Mocking up Bracketsi

The bike is now totally stripped in order to refinish it for the final time.  Part of this process is machining and fabricating the final brackets for some of the component parts.  With older bikes, the improvement in braking capabilities compared to modern-day machines is huge.  New calipers, new pad compounds, piston design, etc, have led to much safer and controllable machines.  To that end, Mr. Sheppard rooted through his box o' parts at home and dug out a spare Nissin caliper, actually from a Honda RC51 superbike.  That machine runs two front calipers, but considering it's capable of the far side of 150mph, not a bad idea.  One caliper should be sufficient for us.

Step one was mocking up a rough template in wood.  Using some scraps from the TCS woodworking facility, an hour and a half of measuring, drilling, cutting and sanding (and 3 attempts) netted us this result.  A start, and a rough guide for the machinists to build upon.

Modern four-piston calipers do tend to be "deeper" in that there are active pistons on both sides of the caliper.  There are sometimes clearance issues between the wider caliper and the narrow spokes of a vintage wheel.  Some material from the backside can be removed, but you need to be very careful... of course the whole assembly is under considerable pressure!  As well, the "old" front brake rotor is nearly twice as thick as the modern equivalent.  The rough mockup shows that things should work, but there will no doubt be some more tweaking as this sub-project continues.

The disappearing bike...

In order to complete this project, our next step is to totally disassemble it down to the component parts for final cosmetic finishing.  Ultimately the frame itself will need to be stripped and powder-coated, and the bike rebuilt from there.

First major step after all the ancillaries were removed was to take off the front end -- forks, wheel, triple clamps and all!  The entire unit will be kept intact in order to fabricate a bracket to use the more modern 4-pot Nissin front brake caliper.

Once the forks were removed, the engine was next.  It took a bit of grunt work to shoe-horn it out of the frame.  A few seals need to be replaced (clutch rod actuator and counter shaft seal)... not sure if that should be done with the engine out, or back in the frame again.

The foot pegs were chromed from the factory, but are now pitted and rusty.  We are going to take them apart and get them powder coated.  However a rivet needed to be removed first, which will be replaced but a nice bolt when they are reassembled.  Here a student is grinding off the head of the rivet, in order to punch it out.

The spring... photo for reference purposes so we know how to put it back together!

Where we left things.  The frame needs a few unnecessary tabs ground off, and an exhaust mount stud welded on.  The swing arm is stripped, as well as the rest of the steel parts.  Next step, finding a shop to blast and powder coat the frame... but what color???