Project Dolores: Got the exhuast mounted. Then blew a tire. Then began teardown!

holler if you need help man, I'll be helping out rod while he is playing with mickey mouse so you are welcome to come up there, I might even get a little something something to cut on here real soon

here is something for the lights

http://aztec8.com/

Nice.

Cool stuff over there nick. Their 7 inch headlight bucket looks about like mine, so I'll just keep the light I've got on the 72.
Now those 5 3/4 dual lights might make their way onto my goldwing's front end sometime in the future... They are sick as hell.

I love the lights from that company

So today I made my headlight ears! I also finished up some wiring and other misc. stuff. The ears only took about an hour. Here are some pics.
My cardboard template.

I locked some aluminum in the vice and went to town with the hack saw.

One of the ears cut out and ground down with a rotozip.

Next I bent the ears up around the forks and mounted them to make sure everything sat where I wanted.

Once I looked at it mounted I decided that tomorrow I'm going to cut them down a little to tighten the headlight in to the forks.

Before I shut it down for the night I cleaned my wiring back up, mounted my switches and MC back to my bars, and routed the cable for my speedo and brake lines.


My shorter clutch cable should be arriving in the next seven days. The throttle cables will be next week sometime. Stupid slow shipping! The last thing I did tonight was to pull the tank and tail back off of the bike and put them on my work table for tomorrow(hopefully). Also tomorrow I'm going to fabricate a wicked aluminum bracket to relocate my ignition switch to under the tank. I'll also be taking the trimmed headlight ears to a bud's place to sandblast them. After that they'll get some flat clear coat to match them up to the rest of the raw aluminum on the front end. Looks like the bike will be done for the show. Depending on time constraints I may put the orange tins back on for the show, but my goal is to have her wearing her new tank and colors.
My buddy Brandon bought a 73 cb350 four this weekend. It's complete, clean, and original. I took it for a ride this afternoon and that little thing was a lot of fun. I think he'll end up restoring it because he's already got his own cafe racer project going on. I've been trying to get him to sign up here and start posting. Hopefully his new bike will get him over here finally!

350 Fours are rare.

Nice work. Aluminum is so nice to work with like that... I wish it was easier to weld.

its easy to tig not easy to mig

heli-arc is the only way to weld aluminum for me.

mig is really only good for the big structural stuff, and by that I mean a spool gun. we heli-arc everything in the feild just easier and cleaner

I can't afford a high freq tig or heli ark.

hey we all know that torch welds are just as strong

deviant im impressed shes gonna look sick, cant wait till we can roll again

Thanks Clint! Won't be long. I got some stuff done last night, but I didn't have time to take pics so I'll probably post up last night's and tonight's work at once.

nickestes wrote:hey we all know that torch welds are just as strong

Just not quite as pretty, unless you are really good at it.

you know its a joke, way too much accumulated heat and not enough penetration

That's what she said.

A little more progress over here. The finished ears are on the bike. I shortened them about 1 1/2" which turned out to be as far as it is possible to bring the headlight in. Any more and I would have had to throw the ears out and make a new set! Here are some pics of the ears. They were sandblasted and sprayed with flat clear before being installed.


I also began the arduous task of cleaning and polishing my motor. Dolores has always been a dirty girl, but I figure if I'm going to show her she needs to be shiny and clean. I only got a little bit done tonight before my wife came outside and gave me the "Aren't you going to come inside?" eyes. But here is a pic of what I did. The second pic is for side by side comparison of before and after.


I'm still working on my ignition relocation as it will require a trip to West Marine in Orange beach to continue with it. Here's a teaser shot for ya though. The piece will be lightened or "speed drilled" then sandblasted, then sprayed with flat clear and mounted to the frame rails. The ignition will be tucked under the gas tank nice and neat!

Tomorrow is going to be a big work day and I hope to get a lot done. Hopefully I'll have a nice update!

Bustin yer ash are we?

Good thing it's doubtful we will both be in the same class. Otherwise I might be a bit apprehensive.....

looking good deviant, I'm hoping to start soon on my project when all this stuff slows down

Start now Nick. If you wait for things to slow down you'll never do it. I've been working 80 hour weeks lately. I go work on my bike because it's what I love doing.

Got a little bit more work done. I've been working on the tank, getting it ready for paint. Almost there! I'll probably be painting the tail tonight or tomorrow afternoon. I got the ignition relocated! The aluminum plate that I was using just looked too nasty, so I started sanding it. I sanded it at 180 grit, then 220. Then it was starting to look pretty shiney so I said "What the hell?" and began to polish it. I found the aluminum on the side of the road here in gulf shores. Someone was throwing away an almost full 4 X 8 sheet of it! It's pretty heavily oxidized and pitted though, so there are some small pitts left after the polishing, but you don't really notice it unles you remove the tank. I attached the bracket to the frame using conduit brackets that I bent, trimmed and painted to make work. The brakets are painted with spray-on bedliner for durability and texture. Here are the pics.




I've been working on some other little things as well. I'm still waiting on 2002xlh to come one over so he can help me with the front brake (Dude has loads of experience with brakes!). I've been fiddling with the wiring a little bit too, and waiting for cables to come in. I hope to have some paint layed tonight. I've still got to finish cleaning the whole bike and I'm sure there are a few other things I'm leaving out...

well I have a full time job, plus the shop, and I bounce at a bar 4 nights a week. I have to wait for things to slow down

deviant awesome job dude on the fab, get up with me some time this week dude and ill help you with whatever, id like to see you ride this weekend