Daytona 200: Rare and Unpublished LIFE Magazine photos

For years, from its inception in 1937 until the early ’60s, the prestigious Daytona 200 motorcycle race wasn’t merely run at Daytona Beach. Along with other high-speed, high-risk clashes, the 200 was run on Daytona Beach.
In 1948, LIFE magazine covered the races, both amateur and pro, at Daytona (the Road Course opened in 1936) and reported, in its April 19 issue, that “for four days last month the resort city of Daytona Beach could hardly have been noisier — or in more danger — if it had been under bombardment.”

Read more: http://life.time.com/culture/daytona-motorcycle-madness-1948/#ixzz1r6ab2ZdB

Rolling Chassis!

Just been working away on this stuff... New neck bearings, polished caliper and drilled rotor, rear break assembly back together, handle bars and triple trees painted and assembled:

 I"m really happy with the way its looking, and I think the 4" stretch and 2" drop from the stock frame will be perfect for my height. I also think once the engine is dropped in the forks should come down a little and level the bottom of the frame out.

Amazing Weather Has Caused Me to Work Overtime!

What a beautiful March we're having in South Bend. Its crazy to think that we're not only experiencing temps in the 70's, but its been consistent for the past week and wont stop anytime soon! All this gorgeous weather has forced me to kick this project into high gear. I've been getting my thrills from my Kawasaki Gpz 1100, but man I would love to take a cruze on black beauty :)

I hope you enjoy the photos as I have not been able to create any "how to" vids lately.

Drilling the rotor was fun, lol I should say time consuming... I'll have to post a video of that sometime soon though.

 Front rim before:

After, with tire mounted.

Front and rear tires mounted! :)

Egg Salad from Chad DeRosa on Vimeo.

Gratuitous Engine Shots

Making Progress

Making progress on the bike without buying anything has been hard. My bobber fund has run dry and there are still crucial parts that need to be bought. I'm making due with little things here and there that must be done but haven't contributed much to the assembly.

Front end is painted and reassembled:

I was also able to finish grinding down metal on the frame that was useless (old tank bungs and wiring hooks). I was also able to work up a set of drag bars from the stock handle bars (money saver too)

Cut the bars apart

Welded them back together

 polished a side cover... yawn*

Biggest thing right now is getting a front tire, front and rear tubes, and new neck bearings. Once I have those items I just might have a rolling chassis together in the next few weeks. :)

Hardtailed

I was able to have the hardtail welded by a real nice guy who had experience with motorcycle frames in Nappanee. Progress is still going steady, and I'm definitely on track to have a rolling chassis soon. I hope to have the front forks back together soon and purchase tubes and tires.

 As you can see from looking at the photos, a significant amount of metal needed to be removed from the stock frame in order to add the hardtail section. The previous owner had already chopped off most of the stock rear section, but grinding down the metal to the main frame was still about a 8 hour job.

I was very happy with the end result. The welds look very nice, and all frame lines were measured and squared before welding. Clamping and squaring it took longer than the welding, but the whole process was maybe 3 hours total.