Blood, Sweat, but no Tears

The plan today was to add a few more layers of Carbon Fibre cloth to our numberplate, and fabricate some aluminum brackets for the plate, the headlight, and the various other pieces we will need to attach.

We set up a work area for the carbon fibre first.  We once again went through the process of cutting the dry cloth, measuring out the epoxy resin and hardner, mixing it well, and then wetting out the cloth after putting a thin tack layer on the backside of the original piece.










This is a bit tedious, but in order to make sure we didn't have any de-lamination, we likely erred on the side of too much resin, rather than not enough.  As we will be trimming the piece, and drilling holes and a headlight cut-out in it, we want to be sure that it does not have any frayed edges or come apart.  As usual, we then needed to walk away and let it all dry and cure properly.








Meanwhile, 2 other students were doing some figuring.  Some alloy angle was purchased from Home Depot.  This is a cheap and simple way to get strong, straight brackets, but they do require a bit more time with finishing.  Students had to work with some imperial measurements, as this is construction-grade, so everything is in inches.

Marking mounting holes for drilling.  A spring punch was used to allow for an easier time with the pilot hole.

Drilling...

Cutting the drilled pieces to size.  The bandsaw comes in handy here, ensuring a straight cut each time.

We did have a few broken bits, hence the blood in the title.  The student pressed on once first aid was administered.  In evaluating their own work, the kids realized that some of their brackets just weren't up to snuff... the holes on opposing ends weren't perfectly aligned, nor were they centred in the bracket face properly.  No problem!!!  It best to do things a few times and get it right, than cut corners and say "good enough".  The more practice with the tools, the better the finished project will be.  We will end up with "extra" brackets, but the ones on the bike will be be as close to perfect as possible.

No session this week; next update soon after the 10th...

Bending Metal and Making Sparks

With our newly-modified exhaust from Cycleboyz, we needed to fab a bracket in order to mount it to the frame.  This would have to be a custom piece, and we'd also have to start from scratch.  These things always start with some eyeball engineering, a lot of staring and figuring, and finally a sharpie marker to mark the first bend.

While that project got underway, we went back after the electrical system, specifically wiring up some proper turn signals.

Battery first...  Once that was hooked up we needed to figure out why only 3 out of the 4 turn signals were working.  We were able to have a chat about positive wires, negative wires, currents, and shorts (the electrical kind, not summer wear!)

Meanwhile, on the exhaust front it was a case of measure, mark, bend a bit, measure again, twist, tweak, tap, hammer, etc, etc.....  The end result was a bracket that had 2 90+ degree bends in it... sorta like an "N" on its side, but not as sharp a bend.  With curves like that, we are hoping steel will do a better job and be more durable... bends like that tend to weaken aluminum to the point where it cracks and fails.

More electrickery... the boys got a chance to learn how to use a new tool... a spring-loaded wire stripper.  We'll need to lengthen some wires and of course add some ends to them, but we at long last finally found out where our problem was.  All 4 signals work as they should, with a hearty "click" from the signal relay.

Hammertime!

Yes, we do get to use some neat, delicate tools that do their job with finesse, and other times, well, we need to bash some metal around a bit, too...

Next step, some proper hardware and we might just start it up to see if it runs!

Increasing our Carbon Footprint

Not necessarily a good thing, but we are having some fun with carbon fibre on our project.  The end result might be a bit of "Mad Max", but we'll give it a try and see how it looks.

Rather than go with a traditional headlight, we are going to have a real "racer" look with a front number plate with a headlight cut into it, offset to one side.

Sorta like this...

However, we are starting with an oval numberplate shape, and using an aluminum one as a guide, we are going to replicate it in carbon fibre.  We came up with 2 options... one that uses a concave (female) mold, and another that uses a convex (male) mold.  We'd make 2, and see which one turns out best.  Prior to this meeting, Mr. S already made a female mold using fibreglass matt.

And we're off.  The pieces of carbon cloth were cut, and we spent some time polishing the molds with release wax, to make sure the epoxy didn't stick like cement to whatever we used for the mold itself.










We glued the male mold onto a piece of glass to ensure it was perfectly flat, and allowed a good surface for the excess carbon cloth to adhere to.











After 3 coats of wax on each mold, we then did a final coat of PVA release compound... as you can tell, we REALLY didn't want the carbon to be glued to the molds permanently!











Next step was to "wet out" each of the pieces of cloth with the epoxy resin, making sure it soaked the cloth, without being overly thick.  We were going to start with 3 layers of carbon.











Placing it on the molds.  We made sure that each layer was well adhered to the waxed surface of the mold, in order to follow the subtle, but important contours of the piece.

And now we wait... patience is required as once the 3 layers were put on each mold, it takes 8-12 hours for the piece to cure.... and then the REAL test.  Will it actually come off the mold???

In other news, our friends at Cycleboyz have come through again, tig-welding a stainless steel tab to our new megaphone muffler.  Will go about fabricating a bracket/strap in a future instalment.

No Session this week...

Waiting on some parts to come in, so no session this week.

Back on 2 wheels... for now

A bit of mechanical and electrical this week.  The rebuilt forks from last week needed to be refitted in the triple clamps, in order to ensure they were oil-tight and ready to go.  While that was going on, another student was testing some aftermarket dash lights to ensure they worked, as well as determining the color of each.  We are not sure yet how many of these dash lights we will use on our project, but we do have 4 -- red, yellow, orange, and green.

Just exactly how does all of this go together...?  Wheel, spacer, speedo drive, axle, washer, nut....

Once on two wheels, we repositioned the bike and re-installed the exhaust headers.  The main reason was to test-fit the new muffler (not shown).  We went with a megaphone one from Dime City Cycles (like our first project) because of the price and quality.  We made a few sharpie marks on it, and Mr. S will make another visit to Cycleboyz to see if they can weld on a bracket for us.  Being stainless steel, a tig welder is required, and their quality of workmanship is excellent!

Torquing down the exhaust manifold nuts.  The key here was to make sure the exhaust header was properly seated on the gasket, and that each side of the flange was tightened down to the same extent.  The headers are used, and the previous owner of these parts over-tightened things somewhat... there is a very slight curve to them.  Not that much pressure is required, especially if the gasket is in good shape!

Forks!

In order to accomodate Mr. Sheppard's dentist appointment, the Cafe group met a day early to finish off the front forks.

 The first step was properly cleaning out the fork tubes... some varsol and compressed air took care of the old oil and gunk still remaining in the forks.  It was a bit stubborn.

Next was the internal components themselves.  Springs, spacers, bolts, shims, pistons, etc.... all were cleaned and inspected.  The good news is, all were in decent shape, and could be reused.

Ready to be re-installed.

Next the boys attacked the fork bottoms again, using wet sanding, and scotchbrite pads.

Once complete, the fork oil was measured out and added to each fork leg (after some time sussing out the reassembly steps).

Once together (with new seals, of course) the forks were test-fit back into the triple clamps.  The retro boots were left over from the XS650 project, and fit these forks a bit better.

As always, the pics don't do it justice, but the forks look far better than they did.  Another few hours may have resulted in  a better sheen, but the bike is meant to be ridden, so we'll leave it as is.