A Day Late and a Small Fortune Short

I have 3 huge projects I have to get out of the way before continuing with the Bonneville bike. One is going to take some time having already taken 2 years already but that one isn't going to hold up progress in and of it's self. the other 2 are coming together fairly quickly and my hope (misguided though it may be) is too have them done and out of the way by the end of February march tops. I have a real fire under my ass to get the bike on the salt this year and to do that I need to have it finished by June at the latest for ample shale down before making the investment in getting it all out to Utah.This doesn't mean I have not been making progress on the bike however. I have been doing work on the final drive and rear swingarm as well as researching ideas for the streamlining and bodywork.

Happy Festivus!

Another Huge Distraction

I realize my last post was over 3 months ago (OUCH!) but I've been wrapped up in something that has been taking far too much of my time and when it's not sapping my free time it's destroying my motivation to work on anything. Long story but suffice it to say stay tuned. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly (I hope).

Oh and it looks like Google is putting ads in my blog even though I have them turned off. You will be advertised to whether you like it or not.  

Another Little Distraction

Not Christmas this time. I have enough Old Triumph motorcycle  parts floating around my shop to come very close to building a complete running bike (I think). A few months ago I started assembling said parts to see about actually building a bike. I have a Ceriani 45mm road race front end I salvaged off of a 1987 GSXR750 super bike that was raced by my friend Larry at the Isle of Mann before he decided that all that was crazy business and he wanted nothing to do with it. Years ago I machined the parts to mount that front end onto a 1977 OIF Bonneville frame and tonight I made a brake disk carrier to mount a KTM 310mm semi floating rotor to an 19 inch alloy Suzuki wheel. The rotor had to be offset enough so that the Brembo Gold line 4 pot caliper would clear the spokes. In the picture the rim and hub are a bit weathered and the spokes are completely rusted. Once all is mocked up this wheel will go to Buchannan's Spoke and Rim for polishing and new stainless steel spokes. All this really should be in another blog but one is turning out to be too many for me, so here it is.

The Next Big Thing.

 
 

This Time I think I got It Right (CDI Diesel mockup)

The is the first transmission adapter plate I made from Aluminum. It worked but there were things I wanted to correct and a few features I wanted to add.the 2 major problems with ut was that the holes were not quite right. I modeled them in Solidworks by measuring with a caliper and the were a little off. for the new plate I got the hole locations by scanning the points with the Romer CMM arm and that was far more accurate. the other problem with the old plate was that there weren't enough mounting points for components. there is no sub-frame on this bike and things like body work battery, tanks, accessories have to mount to something. So I added a number of threaded holes that framework or parts can be securely bolted to. This includes that method for the main motor mounts which you will see later.

Cutting the 3/4 6061-T651 aluminum stock to size on the table saw.

Movable fixture plates with 1/2-13 threaded holes I made from 3/4 mic6 cast aluminum fixture plate to extend clamping holes out to the edges of the bed. Much more versatile.

The Best way to see whether the edge of you part will fit inside the stock you have is to mount a Sharpe in a collet and create a center line tool path to have the machine plot the outline.

The part just fits with the piece of aluminum I have.

There are 44 drilled holes in the part. 39 of them are tapped with either a M8x1.25 or M6x1thread. Thanks to the FSM for ridged tapping in the VMC. all 39 holes drilled and tapped in under 6 minutes. I could have pushed it a little faster but I live in fear of breaking taps. It's a fast way to scrap a part. Sometimes you can recover, but often when the tap snaps it can slightly move the work piece and that throws every subsequent operation out coordinate wise. Even if it doesn't move the part you still have a broken tap in one of your holes and they can be difficult to get out without damaging the aluminum around it. Either way it's ugly.

Here is the first op done. All holes drilled and tapped, the center cut out (and I was able to save the center piece for a later part). Now to flip the part over and do the counter bores, the outside contour and champhers and the reliefs over the M6 holes.

I had made a fixture plate for the first adapter plate I made and it was still good for this one. There are 2 12mm dowel pins on the back of the motor bell housing that locate the transmission and I cut those in the front side of the part so that I could use them to locate the part when I flipped it over. The fixture plate also had 16mm dowels that align it with the center slot of the machine table the center of which we know is located at Y-9.222. once mounted there is a center hole that allows easy indication for the X offset and set the Z once the part is clamped down to the plate and off we go.

Details of the thread, and champher details.

The Finished plate

The new plate (right) next to the original

The new plate mounted to the back of the test engine. It fits perfectly and with the extra mounting surfaces will be much better than the original design.

 With the Transmission mounted.

Not the final placement, but engine and transmission assembly resting roughly in place for perspective.

My Shop Wins No Awards For Organization

To hold the bottom frame tubes exactly where they should be I cut 2 pieces of 1x3" steel wide enough to clear the frame tubes and then some. I scribed a center line then measured where the center of the tubes should be on either side of the center line. these 1x3 tubes measured almost exactly 3 inches and the frame tubes were modeled parallel to the ground and exactly 3" to the bottom of the tubes. So I milled a couple of tabs with a 1-3/8" end mill to make saddles to locate the tubes on top of the 1x3's. In the Bridgeport it was easy to get the depth accurate and scribe a line to line up with the locating lines I had scribed on the 1x3's. once the saddles were tack welded to the 1x3's I measured the distance from the front swing arm pivot and with the large square located the 1x3's on the frame jig. All in all it is very well lined up.

Jiggin

 JD2 model 32 bender (hint It Rocks!)
P.S. Scott you laughed at my stand.
It will kick your hossfields ass!

I hate building fixtures. It really is a necessary evil. Without a jig the chances of a weldment coming out straight or proper is almost nil. especially with a frame like this the jig is a way to lay everything out with flat and square references. in fact it would e very hard to measure the angles and relative positions of the tubes without the jig. I designed the jig in solidworks to the frame model. With reference geometry that is spaced at whole inch increments it is very easy to create and locate fixture parts even with a tape measure and have a finished frame that is functionally very close to the model. I hate making Jigs. I know there aren't any pictures of the fixture here (I will get to them now that I have an idea if how I'm going to do it) but I spent most of the day trying different ideas out in CAD and now will start making the parts..

Main Frame Tubes Together

Assembling the frame Part 1

Test Assembling the (Difazio) Hub Center

All the parts laid out.

The front Axle and Pivot pressed
together but not welded yet