Well – that is the plan at least ! 🙂
With “Oily Purple” on the road and running well, it was time to start work on one of the two sequentially numbered bikes. These are about 3000 frame numbers younger than the purple bike, but share the same early style frame design having the tubing welded into large cast lugs for the engine mounts, the two bolt side stand, no centre cross brace behind the radiator, the welded tubes for mounting the rear signal lights, and the poorly designed combination rear brake pivot/foot peg perch.
The xx153 frame seemed to be in better shape, so I decided to start with xx152. This had been poorly repaired in the area of the brake pivot/foot peg mount at some point with blow throughs and loads of weld splatter. The end of the post was badly damaged such that a foot peg would not even fit, but after an hour of careful filing, I did manage to clean it up. Just ‘click’ on any of the photos to see a larger image. As well, the upper rear shock mount threads were stripped and so those would have to be repaired. It is good to know your limitations, and both of these repairs exceeded my skill/comfort level, so after stripping the frame I will cart it off to Trillion Industries here in town where Derek can work his magic.
An examination of the rest of what was there yielded a lot of scrap, however the forks, wheels, headstock and a handful of other components looked to be salvageable. In my stash of stock piled bits I had a couple of fuel tanks to choose from, a seat, both front and rear fenders, good side covers. a radiator, the cooling fan, a complete and correct airbox, headlamp with the horseshoe chrome rim, plus several wire harnesses and assorted electrical bits sufficient to get the project done. I assembled a bit of this together as a ‘test’ build and the result does resemble a motorcycle.
The next step then was to take it all apart again, remove the engine and do an assessment of what it will need and start to farm out bits for powder coating, chrome and paint. And as well of course , get the frame over to Derek for repair. The other thing I still need to so is to sort through the bolts and fittings I have and see what else needs to be plated. I normally take a couple of coffee cans full of bits in for bright zinc plating, but for this build will also be having some cadmium plating of the spokes done, as well as some nickel or chrome plating of a few of the correct fasteners, as they are difficult to find. I have considered using stainless copies of the originals, but as with all things, cost does start to become an issue.
More to come !