Rupert's Rides

my shovel

2010-05-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

'75 FXE. 80" setup. 4 speed ratchet top trans.

torn down. rebuilding the trans due to a leak on the main shaft. Which caused the big puddle under the bike. Also going the way of the dodo eventually will be the solid disc wheel & spoked front in exchange for some actual spoked wheels, more than likely a 21/18 combo. lowering it. swapping out the tins, building a new rear fender, sectioning the front, blah blah blah. the usual...

it's shiny.

2010-05-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

2010-03-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

Elky

2010-03-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

C10 Hood

2010-01-03T14:41:00.001-08:00

Sectioned a C10 hood. No finished bodywork done on it other than roughing in the metal work, then it got rattle canned to protect it over winter. That's it.

Sectioned Hood & truck finished in general.

2009-10-23T20:50:00.001-07:00

As it sounds. Did a truck - fixed the cab, doors, etc. Painted it. Then it was decided to sectionthe hood on it (after I had already fixed & painted it, the decision was made to section it. Funny how that works. )

Anyway.

body mount hell

2009-08-13T22:06:00.001-07:00

did the body mounts on the '62. Fronts were rotted away completely...along with the inner rocker, floor, inner kick panel, etc.

Excuse the pictures. Too lazy to swing the DSLR, used the crap cell phone, but whatever.

Old body mounts were completely rotted away. So I did the ol bust out the portapower, jack up the body, cut the old out one, patch the floor, patch the frame where needed (thankfully only one small spot), patch the inner rocker's bracing, patch the inner rocker, then coat it all with chassis black, then stab in and weld in the body mount. then seam seal that pig, then slather THAT in chassis black.

Anyway.
Rot after removing the body mount. Suck.

What was left of the inner rocker after removing the body mount. nice, huh?

Pile of shit from removing said body mount. Fun stuff. Pipe wrench is laying there as I was using it to smack the hell out of the body mount to get the crap out... in hopes of keeping the junk from falling into my eyes while removing the body mount. Didn't work, for what it's worth.

new body mount. all pretty pretty. LMC's.

Anyway. They're all in. Solid. Done & overwith. Thankfully.

XS, panel, whatever.

2009-07-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated for crap in a while.

Long story short I wound up piecutting and bending the stock rails. Didn't like it or the seat position, so I completely cut the seat rails out and further lowered the existing uprights another half inch or so. Then I bent up some drop seat tubes using the HF 'Kinker' and some 7/8" .125" wall DOM tubing. Kinker works great once modified. Fabricated a new set of followers rather than the cheap crap rollers they include. Tweaked the dies a bit...and the damn thing bends without kinking. Tight too. I can get 90 degrees out of it without issue. Past 90 as well with a bit of finesse. Can't beat it for the price.

Anyway. Skipping around a touch here's a couple pictures.

rails cut out. welding rod bend up to mock up my new seat tubes.

Bent up and burned in the first seat rail. The 'spacer' is slugged, rosette and butt welded. Strength won't be an issue. The rails are fish mouthed and welded to the 'spacer' and fully welded to the back bone of the frame.

Then bent up and burned in the other rail. They look 'off' as the frame is asymmetrical... next time I'll just build my own damn shock mounts & supports, but this is the easy way out and it actually doesn't look too bad. Once everything gets molded in and I weld in some dimple died plates...should be slick.

bends done with the kinker. Note.. the distinct lack of kink.

One of my welds. I just quick dressed 'em with a roloc. once the fab is done it'll be sand blasted and I'll mold everything in so it doesn't have to be pretty pretty...but they aren't too bad anyway.

Got the one mid control mounted up. More comfortable than it looks. honestly. Plus my ass will be a solid inch or so up higher once I get the seat pan on and padded. I ain't worried about. Bent up half a handle bar with the scrap I had laying around. Was originally plannning on a 10.25" set of mini's... decided on a set of 8.5" tall instead.

Oh. and the LS2 got stabbed in the panel truck. Gotta replace the front body mounts on that, then finish up some other little things and then all the metal work is done and it's just a matter of finishing up the bitch. Definitely be a nice truck once she's all done.

Also cut apart and re-did the hood, just because. GTO tach pod stayed. Hood scoop shrunk and became *very* '67 427 Corvette-esque.

XS650 shit

2009-07-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

As it sounds. Got around to getting XS pictures off the camera. Outdated as I now have the seat rails cut out, bent up new tubes for a drop seat and got that in, but... whatever. Shows the direction it's going.

Tomorrow if I have motivation I'll make the call on whether or not I'll run the frisco'd sporty or a standard sporty. If I go standard I'll fab up some quickie bungs and weld those into the frame after cutting out and welding in the new gussets as the stock one is horrid. Shock mounts also been moved an inch lower. And it'll be getting cut off and a new one welded up 1" back on the swingarm. Again. Saves me from buying either a cheap (overpriced) lowering kit or running a set of shorties. Goal is to have less than $700 into the pig. So far I'm at... $165. So.. I've got a crap ton of space left. Which covers steel stock for the pipes, the gasket kit on the way to rebuild the motor. Steel stock if I feel like being unlazy and fabricating my own internal throttle. New tires. set of used 34mm slider carbs. Whatever.

Also this isn't the tank being used. It's a junker I keep floating around I flaked as a demo a while back. Comes in handy. Real handy. I still might say F it and section the sporty tank I've got floating around for this bastard. That or at the least fill the center filler and move it to the upper right side of the tank. *shrug* depends on how bored / drunk I get tomorrow.

Forks have been final thrown together now. Wound up pulling another quarter inch out of the springs, making it a 1 3/4" drop spring with a 2" spacer I turned up. Sits nice. With no spring in the legs I can compress the legs fully and I still have a ~2" air gap between the lower tree and top o the tire. Works for me.

Got a chunk of 7/8" tubing coming to bend up a set of my own mini-apes. They'll be just as wide as my mid controls and sit at 11.25" tall. Just to be able to say I've got 11.25" apes and mind F people, because I'm nice like that. Or I still might say F it and run a 1" bar... but that'd require buying new controls..and I'm cheap. And lazy as I already have a couple sets of 7/8" controls kicking around. This is the 'shit bike' afterall. I haven't decided yet..but I'm leaning towards 7/8" and the junk ruber isolated stock risers. Again. They're cheap. I'm lazy. They work. So screw it.

XS650 crap.

2009-06-28T17:37:00.001-07:00

Anyway. Work continues on the XS650 bar hopper. It's a "Bratstyle Shop" influenced build, mixing Japanese and conventional American Chopper techniques and styles. Real tight geometry, narrow bars, mid controls, etc.

Tore the forks apart as I needed to replace a few seals. Which turned into an "as long as I'm in there" thing... I cut 1.5" out of the main spring, fabricated a spacer for the lower and set it up to preload the spring - (firms it up in other words) and threw 'em back together. Still have to turn the legs and shave some of the excess mounts, but internally lowering and rebuilding the forks are one more check mark crossed off the list.

Still gotta build a seat pan and finish welding up the new seat rails, but I've been feeling too damn lazy for that lately.

Also started ripping down on one of the possible tanks for it. Standard Sporty tank - frisco mounted. Might section and narrow it, length and width wise. Depends on how unlazy I feel.

Did start the metal work for the rear fender. Still unsure of how I'll finish it. Just building the blank. I might wind up welding in the hood spear from a '60-'66 Chevy truck into the tank and then welding in two spears that'll match into the fender. Or just saying F it, and cutting up one of the '36 Ferd spare tire rings I've got kicking about and going the 'easy' way out and forgoing the spear on the tank. At this point.. who the hell knows.

It does have a name though... which is a start for me. The Zombie Runner. Think greens, reds, blues and purple candies over chunky flake.

Pictures... whenever I get off my ass and take some.

Until then.. this is the kind of crap I'm talking about. And that reminds me.. I definitely need to cut out and redo the gussets. The stock ones are ugly.

And I'll leave you with a coupla nice Harley 45"ers. My latest kick. Gotta love 'ol junk'.

2009-06-28T17:33:00.000-07:00

Remember folks - always block your wheels and double check everything when working under a car on jack stands. Good friend of mine did everything properly - and unfortunately the unforeseen happened that caused the car to fall off the stands crushing and killing him. You may be gone, but you certainly aren't forgotten Jason. Rest in Peace man.

fender work

2009-06-07T00:00:00.001-07:00

As it sounds. Did a bunch of metal work to save a fender.

Obviously I'm skipping over a *lot* of stuff and not explaining anything, but deal with it. It went from a rusted out hunk of crap.. to a clean piece.

Caved Tank

2009-06-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Suppose I'll start it off with a caved tank I just did. Hindsight says it would have been easier to cut & flip then reweld the sides...but whatever. This was done by beating the sides in with a ball peen hammer, a hell of a lot of patience and some flat out f'ing luck. I did everything on it (saved for the dish tank & redoing the rear fender, internal struts, etc) last year. I sectioned and chopped the snot out of (and lowered... a lot) the front fender, resprayed it, chopped the rear fender, built the old external struts, etc. last summer. This was the 'change up' for this summer.

Anyway. Start by beating the shit out of it.

Then continue beating the shit out of it. You'll wind up with something closer to this.
Then continue beating the shit out of it. For a hell of a long time. Then do the other side.

Skip forward a shit ton of work, and throw it into epoxy primer to see what you wind up with. Hopefully something along the lines of this. In truth I did resort to using a skim coat of filler. There was no way I was going to take the time to make the dish 100% metal finished out, as this bike gets POUNDED. Rode hard and put away wet is putting it nicely. Anyway.

White epoxy. She wasn't 100% at that point, but at least I could see easier what little spots needed tweaking. And yeah. I propped it up on jackstands, so sue me. It works. I had other stuff (actually IN paint) on my stands.

Skipping forward, I finally put the thing into black base coat. HD's vivid black.. tweaked. Then I set about doing the silver leaf inlay in the dish on either side. I hadn't done leaf in a *long* ass time so I had to relearn. Obviously still all smeared from my grubby paws, the leafing process and such..but.

Then I masked the inlay. Threw about 9 coats of candy brandywine over it, unmasked and cleared the whole thing. With a hell of a lot of clear to kill the edge. Excuse the crap photos. Most were shot with a cell as I've become too lazy to drag around my DSLR.

Anyway. That lead to. I redid the rear fender at the same time as well. Right off the gun. Also fabricated a set of internal struts for it, among other tweaks. Came out pretty slick overall and really changed the look of the bike. I'll have to take some finished shots with the DSLR...one o these days.