Seat Design

 Well, there has been more building than  blogging, so I will attempt to bring things up to date:)
So, the seat design is next on the agenda...

To begin, I created a drawing that was the approximate size I wanted. I cut it out and did some "eye ball'in" to see if it would work.

I then cut it out of some 14 gage sheet metal I had laying around. The edges seemed quite sharp and I wanted a thicker look along the edge. To accomplish the look, 1/8" round rod was added to the edge.

The rod is TIG welded with Silicon Bronze rod to give a brass look along the edge.

The edge is polished a little bit and will be left unpainted when I powder coat the seat pan. Next will be the mounting of the seat to the frame. Keep on choppin.....

Fender Design

When I first tore the bike down, I was thinking I could use the rear fender that came off the bike. However, I decided it was just a little too short. I have a certain vision for the look of the bike, and I wanted the top of the fender to be roughly aligned with the rear axle.

The original fender did not wrap around down the bottom frame rails of the hard tail. So, I was off to find a fender for the CL100. Since the build is supposed to be done as cheaply as possible, I settled on a trailer fender that would have to be cut down and re-welded to make it the right width.
To decide the width and diameter of the fender, I purchased and mounted the tire I wanted to use. The stock CL100 wheel is 17" and there are not a lot of choices out there for 17" tires that look kinda retro. I decided to go with a more common duel sport tire that would match the existing front tire. When I build a springer front end, I will widen and maybe get a new tire and wheel, someday.
After getting the tire mounted, I could then measure the width of the tire and line up how the fender and tire would be assembled to the frame. Cross tubes were added to the frame rails to mount the fender to, as shown below.

Top cross tube with mounting lugs turned from 3/4" round stock. The lugs are threaded and holes drilled in the fender to mount the lugs on before welding to the frame.

The lugs are then tack welded to the frame after the fender is lined up with the tire. The fender width was chosen to avoid the chain. This allowed the fender to stay in one piece with out any notches for chain clearance.

The fender is made of thin enough metal that there will need to be additional support at the ends of the fender. I decided to use 3/8" round bar to support the fender. To do this, threaded tabs needed to be added to the frame. Along with tabs on the frame, threaded bosses must be added to the fender. The general arrangement of the fender supports was borrowed from a friend of mine.

My TIG welding abilities still leave something to be desired, but I will get things all welded out and ground down ready for paint.
The next step is to provide a mounting point for the fuel tank and seat. The design and mount up the seat before tackling what to do with the fuel tank. It needs some TLC to get it back to stock and I think I want to add a visual fuel gauge(brass 90s and clear tubing).
Until next time, keep chopping........

Adding the HardTail, Part 2

So the last entry covered in a basic way, the steps taken to form and attached the lower rails of the hard tail. Next, the upper rails must be formed and fitted. I used EMT to mock up the tubes and make sure the angle to the axle plates was correct. The hardest part to building the tubes is making sure the parts will line up with each other vertically. I used the table as a flat reference to check the tubes, using a framing square. I tacked each side up the to the back bone and double checked how they lined up with the lower rails. Then I "eye balled" them to make sure they lined up with each other horizontally.

After everything looked good, I put some more substantial welds at all the joint to hold things together. The next step for me is to find a fender and figure out how to attach it in a semi cool fashion.

Adding the hard tail, Part 1

So to start, I put the axle plates in my jig to hold their relative position. The I used some inexpensive EMT tube from Home Depot to mock up the angles of the bottom tubes that form the hard tail. I placed the wheel in position to try to get an idea of the proportions to make sure it was what I wanted.

After getting the angles pretty close, I bent my "real" tube into the shape I needed. I used a magnetic angle finder to determine the angles on the table and then used it to make sure I hit the right angles on my bender.

I used a framing square to make sure the frame was plum and perpendicular to the table as well as centered on my jig centerline.

The frame around the engine was not parallel with the centerline of the bike, so a small kink in the bottom rails was required to make them not flare out. After this adjustment was made, the final bend up was made the parts tacked together.

This concludes the construction for the bottom rails, now the top rails must be bent and fitted to the frame. It is finally starting to look like something:)

Starting to Cut....

Now that the rear axle is in the general vicinity of where I want it, it is time to cut off the excess frame members and start laying out the hard tail sections that will be added to the frame to make it a hard tail. First, I am cutting away the "seat frame" section, away from the connection joints. I will then be able to do a more surgical removal of the smaller parts.

 

Removing the upper section.

Then cut of the attachment to the lower section.

 

Along with removing the "seat section" the brackets that held on the foot pegs needed to be removed so that the 1" mechanical tube could fit over the lower seen in the above pic. The small tubes that form the cradle around the engine are 3/4" O.D., which is convenient since a 1" O.D. tube with 1/8" wall has an I.D. very nearly 3/4". I can now create a slip joint that will attach my hard tail section to the lower tubes. Pretty slick :>). Next we will begin to mock up the lower hardtail tube with cheap EMT from Home Depot to make sure we like the look before committing to the more expensive 1" mechanical tubing..

Axle Plates

After establishing where I want the rear axle to be, I need to make some axle plates. These can be purchased from online sources like Low Brow Customs, but I have some 4" x 3/8" flat bar that I will use to make my axle plates with. First, I made a drawing of my design that would fit the flat bar...( I designed this with Alibre design.... it was free at one time)

I printed it out with a scale of 1:1 so I could cut it out for a pattern. I traced the outline on the steel flat bar giving myself some room to machine down the edges if they got too uneven. I cut the plates out with a 4" grinder with cutting wheels I purchased at Home Depot ( the cutting wheels are the handiest things I have found for custom metal fabrication!). After cutting the two axle plated out, I tack welded them together before machining the edges so they would match each other.

Then started the machining process....

As seen above, I am making both edges even before clamping the part flat in the vise to trim up the 90 degree corners. The arc was made by rough machining then using the cutting wheel to finish. The diameter of the wheel was the perfect radius to finish it with. I would take credit for having planned it that way in my original design, but it was actually an accident that worked out in my favor :).
The finished axle plates are now mounted to the axle jig.....

Now that we have axle plates and they are placed correctly in space, it is now time to start cutting and fitting tubes to mock up the hard tail section, but first we need to remove the existing tail section...

Getting Started

So the bike is now torn down to the frame. It once looked kind of like this...

And now looks more like this...

The first order of business is to decide how low the bike should be. This will in turn, determine how much angle and rise the hardtail section will have. Because the it would be a very large job to stretch the neck out to lower the frame rails, I am just shortening the forks to compensate. I will build the hardtail to match the front. As shown above, the rear wheel is in place to get an overall perspective of how much I want to stretch the wheel base. And the magic number is 4", or a total of 53" front axle to back axle.
Next, I want to build a jig to place the rear axle plates in their relative position, see below.

A piece of angle and a 1" square tube will serve as my jig for the rear axle. The plate it is welded to will have a center line scribed down the middle to ensure that a plumb bob and square can be used to align the frame to the jig. We will see how it works.... poor man's frame jig.