Licence to licence

I got the bike but there is a small formality to be considered. I have EU (Finnish) drivers license that allows me to drive regular cars and motorcycles - but I'll need a California licence as well.

I took the written test earlier for licence to drive car but I still have to take a handling test with bike. I'm not sure how smart of an idea it is to go to the test with about 650lb (325kg) bike. So being a little uncertain if I actually can handle the circle, we took a ride to local DMV when it's not open a gave it a try.

In the pic, you can see at least part of the test. To my understanding I'm deeded to do slalom around the markings on the center line and then do a turn and same back. Then I'm also expected to drive very slowly between the two narrow path between parallel lines and again do some circles. I was able to prove myself that my bike turns in theory in the required space, but the margin is unnerving. I maybe could borrow a very agile street bike from a colleague but I have to first try with own bike - just for the heck of it. I'll let you know how it goes when the time comes (it's DMV, waiting times are measured in months). 

From solo to duo

One problem the bike had was that it really can't support a passenger. Of course we knew this while pondering whether this is the bike to buy or not. But even with this it was a good purchase - it looks nice, it's well taken care and the price was right. But the issue needs to be tended. So here is the progression in four pics.

First - this is how it looked when we got it. Then, there is a new parts, struts and fender that can support a passenger. But as you can see it doesn't look that pretty, and as everyone knows these projects always cost more than double that you thought in the beginning. So new shocks were purchased and installed. It wasn't a bad investment since the old shocks were really worn out and it rides now much smoother than it did. But still got the new ones mainly for looks. Note that also the blinker lights were moved back so that passenger can have her legs somewhere nicely. In the final pic the height adjusted and it has the correct paint. Looks nice and is ready for a date night.

Oh and I didn't do the work myself. All of it was done by a shop close by called California Choppers.

Getting a new ride

It's been a while since the last post. There was a change of scenery and a lot of practical hoops and loops to jump through. 

But life is almost normal again and it's time to continue. But to continue - the first things is to get something to talk about. After extensive browsing of craigslist I managed to find a posting that looked somewhat genuine. There was plenty that looked like they were either suspicious or clear scams.

So, after few emails we took a trip to San Ramon via bank. Even in bank they warned that meeting a stranger with a pile of cash is kind of risky thing. I'm sure it is - felt pretty nervous taking BART to Walnut Creek and Uber from there to San Ramon. The person, let's call him Brian, who was selling the bike lived in a gated community which I took as a sign of a respectable member of a society who has better things to do than run bike selling scams on internet. 

Mister B. was very nice, very easy to deal with and had himself spent quite some time building the bike. I promised a good new home for very blue -96 Fatboy and we parted both parties happy.

Did you notice I said "we" headed to San Ramon earlier? Do you notice that bike is solo rider? Yeah, there is a problem there - we didn't drive the bike home. I called Big Mannie who arrived with a bike trailer and a big ass truck. What would be more convenient than let a pro to take care of things and just watch, relax and grab a beer.

Plot twist!

Small changes to what is going on with me and the project. The big challenge now is that there is a continent and and ocean between us as me and wife just moved to San Francisco from Helsinki. 

My buddies in Finland maybe will continue with the project and I will see what I con do with it. For sure I'm not selling it -- it just may be that I have to pay someone to complete it. I will keep you posted on what happens as we go since there are plenty of unknowns ahead. 

One thing is sure though. I'm going to buy at least one bike here in California. I'm hoping to get two -  a city bike to get me between home and office on daily basis and maybe a Panhead. 

Bending tubes

Couple of entries ago we ended with a picture of half a frame. Or to be more precise a frame that was missing the swingarm. There is not actually awfully lot of missing from the frame - four tubes and some interconnecting steel plates. 

We started to work the upper part tubes. We started by sawing two about two meter tubes that we spot welded loosely together. Since we don't really have a tube bender we chose a method that is three quarts of brute force and on quart engineering. We stuck the other end of the tubes into something we knew is going to hold it's place. We have a big lathe that weights probably a ton and is bolted to a concrete cast base. So it's not moving - I wish I had a pic of the lathe, it's pretty on it's own way. 

There they are, tubes heated up. When they were warm enough I did stand there with thick work mittens and pressed the tubes. While warm enough they did bend nicely. And since they were welded together we got too rather identical pieces with a curve of a same radius.

One end these wishbone tubes are going to go into the axle plate stub. That is a simple straight fitting of two tubes. The other end is going to get attached to the top tube of the frame. There will be an angle there in which the wishbone tube end meets the solid top tube. To ensure the fit we drilled the ending of the wishbone tubes into the right angle with a cup drill of the same diameter as the top tube.

From there we got the tubes that fit very nicely both the top tube and the cast iron holding thingy which was left more or less intact while removing the original wishbones. I realize I would like to have more pics about how everything worked here so maybe I'll revisit this entry at some point. 

Choo! Choo!

Bikes are not the only great toy a grown ass man can have. Trains are great, steam engines are great. Here we ponder upon a miniature prototype whether or not the great power of steam could be harnessed to animate a two wheeled autonomously mobile vehicle. Choo, choo

Let's hear it roar

Got my motor back. Now I can close my eyes and imagine it purring like a little kitty - honestly, who knows what it's going to sound when I've no pipes or nothing figured out. So let's not get ahead of ourselves. What I'm still missing is a carburetor which I'm hoping to buy used and an intake manifold to go with that. 

There are plenty of different options and at least as many opinions what would the best choice. I guess what is the best is partially an opinion formed per ones own experience that may or may not be a reflection of reality. In part what is the best is defined by what one is looking for. In my case, I think I'll follow the comment or opinion given by the one who made the engine - his suggestion was SU carburetors. There seems to be some on the market but I'll get back to that when the time is right. 

And here is a list of all the parts I was missing or had to replace.

Point of no return

One kind of point of no return was achieved this week. After spending almost two days impeccably placing the frame on the table situation finally calls for action - it is time to start sawing of the rear parts in order to turn the old swing to hard tail.

When the pendulum stops this precisely over the marker on the table it means that it's time to go. For the reference, below is the frame as it was.

And below here it is how it is now. you can see the idea. The part that was not needed is gone. You can imagine almost straight lines going from the axle plate on the right hand side to where the frame ends. 

You probably have noticed that I tend to write down the stuff I didn't know - which is almost everything. But honestly, I found this interesting little detail: Below is the cast iron piece attached to central post of the frame. Through it, the frame tube goes and when it was sawn off with and angle grinder like this it should come off. Once again I have to take my hat of for my friends helping me out. His precision is immaculate as he first saw off precisely the welding seam without so much as touching the material of the original tubing. In the pic below, you can see a seam between what is left of the tube and the cast iron piece and notice they are no more welded together.

From this point a nail punch was applied. Finding a correct angle and gently tapping it the last piece of tubing comes off and we are left with rather intact nesting for a tube. We do not know for sure yet, if the new tubing will precisely fit to this cradle, but it can be adjusted if so needed. And we can always discard it completely if it is not needed, but nothing is lost and everything can be used. 

The next step is to be sure we have enough room for the chain between the wheel and the frame tubing and making sure we have a proper distance between the rear axle and the frame. The proper distance is determined by the size of the rear wheel and the criteria, that if rear axle is too close to the frame the wheel will touch gearbox - which obviously is not an option. Being too far away is not that critical but it will impact the visual appearance of the bike quite dramatically. 

In the original setup the distance of rear axle from a reference point is about 34cm and we think we can squeeze the same measure to 32cm effectively shortening the wheelbase with 2cm which also makes the rear more tightly packed looking. It makes sense for the style I'm after, but were I building a chopper, I'd probably bring rear wheel a centimeter or two backwards for pertaining a geometry. For today I learnt that chopper should make a wide "A" shape letter where front wheel and rear wheel are equally far from the top of the steering axle. This makes sense - google images for "swedish style choppers" and you will see it. I'm not going for a chopper so it's not relevant for my case but it's nice observation that makes you look long bikes tiny bit differently.

Framing the scene and jiggin the frame

After getting the axle plates I'm running out of excuses to get started with the frame. So here we go, for better or worse. 

First a little about certain principles and philosophies of how to conduct the business. If you look at the videos on youtube there are _plenty_ where people just have the frame on the floor un-tied and weld with t-shirts on. And the end product is typically pretty as a picture, no complaints there. The problem here is that if you don't do any levelling and weld with such low currents that you feel comfortable with bare arms - you probably won't be riding that bike. Which is perfectly alright if it is made for showcase and not for riding. 

I'm making mine for riding but still there is a spectrum of approaches. One is where you do all the preparations to a immaculate precision. After that things will be nice and tidy. The other school is based maybe more on the principle of "if you are not sure, try". We took this route, partially because of practical reasons. 

The practical reason is that we don't have a proper frame jig. We have been discussing for almost a year of doing one, but it simply is not going to be there in time for my project. The idea of a frame jig is that it's rigid - it's big ass piece of steel beam that you know once you level it out, it'll be level even after a modest earthquake. And that is what we didn't have so this is what we did.

We have a steel covered welding table, to which we welded couple of rather rigid beams to mark the rear axle place. The axle it self, is height-wise exactly where it'll be in reality.

To the rear axle we placed the axle plates I've been writing about earlier. If you have a keen eye, you can see they now are steel grey and not black since I removed the paint with chemicals and a steel brush.

Modern men as we are, we rely on modern methods - the plumb, straight angle and patience (something I lack) takes you a long way. What we exactly did is that first we levelled the table the best we could, meaning to a fraction of a degree. This is my assessment is that accuracy of a degree is not enough but as soon as you can squeeze it to be some fraction of a degree, it'll be all alright. 

So the measurements tells us that we have the frame as level as possible and as straight (perpendicular) to the table as possible. The frame is bit skewed which to my understanding is rather normal for 70's HD frames. And it is less off it'd be after a head collision so we assume the frame is intact but it was born a little twisted.

This is very amateur, yet rather efficient way, of doing things. If you have a material for a proper jig, it probably pays off to make one. But if you don't have one, it's not the and of the world - you can substitute overly engineering with patience and insight. Anyway, this table and these pieces of beams are our jig - frame is welded to the table and they are rather immobile so it'll be just as steady as it needs to be.

  

Plates and axles

While ago I told I bought a swing. Got it really cheap since no one ever needs original softail swings. People usually sell them, and so was this case as well, for the reason that they want to have wider rear wheel and therefore need a wider swing. It is possible to widen the swing, of course, by sawing the connecting tubes apart and welding a lengthening piece of a connecting tube there. Sounds easy, and probably is if you are a decent welder, have the tools and place to execute. Not for everybody is it possible, feasible nor interesting to do that sort of things so the easiest way is to purchase a new swing and sell the old one.

So this is the reason why someone sold a swing, and here is the reason someone bought it. To remind, here is the swing as it was and the parts I wanted from it.

Then the question is that why I wanted them. Well, part of the answer is that I needed them, the other part is that this is cheap. As said, it's not everybody who needs an old original swing. There are also beautiful stock parts available but they tend to be expensive. Just the other week I went to exhibition called Kustom Kulture (sic) and discussed with retailer who sold cast iron axle plates. They were good quality and nice looking but the price was four times what I paid for these.

Rusty nasty wheels

Ok, one more place to spend a few bucks. Look at this rim, it looks like the surface of Mars even after trying to clean it up. To be precise it looks like it may be useful but the problem is this - the surface is so rough that I'm afraid that when I will try to get a new tyre on it, it'll take more force and pressure than the tyre can take to get to slip on it's place. And that is a bad deal - the rear tyre costs more than three times what a new rim would. So, it makes no sense to risk the rubber in trying to avoid purchasing new parts.

But the center bore seems fine. Of course all the moving parts need to be changed, or it makes sense to change them, especially the bearings. I do not know the history of the blank I'm working with - for all I know someone may have ridden hundred thousand miles with the bearings in there so now that it is in parts anyway there is no excuse for not changing the parts susceptible to wear.

But who cares about that. What is interesting is that now I can blast the center piece and paint it in what ever colour I wish to. Yeah, that is right - there is no law saying this little bugger needs to be black if I don't want it to be black. Who knows what it'll turn into, this one here:

Also I wanted to mention the fact that I had no idea how to get the plastic and rubber seal of the axle tunnel away. The bottom picture has the actual axle tunnel and the disposable bearings and seals on the table and the remaining central piece. The upper picture represents the installation my invaluable friend used to actually do the job. The seal can be fitted in place by freezing it over when it shrinks and then using a suitable sized socket as a punch. So, to reverse this some considerable amount of brute force is needed - and it needs to be applied from the opposing side. Using a hammer and a steel rod ( on the table behind the part ) it can be banged out. Put the rod in through the opposing side, find the small shoulder of the seal inside, on the side facing the table, and hit. Remember to hit from all the sides because the seal comes the easiest off when kept in level position. It really needs to be hit hard, so don't be shy, but be sure you know what you are hitting.

Softail swingarm

At the same trip to get the spoke wrench I swung by a person who was selling an used swing. I'm doing a hardtail so I don't really need the whole softail swingarm, but it's a way to get the axle plates.

This is the swing it self

and the axle plates are these parts of it. 

This is pretty much the cheapest and most convenient way to get the axle plates. One option is to just make a custom plate out of piece of steel which ensures the freedom to go after certain looks. But it's pretty much work and needs some real tools. The other option is to order custom stuff, which is the most expensive approach. And the third option would be to buy the plates just as is, but buying them new costs more than whole used swing. 

The idea of the part is that the rear wheel axle goes through there and the axel plates connect the frame tubes here. If you are wondering what is the whole point of the swing it would be originally the tail part of the frame, little like this. But you can also see from the picture what else needs to be done. The upper part of the frame should form pretty much a straight line from steering axle to the rear axle, which I very skill fully illustrated there with Gimp. 

Spoking around

Today I went to a hardware store and purchased a spoke wrench. See on the pics how blue and pretty, it is. Like a candy. Not that the job would necessarily require a special tool, but I didn't have small enough wrench in any case and this thingy didn't cost much. I applied little bit of wd40 and I got almost all spokes out easily even if I was afraid that they would have been stuck with rust. I left myself also a small hint with a marker so that when I start putting new spokes back on I have some clue as of which goes where.

Nice and easy, but given the number of spokes, unscrewing all of them took about two hours including one coffee and doughnut break. I got the doughnuts from the gas station next door. It's a sympathetic sort of place and open 24/7.

Did you notice that I said almost all? One of the four balancing nuts, or what ever they are called, was damn stuck. I applied again brute force - which I apparently don't posses in sufficient measures. So I had to figure out something else, which in this case meant more wd40 and applying heat. We have torches but a cigaret lighter did the job this time and off it came. 

And before the long the end result was neatly separated hub and rim. It looks like that side had been in the bottom of an ocean for a decade but now it'll be easy to sand off. And it's not going to be visible but I'm afraid getting the new tyre on will be pain in the butt if the surface is so coarse. Taking the old tyre off also left it's mark on the rim but I'm sure I can use rubber hammer and bang the kinks off. You can see one malformation right on the part touching the floor. Speaking of which, the floor looks icky. We clean the garage quite often but years of being commercial building has left it marks. Plus it's a garage.

Feeling the wheels

So, I got the new white wall tyres. I went for 150mm rear tyre because it fits the original rim. According to more knowledgeable sources the shovel head bikes were manufactured and shipped with the same rim holding tyres form 130mm to 150mm.

While the front wheel looks good, the rear wheel spokes are rusty and it makes sense to change them. And since I'm such a fancy pants I went for stainless steel instead of chromium plated. See the pic, fancy.

Pretty hands are not mine. And totally unrelated, but I can't use expression "chromium plated" without thinking Judas Priest song Painkiller, you know "Chromium plated boiling metal / brighter than a thousand suns".

Aaaanyway, the point of the story for today is that taking the old tyre off was more work than anticipated. The rubber had lost most of its elasticity and in all possible ways it was totally cemented in it's place.

We started by trying to use a press to get the tyre to loosen from it's place and to slide to the valley in the rim's profile ( I really am missing terms here - and I'm not in the pic).

It took while for us to get this working. The piston head itself had too small a surface area but after taking the pic we added a piece of square tube there and it helped. But at some point, we did try other means of brute force. Like this,

and this

before we ended up actually sawing open the damn thing.

Did it take more time than driving to nearest wheel shop and get it done there? Hells yeah it did. And to add to that, one of the dudes in the pics has tyre machine at his work. So there would have been proper machinery available, yet it somehow made more sense to do things the hard way.

But it's gone and all that is left is big damn layer of rust. Next step is getting the old spokes out and trying to sand the rust off.

Checking the engine

Alrighty then, slow movement can be seen here. There is a story about how difficult it was to get the rear wheel tyre of the rim but that's a story for another day.

Now I'm just announcing that I'm taking the engine to a pro who will measure it and then we will know what needs to be done. Wish me luck it's not fubar.

Meant to take a pic from the trip but completely forgot it. I also am missing quite a bunch of things like anything that should be inside the oil pump. Seems that I mostly have just the casing, and I'm missing camshaft and pushrod but otherwise it's looking good - meaning there is enough wall to bore the cylinders. For visual purposes, let's recycle some old pic, here you go