes2.jpg

Wow! What a pick-me-up seeing the headers in place (even if it is just temporary)

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

Fresh from my success at installing nut-serts (or riv-nuts) for my Craig-Brake, it was time to get back to other tasks...

This one required planning a little where and how to locate my gas tank and IRS vents. I'd thought about how to do this months ago, but never got around to drilling and installing the nut-serts for this task. Finally did so this weekend.

Here's the installed nut-serts on that lower horizontal 1" tube just in front of the gas tank gas tank and irs breather prep1.jpg

Here's the vent assemblies and raw bracket for the charcoal canister installed gas tank and irs breather prep2.jpg

And lastly a picture of the installed charcoal canister for the gas tank vent gas tank and irs breather prep3.jpg

Sorry, I don't have the part number. If you're interested, it's from a Moto Guzzi V11Sport circa 2000. I liked it because it was a nice cylindrical shape and thus pretty easy to make a bracket for it. I plan to add heat shrink tubing to the large hose clamps to cushion it a bit and give it a finished look. I'll also get the bracket powder-coated later...

Happy Building!

Craig C

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I spent the weekend visualizing and measuring where to precisely locate my Breeze battery tray. The instructions mention that the main 4" frame tube in front is not always parallel to the X-tubes for the front suspension. My frame was only off by about an eighth of an inch, so I proceeded to install it per the instructions, but since the fore-aft dimension was pretty tight, I did not use any washer spacers. Here's a pictorial history:

My locating and alignment set-up getting the battery tray into place.jpg

And after setting to the proper height -- mostly dictated by the existing holes and where they aligned to the 4" main frame tube. The X-tube tray holes did not align to my frame, but were pretty close. The difference being that this was likely designed for the square x-tubes, but for the round X-tubes, it's pretty close. As you might already know from my build thread, I like a little more precision, so I located new holes (equi-distant side to side and evenly spaced for 5 holes, and aligned to the centerline of the x-tube). Here's what that ended up looking like:

battery tray located, drilled, and clecoed into place1.jpg battery tray located, drilled, and clecoed into place2.jpg battery tray located, drilled, and clecoed into place3.jpg

Happy with the holes, I tapped the front ones for 10-24 button heads, and the rear ones were 1/4-20 (per the instructions)...lock-washers and hardware are stainless
battery tray installed with SS button head screws.jpg

Lastly, I bought a 2yr battery and checked the fit...I think it'll work
battery tray with battery installed1.jpg Dead animal view...looks like the tie-down bolts are clear of the scrub line, too ! battery tray with battery installed2.jpg

Happy building!

Craig C

[JayOH]

Dead animal view...looks like the tie-down bolts are clear of the scrub line, too!

Thanks for the chuckle

[cc2Arider]

Hey Y'All,

I finally got around to making my rear brake hardline that goes from the footbox floor to the driver's side rear frame area. I had some trepidation (since my early exposure to flaring quality issues), but the job wasn't so bad with good quality hardlines and patience and measuring. I did make a couple of mistakes, but powered thru and I'm happy with the results

If I didn't mention in previous posts, I used a Ridgid tubing bender and a flaring tool from Eastwood. The connection hardware is Earl's and I added a stainless steel spiral-wound gravel guard, since I just don't like the low-mount routing (although lots of previous builders don't have road debris issues with this "traditional" routing). I got the hardline mounts from a vendor that Mike B recommended. I really liked the curved back-side surface that fits very well on the 4" main tubes

Here's the rear views that shows the bend design and routing I chose:
rear brake main hardline1.jpg rear brake main hardline2.jpg rear brake main hardline3.jpg rear brake main hardline4.jpg

The routing allows for removal (if it comes to that)

Next, here's some pictures of the main straight section. Of note here is the gravel guard and how the mounts all lined up well even though I had one aligned with the flat outrigger tube, while the rest were on the 4" main tube at a different mounting angle. I also lucked out that I didn't have to drill any new hole under the driver's side footbox floor panel. I simply reamed out the 1/8" rivet hole and tapped for an 8-32 button head The last picture shows that I did have to approach the bulkhead connector at a slight angle (it was about 7 deg)

rear brake main hardline5.jpg rear brake main hardline6.jpg rear brake main hardline7.jpg

Up next, planning my fuel lines...

Happy Building!

Craig C