Better Mistakes

Battery box tray: Check.
Electronics housing: Check.
Gas tank. Check.
Wiring harness. Wait what?

I've been working diligently on the bike, wish I could say the same about the blog... What can I say, the work is going really well. Thanks to my recent sale of my other bike (Ugly Betty 1976 XS650) I was able to generate some more funds for the essentials. A beautiful ribbed mustang 3.3 gal gas tank from Lowbrow Customs, clutch and brake controls, throttle control, new seat springs, gas cap, and tank fittings. Shes really starting to look like a bike now.

I just have to figure out the wiring... yikes.

Born Free 4 is Comming Up!

 License plate frame! I just traced a template from a license plate, then added some freehand tabs for the axle and stop/running light.

 Here I'm grinding down the edges to my sharpie marks

 Bend it into shape

 Cut a hole for the axle and we're ready to go. I ordered the brake light so it should be coming in the next week or so. Hopefully the circle I cut out for the light is going to be big enough, I didn't have a measurement, but that can be tweaked after the light arrives. (fingers crossed)

 So as I'm lining things up, I discover the rear brake rod is not long enough to accommodate the 4 inches of stretch that was put on the bike when it was hard tailed. I'm sure there are many ways to go about fixing this. My buddie Dru and I thought the best way was to cut some steel stock, drill a hole down the center, and weld it all back together. Crude, I know but after the line is painted it'l hardly be noticeable. The section that was spliced was strategically located behind the brake stay and frame rail.

 Here you can see the welded piece in action. Tucked in just behind the rear frame support. I'm hoping it doesn't look too ugly lol.

We set the battery box in there just for looks to see if all my clearances are ok. Its gonna be tight but I'm ok with that.

Next step should be to mount the new "fake oil tank" that I purchased to house all of the electronics. Mount the gas tank, wire it up, weld the battery box mounts, workout the footpegs, and try to get her runnin'. I'm getting so close I can feel it!

Yay the solo seat finally came in the mail. I cannibalized a piece from the old center stand to use as the mount for the front of the seat. My lovely wife bought me the spring pegs for my birthday. I'll let the pictures do the talking because there's really not much to say else to say.

Not much to report on lately. I was able to knock out some foot peg supports, and markup a template for the license plate bracket. Hopefully more to come soon :)

I think I just had one of the most productive Monday nights I've had this year! My buddy Drew and Greg really lent a hand and threw back a few with me. Having good help can really speed up the process.

 Brackets for the rear fender that were welded to the frame and screwed to the fender.

 More brackets to go over the top of the fender brace.

 Bracket and brace all tightened down and looking pretty good. I think we must have spent an hour just on lining things up and trying to make the fender spacing and centering look decent.

Final product looking pretty good on the bike if I do say so myself :D