Idiot v. Motorbikes, Rounds 3, 4, and 5

[melville]

Yeah, bit of a slow winter as far as bike progress goes. Ernst is still in pieces and Edgar has just been a local errand and day trip bike. This summer I should have HVAC in the big shop which will make life so much better in there.

Edgar was grounding (lightly) the sidestand in left turns. I had a look and it was being held out by a buggered centerstand spring. I pulled the centerstand as it seemed both springs were buggered and I only had one new spare. Some discoveries along the way, starting with one of the buggered springs:



Then the stand and hardware:



Those screws are SAE, look like 7/16-24, and those are not OEM bushings. I'm not the first one to touch this. Also, someone laid a weld bead on the curved part of the stand. Looks like a coldish weld that they left standing proud. But it doesn't continue all the way to the feet. So today's mission was to add some material to the feet.

A little surface prep:



Some ugly oxyacetylene welding:



Some clean-up:



I'm the guy who sat on Santa's knee and asked for a welder. Santa said, "I've seen your welds. You're getting a grinder for Christmas!"

Finally, some paint:



Done for today. I'll be making a modest parts order for Ernst soon and will also get some centerstand springs so I can remount the stand. It feels wrong to leave an Airhead on the sidestand, even if the rings are in great shape and there's no smoke out the left side on startup.

It was finally time to get the centerstand back on. It would have been nice a couple weeks ago when I needed to pull the rear wheel for a new tire (something like 9K miles on a Michelin Road Classic and the front tire is only halfway worn at that mileage) but my son and I picked the bike up with an engine crane and held it up with a jackstand overnight.

I used the 'penny' method again. Ten pennies per spring looks like the right number. Start with the coils next to the long straight run and then it's just an easy SNAP to get the end of the spring on the centerstand.

New gal is looking forward to her Pillion Audition! Edgar will be mostly doing local bips and bimbles this year while I get Ernst back up and running.

[melville]

Ernst (my R75/6) is running again and has cleaned out my play money account for a bit. I'll be doing low budget stuff with an eye to hearing Elvis run this year. Not sure if I'll be able to do enough to make Elvis street legal this year.

Meanwhile in the shop, my son has claimed the repair plinth:



Something something Brown Connector something. He's got just the one bike, so he's motivated to get it done.

With the plinth occupied, it was time to play with carburetors:



As usual, I've written down the various jet sizes and the amount of needle sticking out. Not that that doesn't have its own challenges. Aging sucks:



This is how I handle restaurant menus these days, too.

Anyway, I'll update with various bits 'n' bobs as they happen.

[melville]

OK, here's the formal start to Elvis. I'm a bit between funds right now but there's plenty of low budget stuff to do with an eye toward hearing the motor roar and getting some subsystems (electrics and wheels for a couple) ready for prime time. First, here's the situation today:



I've always felt that the Airhead frame outwardly resembled the Norton Featherbed, as seen here on a 1951 Manx (image lifted from Kevin Cameron's The Grand Prix Motorcycle):



Here's a simpler pic:



That pic is of a Wideline (early) Featherbed which I think is a closer match to the Airhead frame. For contrast, here's a Slimline:



Anyway, my inspiration here is to make a Feathairhead cafe racer. Various hybrids emerged in the 1960s in Rocker culture in the UK, like Triton:



NorVin:



And this beast:



I've been saving up some inspiration:



Little bits 'n' bobs that caught my eye, like the seat and tail section on this Guzzi LSR bike:



Looks like a good place to put the taillight and license plate, and room to hide the electrics. I don't like the plate mounted sideways on the rear axle like a lot of folks do.

Norton did a lot of bikes with all the cycle parts painted the same color:



I've lost track of where I saw an all-red Dominator from the late '50s but I'm thinking I'd like to do a red frame and other bits like this Magni-BMW:



Kinda like I started with that red Dominator for making the Beemton. Or is it a NorBeem?

Starting with a highly incomplete bike that has already been modified gives me a lot of freedom. The rear subframe was shortened about 3":



And the muffler mounts have already been cut off:



I'll be building it with clip-ons and I'm repurposing a lower triple as an upper and making it shiny and smooth because it's going to be a focal point. I'm partway through the mods on that:



I'd like to leave that BMW roundel in place but it may not work aesthetically trying to keep the sides symmetrical.

Anyway, I'm just having some fun here and as much as I'd like to have a bike out of this my main focus is growing some fabrication skills. Stuff with torches and hammers, mostly. As always, I burn the candle at neither end so it may be a while between updates.

[melville]

I played about a little bit today. First, I wanted to see if I could, by one means or another, get the frame to sit like a Featherbed, where the horizontal elements are pretty much horizontal, as seen here:



So I put a shim under the rear wheel to level it with the chock up front and then removed the rear shock bolts and raised the bike until it looked nearly right:



Looks like about 2" does it:



Now digging back to freshman Geometry, that 2" can come from the front or the back or a combination of the two. I expect a bit will come from raising the fork tubes in the triples as my plan for the upper won't have a stop on it like stock or a San Jose triple.

Moving on to 10th grade Trigonometry, that 2" will make the head tube almost 2 degrees steeper. That may be a bit much without changing the fork offset but if I frighten myself riding it, it's easy enough to reverse things toward stock dimensions. I do expect to mount a proper steering damper as part of this project.

That bit of curiosity settled, I then removed all the janky wiring (bullet connectors on a BMW????) so I can start from scratch building a harness. Here's where things stand this afternoon:



Next up is installing the starter and charging system and securing the motor in the frame. Presently the motor is loose on the mounting studs and there are no spacers 'twixt motor and frame. As well as no nuts on the studs and no footpegs. Somewhere in my stash I have a couple /5-/7 footpegs.

Things I'm casually looking for at this time include a clutch lever and switches as fitted to 1975 to 1978 Airheads and I think a 1981 and up Airhead brake/throttle/switch set as working with stock BMW bits has much appeal. I am favoring a handlebar mounted master cylinder as that will simplify using AP-Lockheed calipers up front like the Butler & Smith bikes used in the first Superbike championship.

[melville]

Bits and pieces on Elvis, just doing little stuff while gathering bits. One bit gathered was this Briel (?) sump extension:



I'm prepping it and the sump right now. It was short a couple bolts, so I bought a whole set and had to give them the Mel treatment:



Left is how they came, right is Mellified.

I built a fixture which will eventually be useful for various Airhead covers, sumps and whatnot:



There was a painting event:



There will be a bit more to do on that one and the extension. All will be revealed eventually.

I also removed the turkey gobbler and installed a reed valve. Some difficulty getting it out, as I pulled the pin out of it to start. I tried tapping it but that wasn't doing it, either:



I ended up cutting the center bit out with a Dremel and then used my blind puller effectively:



All snugged up:



The motor is secure in the frame, finally. The 9mm spacers fit all four corners:



Other bits included mounting the diode board. Next steps will be putting the sump and extension back on, and starting to build a wiring harness. It should be simpler than stock, and of course I'll be using DIN wire colors.

[melville]

Bits and pieces. The money tree is bearing fruit, but at the same time my actual usable vehicles are calling dibs on that fruit. Still, plenty of low budget fun to be had. I finished processing the sump and sump extension:



Installing the extension was a bit of an adventure, as the extension goes on first, then the oil pickup and its extension, then the sump can go on. Here's an intermediate step:



I hadn't pulled the filter yet, and I found some ignorance when I did:



Yes, that's a shim and O-ring as used on 1978 and newer Airheads. OMG. Elvis is a 1975 model. There's other hackery on this unit:



I checked the valve clearances. The exhausts were less than zero, intakes at .003". The negative exhaust clearance and this bit on the left side are kinda telling me that this bike will need head service more sooner than later:



The rocker is barely touching the edge of the valve stem. And there are washers under the rocker stands on the left exhaust, which looks like a hack to make the valve adjuster screw usable. I've contemplated a similar hack on ACVW to keep it going just a little longer. In good news, the motor turns over easily. And the rockers do sweep nicely across the valve stems

Back to doing low-cost work with the valve covers. They had both hit the ground a time or two:





And in for a final degreasing. Did I mention that I'm single?