Disc side spacer continued

 Got down to the workshop for a couple of hours last night and drilled the holes for the disc side spacer.

At this point I am about to mill the counterbores for the cap head bolts to hold the spacer onto the wheel. Took ages to set up mostly because I'm still getting to know my mill.

Counter bores completed. I'm not sure I did them all to the same depth, I was getting tired and may have miscounted the  depth I'll check today and correct if necessary. 

Now I have everything set up I am hoping machining the pulley side will be less hassle.

Now a project sportster.

Now that the TriBSA has moved from 'project' status to 'work in progress' I have allowed the Sportster to fall into 'project' status without breaking the 'one project at a time' rule.

It started with a blowing head gasket. Should have been an afternoons work but a nut dropped in the cranck case scuppered that plan (and my chances of attending the DGR). 

I have got the nut out but not before removing the engine and half stripping it. As is often the case things have escalated and I now have a set of Andrews N4 cams to fit, behind a chopped cam cover. I also have a XR syle seat unit to fit.

A Mikuni performance carb may make an appearance before I get back on the road.

Oh and I've decided to stick a 19" front wheel on the back of the bike and run Goldentyre flattrack tyres. There is a kit available from Phil Little rac

ing in the states for this conversion but that is too easy so seeing as I had I lump of billet lying around I decided to make my own.

 

After making quite a lot of swarf I ended up with two spacers the correct size.

  

They even appear to fit.

I have bored housings for bearings and I now need to drill the holes to bolt the spacer to the hub and the disc/pulley to the spacer. I'm going to do this using my rotary table on the Bridgeport . To make sure the spacer is located centrally on the table I have machined up a sleeve that goes on the MT part of my tailstock die holder. It was while I was machining this sleeve I realise that the bearings I have are incorrect. I have ordered the correct ones so I'll be finding out how strong loctite 638 is at some point in the future...

Burner progress

Been playing with the burner again. I've added a reducing coupling to the end to act as a flare, it's not theoretically correct (should be a 1 in 12 taper) but appears to do the job.

I've also picked up a drag and cope, so I'm closer to having everything I need to start sand casting.

Propane Burner

One of my long term projects is a foundry to cast aluminium, I intend to use propane as a heat source so I've been building a propane burner.

Still needs fine tuning, the picture above shows it performing at it's best. Unfortunately it would appear that this performance was at least partially due to a tiny piece of swarf in the burner jet. When I changed jets as an experiment I noticed the swarf and removed it. It hasn't worked as well since.

Its still NOT a project....OK?

The Sportster was bought with the intention of being used as a daily rider (if I rode daily that is but you get the idea). I was adamant from the start that it wasn't a project and wouldn't be until the TriBSA was finished and de-bugged.

So far I've sort of managed to keep to that, its got a new seat, lost some chrome bling tat, got new bars, been returned to standard suspension, had the fork sliders powder-coated, had the forwards replaced with mids and an S&S air filter fitted.  I plan to convert to a 19" rear wheel at some point and have started to collect the relevant parts. But I would like to stress that it is NOT a project.

So the Saturday before last I was on my way to visit Stuart in Mid Wales when I noticed what I thought was a blowing exhaust. I stopped and nipped up the exhaust bolt but as the miles went on I realised that things were getting worse and so exactly half way between Stuart's house and mine I admitted defeat and called the breakdown people.

I spent most of my spare time last week stripping the bike down. This is where I got to on Sunday but I had to stop because of a lack of 12pt (bi-hex) sockets for the cylinder head.

On Tuesday a trip to Halfords got me a set of bi-hex sockets and by the end of the evening I'd got to here.

Now I'm not 100% certain but I think that this is the cause of what I thought was a blowing exhaust, a blown head gasket.

Thursday saw me remove the barrels. At this point I decided that the components I had taken of the bike looked a bit cosmetically challenged, which is why, on Friday, I took a detour on the way home to drop the barrels, head and rocker boxes off at Griffs in Bristol for powder coating. Oh and the head nuts were dropped off for zinc plating despite the fact that they are either hidden from view or under covers.

Saturday arrived and I got a load of stainless nuts and bolts from Steve's Stainless at the Cheltenham Autojumble.

So I now have a bike in bits, waiting for cosmetic work and replacement of rusty fasteners but..... its STILL NOT A PROJECT....

Sportster evolution.

The Not a Project Sportster moves on. I managed to damage the air-cleaner backing plate. Getting a replacement would take a couple of weeks. I ordered an S&S air filter kit on Monday from Cheltenham HD. It arrived the next day.

Sportster Unslammed.

One of the guys on Dirty Bobbers mentioned that he wanted to lower the suspension on his Sportster, as I've never really liked the 'slammed' suspension on mine I got in touch with him and a swap was arranged.

The picture above shows the difference between the length of the shocks and the picture below whows the difference between the fork springs...