Tonight at Ex-Bikes

I prepared the F2 for some standard maintenance and then a final remounting
of the new speedo and front light. Cody helped me mount the F2 up on the frame hoist and then helped on removing the front wheel, calipers, etc... After that Mark ordered two pizzas, I ran out and picked up some beers and we attempted to finish Marks bike. Installed the battery, gas tank, throttle cable, clutch cable, worked on the front brake, installed the pipes, and tried to fire it up. But, the ebay fuel pump Mark bought would'nt produce. So we decided to try again another day!

Here's a pic of Luis hanging his 650 out to dry!



And this one's great too ... it's Dori welding up a cracked NightHawk case in the vacuum assist weld chamber at the Ex-Bikes shop.


There's Charlie at the workbench just behind the red dollie. Charlie is the most experienced mechanic we have at Ex-Bikes... he's getting ready to remove the end pilot spacer from the 2.0 Liter type 4 crank that I plan to put in the engine for the Xbike.... Once the spacer was out we checked run-out tolerance between centers on the big Kingston lathe.

June 27th 2010
root's log

Today's blog is a diversion from the Type 4 "Rear Forward Bike Project", (X-bike).

I had to get away from the X-bike build for awhile.
I have a back log of projects to do and I'm committed to finishing them
before the summer is gone.

The X-bike needs to have a power plant worthy of it's
stature and I'm planning on building the engine this fall. It will be a 2.0 liter type 4
with Delortto 44mm Carbs.

Hopefully, the aluminum tank will be complete by the summer's end and the last major task will be the engine.

Anyway, here's what I diverted to last week......

I got an HID lens from Christian Fiorillo, (my log-time Bolivian buddy, who I often refer to as "Tonto"), He gave it to me a while back and have been planning on doing something with it for a while. Last week I got a new idea to make a housing from aluminum to hold the HID lens on the CBR, I made some bubble mount brackets and I'm going to try it as the headlight on the CBR 600. After finishing the headlight I cut out the original CBR speedo from the instrument cluster and made a housing for it to. I added 4 indicator lights for charge, neutral, oil, and high beam to the left side of the housing bracket.

june

X-Bike Update

June 6, 2010

Aluminum Tank Fabrication

I started using 1/8” thick 6061 aluminum sheet.

Cut out 3 pieces, 2 sides and a bottom sized to

span the top tubes of the bike frame and reach

from the steering yoke to the tranny cowling cover.

2 half- funnel shaped tank sides were formed from
8” diameter6061 aluminum tubing. 6061 is not friendly to bend. It put up a real
tuff fight when I was bending the smaller end.

funnel shapes were welded and a strengthening cross member was added.

The estimated tank volume according to root will be approximately 5 gallons.
So, 5 gallons X 50 mpg = 250 miles per tank fill........






Next,

Diagonal cuts were made in the tube sections to accept hammer formed front right and left side domes.

Left dome was welded and the tank was set on the frame to check for fit.

Prolly going to be a while 'till this tank holds petro!