Gas, tires, oil.

I’ve been using my ‘89 sportster as a daily commuter for about 2 1/2 years, and while it’s had some problems, it’s never left me anywhere. I thought this had changed the other night, the starter had been making some strange noises when the bike was cold, but it had always started. But when I tried to leave work, it wouldn’t crank the motor. It made a noise that indicated that something was turning, but not the motor. Eventually I was able to push start it, and ended up taking the ‘55 to work for the rest of the week. Last weekend I pulled the primary cover.

When I hit the starter button, the ring gear turned, but not the rest of the clutch basket. It wasn’t obvious from the manual how the ring gear was attached, so I pulled the clutch as an assembly. The manual gives instructions that involve disassembling the clutch (using a special tool to compress the clutch spring), but not removing it as a unit. First I removed a snap ring and the clutch adjuster bolt and bearing.

Behind it was another snap ring, this was all that held the clutch on the transmission shaft, but I also needed to pull front primary sprocket. It’s held on by a nut that is torqued to 165 ft/lbs, so I used an air wrench to remove it (for all I know this is a terrible thing to do, maybe it wrecks the bearings or crank or something, but it’s what I did).

When I got the clutch off, it looked like the ring gear was just pressed on. I used an aluminum drift and hammer and gently tapped it off. It was fairly tight, but it was obvious that it had spun ruining both surfaces. Now I could have bought a new primary sprocket and ring gear, but left to my own devices I just rig stuff up. So I decided to just tack weld the gear on.

I spotted it in 4 places with the mig welder, then cleaned up the welds and any weld beads. The blue tape is covering up the alternator magnets, weld beads and grinding dust would stick to them like crazy. So far this fix has worked fine, but who knows, maybe the welds will cause the ring gear to crack and come apart, wrecking then entire motor and trans.

The 14 bolt semi-float axle that I bought for my suburban had recently been in a ‘70 chevy pickup (it was originally out of an ‘88) and the distance between spring perches was not right for the ‘82 suburban. So, first I pulled out the stock 10 bolt rear and put it next to the 14 bolt for comparison.

Next I ground off the welds with a 4 1/2″ angle grinder and knocked off the perches with a hammer. Then I cleaned them up and champhered the edge in preparation for re-welding them.

I needed to be able to measure the center to center distance of the perches, but the differential prevents you from being able to just measure them with a tape measure. So what I did is use a set of outside calipers to measure the width of the center section.

Then I could use a set of inside calipers to set the distance from the perches to the center section.

I also needed to set the angle. I the angle between the perches the the yoke with a magnetic protractor, setting it to be the same as the stock 10 bolt.

Then it was just welding them on.

Last weekend I pulled the exhaust off my ‘89 Sportster (to get to the sprocket cover, but that’s another story) and noticed that there was a crack around where the crossover pipe is welded on. The fact is, chroming can make steel brittle (this is why you shouldn’t chrome steering components).

I decided to weld it up with my acetylene torch. Now, I could have mig welded or brazed it or even arc welded it, but gas welding works great for stuff like this. No spatter like arc or mig and once you braze something you can never go back and weld it.

You can fill holes easily by gas welding, you don’t have to worry about starting and stop an arc and you can regulate the heat by just pulling away (sure, a tig welder with a pedal would do better, but not for the price of my torch and no sunburn). I am actually using tig rods and brazing flux, but it works.

Next time I’ll put a shade 5 lens in front of the camera so the actual welding can be seen better.

While I’ve got the tanks off to do the wiring, I thought I’d snap a pic of the lower mount for the Fat Bobs. When I bought the bike, the mount was a piece of 3/4″x2″ bar stock welded between the front frame tubes, with the light weight stock mount tack welded to it. It looked pretty crude, so I decided to make a new one. I bent a piece of 1″ tube (same as the frame) then notched it with a 1″ holesaw so it fit the frame tube nicely. On the mount side filled the open tube by welding a plate of 1/8″ over the end. I marked the where the ears of the tanks lined up and welded a 1/4″ coupling nut in.

I’m normally a big fan of symmetry, but this works out nicely.

Here’s a pic with the tank bolted on with a polished stainless steel button head screw.

Sorry for the terrible flash pics, I need to get some lights.

I have previously shown how I put together a new drivetrain for my ‘52 chevy pickup: a new frame made out of 2″x4″ rectangular tubing, front suspension from a ‘79 formula 400 firebird (with disc brakes and a 1 3/8″ swaybar), a 9″ ford rear from ‘76 Lincoln Continental (also with disc brakes) and it was powered by a built 455 pontiac and 400 turbo trans.

This combination yielded amazing performance, but in spite of lowering the truck about 6″, it was still taller than my boss’s dodge dakota. So how did it go from a daily driver to a 10 year project? Listen and learn.
Eventually the trans started making a whining noise, I think this was because it wasn’t downshifting at stops, but the 455 had so much torque that I didn’t notice. I decided to take the cab off to remove the trans (I had had bad experiences pulling transmissions from underneath). While it was off, I decided to replace the floor; the PO had patched some holes with sheet metal from old appliances. Plus he had cut through the main floor brace to install a floor shifter. This went nicely and I decided to replace the firewall also, both to smooth it and to use heavier metal. The firewall was not made hold the brake master cylinder and would “oil can” when the brakes were used. Then one fatefull day, the cab sitting on the shop floor, I started gauging how hard it would be to chop the top. It started as just some lines with a grease pencil.

As you can see, I took the plunge. The back of the cab was almost vertical; it could be lowered straight down. Next time I’ll show the cuts and how it went back together.

Here’s a pic showing some more progress on the frame.

On the right, you can see some of the boxing of the joint between the frame and sub-frame. It’s hard to see, but I only welded on the side and edge of the frame rail. Never weld on the top or bottom flange of a frame! If I were to weld all the way around (at the back of the boxing), it would be no better than just butt welding (think about it).
Same goes for the transmission cross member mounts, I only welded them on the sides, not across the bottom of the frame. The trans cross member is a stock one from a nova.
The rear axle is a 9″ ford with disc brakes from a ~’77 Lincoln. It had a four link, I just torched off the brackets and welded on the spring perches from 1/2 ton chevy pickup rear. The rear springs also came from a middle ’70s chevy pickup.

After the frame rails were finished I welded in a cross member over the kickup. I then tacked a light piece of angle between the rails in the front to hold them at the correct distance. I propped the rear frame and the subframe up on blocks at the ride height. Both needed to be trimmed, I found the spot on the subframe where the rear frame had the closest match and torched it off. I determined how long the rear frame would have to be to have the correct wheelbase and cut it off. I then slid them together as seen below.

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Here is a pic of my ‘52 Chevy pickup with a Firebird subframe and custom rectangular tubing rear frame. Today I’ll show the construction of the main frame rails. I wanted to subframe the truck but didn’t want to use the old rear frame (very flexible). I simply took some measurements and copied the old frame with 2″x4″x.125″ rectangular tubing (later I added an x-member made from 1″x2″x.125″ tubing, but that will be another post).

I roughly copied the kickup over the rear axle with 45 degree angles. To make a 45, cut each piece with 22.5. Below I show the pieces for one rail and the other rail tacked.

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Here I cut down my metal framed futon so that the mattress fits the narrow way side to side. This makes it much smaller and yet still usable as a bed.

Here is the unaltered frame, about 6′6″ long.

First cuts with the sawsall.

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