Bearings and Seals are In

Everything is cleaned up, the outside is painted with Ceramic High Heat Paint. The bearings and seals are in!

Pressing in new diff taper bearings...

Here's the diff case with new taper bearing and seal.

Diff and cover ready for install...

Plop 'er in......

Seal and measure gap........

Stand 'er up and install the gear stack....

Check shiftability...... and it's VERY GOOD! Smooth, positive, w/2 quick moves and all 3 speeds!

Transaxle Locked and Ready for Assembly

Yesterday I disassembled the differential, cleaned the spider gears and pin axle in acetone. After all parts were dried the diff was reassembled and Dorival performed 'TIG MAGIC' on it to lock it up solid.

Here's the gear cluster and diff.....901 Differential Locked vi TIG WELD!

Close Up.... It's Gorgeous!

Dr. Evil Transmission expert comes to visit!

Dr. Evil at work!Gear Cluster BEFORE the conversion!
Gear cluster AFTER that conversion! View of 1938 Harley foot clutch



on Saturday 2-13-2010 the infamous Dr. Evil drove from his abode in Hershey, PA to my shop in Sterling, VA to help me customize the Porsche 901 transmission for the X-bike. Dr. Evil recommended I go with a 3 speed gearing. I argued with him for awhile but he finally won out by convincing me that with the foot clutch and jockey shift a 3 speed would minimize shifting time and really wasn't needed due to the already high torque to weight ratio that the bike would produce (able to overcome high gearing easily). Also, dropping enough gears would lower the tranny weight significantly and sure enough when we were finished at the end of the day 28 lbs. of gears, bearings, shift forks, and shift rods were dropped!

28lbs. dropped

Dr. Evil was calling the moves; swap 5th for 4th, get rid of Reverse, 1st, and 4th and I was cutting, turning, and tigging everything he needed to make the conversion. Now I'm working on locking the differential, cleaning everything, and replacing the main thrust bearings and a few others. Re-gasketing and then re-assembly. I'll probably be posting alot of the tranny work more as I go along the next few days.

Here's the conversion pattern comparison:

HeadLight MockUp - I think it's just too BIG!

Well I mocked up a quick mounting bracket for the headlight and I think it's just way too BIG! I'll move it back into the forks a couple inches tomorrow night and see if that helps otherwise I'm going to modify the headlight housing (shorten it) or go with another smaller light?

Headlamp Arrived! So I had something to do while snowbound....

The X-bike front light is going to be an original B-L-C Headlamp Model 682J, 7" halogen lamp, 8"X8" housing. These lamps were used on the 1930's fenderless Ford trucks. They remain the headlamp of choice for most Hot Rodder's. I've always wanted to put one on a bike and now's my chance. These pics show my house during the Blizzard of 2010 and the headlamp I was sanding 2 coats of paint off of, while it snowed outside.

Snow'd In for 2 days

2' + of snow has us stuck in Greenbriar. I've been shoveling, playing guitar, reading about transmissions waiting for the snow plow to come.

I found this old video link on how differentials work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JhruinbWc.

I'll begin tearing down the 901 transmission soon as I get free from the snow. I'll replace any worn gears, sliders, syncros, bearings, brakes that I find and disassemble the differential and lock it up by cleaning and then welding the spider gears solid to their cage. I need to do this to get drive load continuosly on the right side (sprocket side). I'm thinking about leaving the left side hub and attaching a small disk brake to it as an extra braking mechanism??

Very Slight Progress Since Feb.2nd

Really not much progress made since fabbing the handlebar gussets and fork stops.

Surveyed the shift mechanism a bit, still going to try making a jockey shift mechanism using a wraparound bar and ball joint. I expect to design it on CAD this coming week.

I ordered a transmission gasket set from Pelican Parts to get ready for Dr. Evil's visit to rework the tranny and set it up for the bike. Need to figure out what's the best way to lock the differential while we are reworking the tranny??

That's it for now!

Handle Bar Gussets

Tonight I welded in some fork stops and gussets to strengthen the aluminum bars.
I'll add a couple to the lower Z angle soon!