monday night, time to give the pig-ugly front pulley casting some therapy, i'm ditching my rearsets and going back to mid-mounted footpegs so need to keep the footpeg mounting lug, the brake lever mounting and the master-cylinder bracket, [even though i'm scrapping the big, ugly harley master cylinder and reservoir and using a little brembo item off a cagiva mito], still leaves a lot of redundant aluminium to cut away though, so, out with the trusty hacksaw and rough out to shape, the back of the casting has strengthening lugs cast into it so you have a good idea what to chop away, dangerous dropped the work on the miller and saved me loads of time hand filing to shape, going to take a lot of work to smooth everything back and get a nice shape to it but i reckon it will complement the cut-down timing case nicely, i spent a couple of hours last night cutting cardboard cut-outs and trying to make a pattern for a new cover but, whichever way i tried it, the pattern would just have been a slab of aluminium, this standard casting cut down should look much more interesting.

dug a bit of carbon fibre out of the stock bin and made a point's cover for the sporty, scribed around the standard cover and clamped the piece of carbon to it with a toolmaker's clamp, hand filed to size and wet and dry to finish, just got to centre the mounting holes and drill to suit.

the loveless shed, thirty years ago, asbestos and steel framed, paid thirty quid for it, secondhand, advert in the local paper, used to run an extension lead down the garden to get power and light, heated by a stinking parrafin heater that used to make everything wet through with condensation, out there every night building bikes, some things never change.......

derby day, the rams v forest, less than a month after our dicking at the city ground the red dogs come to town for the home fixture, we are on the slide, down from fourth place to fourteenth, i'm awake early with p.m.t, [pre-match-tension], we have to beat them today, we have to get some pride back into pride park and the players need to man up and get a result, we catch up with the tail end of the scum being escorted by the o.b from the railway station on their short walk to the ground, they are full of it, giving it the big one from behind the safety of a police cordon and dogs, one big, fat ginger twat is really fancying himself, he soon shuts up when i start to cross the road, 'i'll see you later fatty...', into the ground and it's rammed, wish it was this busy every home match, our attendances are sliding like our league positions, although we still get more support than a lot of premiership clubs and last year we were only second to sunderland in our average attendances, the game kicks off, nil-nil at half time and the rams are holding their own against the dogs, second half substitution  see's our ex-striker earnshaw come on and he slots the ball past our keeper, we huff and puff, searching for the equaliser to get the draw but it's too little too late, i'm numb, beaten for the first time at home by the scum in our history at pride park, i feel sick in my stomach, i can't even go for a consolation pint with the lads after the game and make my way home, gutted....

 because i'm having a couple of wheels built with 17" aluminium rims it means i have to junk the standard belt-drive pulleys to enable us to run a conventional chain and sprockets, to get the front pulley off is a right job, you can't just drop it in gear and try and undo the retaining nut so i fitted the belt and tie-wrapped it to the pulley then dropped the open 'loop' end around my hydraulic work stand that the bike is standing on, i had to heat the nut up and borrow a 'jims' socket and bar off frenchy to shift it, they are bloody tight, must be hammered on at the factory with an air tool, i got chance to do a bit more on the bonny tank too, dangerous bought a tank repair kit which is similar to the one we used on the mz racer, [couldn't get the 'frost automative' kit as they are out of stock at the present time], washed the tank out with the marine cleaner and dropped a handful of old nuts and bolts into the filler cap and rolled the tank to knock the rust off the inside surfaces, [the bike had stood for a long time and condensation had made a real mess of the tank], i dropped the etching solution in and left that overnight, dangerous washed it out this morning and spent most of the evening drying out the tank with a heat gun ready for the sealant, we decided to leave this stage until tomorrow so we can make sure the tank is totally dry.

found another photo of the 'hellbound' ironhead sporty digger, love those ridgid struts and the way the swing arm kicks up at the rear so the tyre sits inside the mudguard and the goose-necked frame, you just don't see this sort of build these days, class bike.

chris palmer's new mz racer build, chris is our riders rep and does a lot of work representing our club, [bmzrc, the british mz racing club, check out http://www.bmzrc.org.uk/ ], he had a really nasty accident at cadwell park last season and had to be airlifted to hospital in the lincolnshire air ambulance helicopter, he's well on the way to recovery and i managed to have a chat with him at our last meeting at snetterton in september where he offered us loads of advice on setting up the bike, chris works in the racing car industry and the quality of the build shines through, twin brembo's, early honda steel-frame cbr600 wheels, maxton forks and shocks, powdercoated crankcases and that lovely combination of international harvester orange and black paintwork, real trick little bike [and i'm dead jealous of that aluminium paddock stand]

so, after the big weekend clean-up and shed re-organistion, it was back to work on the sporty, the original filler on the fuel tank is pressed into an apperture in the top and welded into position, the weld leaves a ridge which has to be carefully removed with a dremel and carbide bit to allow the quick-filler to sit flush, the original welded filler has to be cut back to give enough room for the mounting screws which sit, [as you can see in the second photo], very close to the edge of the hole, it takes a bit of work to grind to shape with a small stone wheel in the drill as the metal is really too thin to file for fear of denting the tank, quick rub up with emery to finish and drill the mounting holes, [i used a centre drill to pilot the holes and then a 4mm hss bit and just gently clean up with a round file to give clearance for the screws] if you look carefully at photo 2 you can see where the original filler was welded into the tank, you have to be really careful when drilling the new mounting holes in case the drill 'wanders' into the groove and throws your centres out, bit of a squeeky bum moment but i reckon the result is worth it.

after getting the lathe into position we soon realised that we needed a major re-organisation to fit everything in the shed, we have three bikes in there, the sporty, the bonny and the mz racer, the sporty and bonny are in the middle of being rebuilt and we had parts from both bikes strewn around the floor, the bench for the pillar drill and grinder needed moving to accomodate the lathe and we had tools all over the floor and bench, we started the big clean up saturday night and finished sunday tea time, not a lot of progress on the bikes granted, but well worth the effort for the room we've gained,[that's jess, my daughter, in the second photo, she's raiding the secret choccy stash that we keep hidden in the filing cabinet]