Adding a few thing to the frame to make it complete, a few blank spots Ive been wait til its apart to fill in. The one side with the mounting hole will be the brake stay rod mount. The other side the speedo cable can creep along inside out of sight.
These started life about a century ago as horse harnesses , I removed a lot of tabs & various gizmos and took a good bit off the surface to get past the rust pits. It took a bit, but the shape and inside webbing is so perfect, They were an awesome find.
Ive been welding & grinding a good bit on the frame & tank, nothing super photogenic. But this is. I made up a piece to fill the old speedo hole in the Harley hummer light housing and add the ignition switch to. While I was there I went around in circles about the other hole in the housing and what to use it for, or weld it up. Its a large hole, to large for a standard high beam indicator, and I didnt want a switch there.
I had bought some large marbles & crystals a while back to make weird things for the Tesla bike, I grabbed a marble & thought it would be neat to illuminate & use for a killer running light, or high beam indicator. It looks purdy.
Welded the tank a lot today, tomorrow is disassemble & grind on tank and frame day. I took a break tonite & worked on forming the leather for the seat. First cut the leather....
Trying to maintain the BSA sides & body line on the tank will be so worth it when done. It taking a bit of time. I lowered the speedo mount to frame level, may go down another 1/4" or so, not sure yet. filed a bit around the opening at frame to see what itll look like later, this should cool.
This bike has had me going forward backwards more then any other, an had more then a few interruptions.I rethought it out before my trip, came back with a clear head & in a good mode & started at it. There were a few thing bugging me about the rear frame, the lower bars I wanted to angle up a bit more, they looked a tad to close the level, I wasnt 100 percent happy with the chain line, and the spring seat I spent to long on, sucked to sit on. Also remembering something another friend told me about the keys, is everything not painted or powered will rust in a heartbeat. I thought about the seat I made, and that all the small springs would last about a season , or less....so that went in the pile.
Well this bike, for how simple it is, has had me scratching my head a good bit. Everytime I do something, Im not liking something else, the feng shui just never quite holds together. I mean, I have gone thru a Parsons seat, 2 Brooks saddles, made the springy seat..... now, well, we will see.
I made the Battery tray, so battery matches angles, finished stripping the tank shells inside & out, played musical handlebars for the last time, this time going back to square one & getting the stock (honda) upper parts for stock placement..... the whole time, staring at the bike.
I took away the seat, the rack, and tried to imagineer from a blank frame sort of. It kind of hit me like a brick last night what I will do. Itll be alot slicker & sleeker, not so busy as it was starting to get. Tomorrow night it will look a bit different I think.
Originally I was doing a single tank to hang under the frame. This would result in lose of the head steady. Ive run unit Triumphs with & without, its on ongoing arguement how needed they are. But after researching a bit on the BSA singles, Id be more comfortable running a second upper tube over the motor to mount to. Ill make twin tanks that will attach to the sides of the two upper tubes in the same shape.
I am glad the stock tank got cut apart to stretch , the inside looks to have had pretty good rust, and then cream sealed. Ill strip the inside as well down to clean metal before closing them up, then use Caswell Sealer, Im not a fan of cream any longer.
Time to clean up a LOT and regroup the troops.
This happens every few weeks where I have to clean up my messes to get back to a fresh start. Lately Im a bit more tired then I used to be when Im done and just go in, instead of cleaning each night like I used to.
Ive trying to decide how to do the rear seat. I had made the basic rack/seat a while back, but trying to mount it with out leaving much sign of it when removed was getting me, then I decided the rear foot pegs should be part of it as well, so the whole rear passenger area is one.
There is one main pin to pul in the front under the main seat. then lift strait up and off. The pegs will be wrapped in leather same as the frt pegs and grips.
I got the front mount for the rear rack made, Itl will have a removable pin in the front for releasing it from the bike. The side supports Im working on, they include the passenger foot pegs as well, all in one unit, so when the racks removed, the rear pegs are gone with it.
I started to play with the exhaust, we are tring to retain some original BSAness on the bike, & I think the BSA muffler & heat shield goes well with the bike. Need to massage a couple things, and change to tail on the muffler, but itll be perfect i think.
Also made the seat stops that sit under the spring cups.. Now Im back up front on the bars, again. The one set I liked mounted to the side of the front end, but there was not enough strength one the sheetmetal fork sides to support them, then I made some that went over the top of front end & down and out, like clubman style, that look horrible, but now I have a solution, itll be neat.
Previously I had used a couple bushings and spacers on the neck & bearing cups, it worked well, but its been eating me. I removed the upper & lower neck/bearing cup parts from the Honda Dream that the front end is from & added them to the BSA neck this gave it the correct neck length from top to bottom , & allowed me to just use the stock Honda Races, Balls, and cups. Much better I think. I also installed the steering stop.
Now onto handler bar set 3.0.
Well Im back from the Holiday break and some other things that needed done.
First on the list was to make the front wheel work with the Fork. Originally I was going to use the Honda Dream front hub & lace the 21" rim to it. That way it would bold right on the the Dream Front end. I decided last minute I wasnt liking the less stopping power factor, or the none matching hub sizes, so I gave Matt the BSA front hub to lace to the rim, and threw caution to the wind.
Well today was figure out how to make that work day. I reduced the axle size on one end, then the wheel hub didnt want to clear the Dreams sheet metal fork leg on one side, so I trimmed it a bit, then took apart the shock to flip the lower section to clear a nut , and finally got room for things to work, a little cleaning up on the cuts, and itll be good.
Then I was looking for the BSA axle nut, I looked through every place it should have been, and then all the other places. Then I went to get the nut off another 441 here, and WHAT?! I slapped myself in the forehead. The lower fork leg on the BSA is threaded & there is no nut. I kill me sometimes. Of course its a reverse British thread on the axle, so theres no finding one of those around anytime soon, so I cut off the lower tip of the bsa tube. Its a big chunk of metal, so at least I can shape it into something cool looking.
Not much to see, but its all I got picture wise for tonite.