finished cleaning up the redundant brackets from the bolt-on subframe, the subframe really does look very flimsy, held on by four 8mm bolts, if it was just a seat mounting like on a modern monoshock bike it wouldn't be so bad, but when you consider that it also act's as the top mounting for the twin shocks and all of a sudden it starts to look pretty feeble, i know a lot of people who modify the boxers make up a beefier subframe and have it welded to the main frame cradle, [i've done this myself on a previous project], but i really don't want to go that route this time so i'm sticking with modifying the stock item instead, i got a couple of pieces of 25mm round stock and faced them up in the lathe and drilled and tapped them to take the 8mm fasteners, chris w is going to apply some sparky majik from his special wand to weld them in position, this should add some much needed strength to this crucial area, i'm going to knock up a couple of bracing straps to weld to the subframe fore and aft of the top shock mountings to try and stop some of the 'whip' applied by the shaft drive and to also double as seat mountings, i had to try the manx slimline seat and tank on for a quick 'visual' before i called it a night.......

couple of hours more preparation on the swingarm, finished scraping off all the old enamelling, rubbed down with a couple of grades of emery and a final clean up with a copper cup brush in the drill, masked off and a wipe down with some celulose thinners to remove any stray oil and grease and hit it with a couple of coats of silver smoothrite and hang up to dry.

something to soak up the saturday night beer-fest, a mr's b breakfast cob monkey face special, veggie bacon, tomato, mushrooms, two eggs, hp sauce, double egg and two hash brown's.

                               

                               had this photo of me on the mz at mallory park hairpin mailed to me today,
                                 [thank's lee, appreciate your kind comment's, fuck the honda replica's!]  

                                saturday come's slow, shift pattern draw's me the short straw and i'm at work for the second saturday in a row, in early doors so i can get away as soon as, home early afternoon, match today, we lose again, home, walk the dog's, pissed off, grab a cobra and in the shed, can't face scraping and sanding the swingarm, [i'm easily distracted you know, don't know if i've mentioned it?] pick up the top yoke, the handlebar casting's bite the dust on the miller, another beer, doesn't look right with the mounting holes still exposed, grab a sharpie and doodle different shapes, back on the miller, have a beer, aluminium swarf, yeah, that's better, dog's bitching and moaning as i turf them off 'their' chair, [soon jump back up on my knee], glance at the clock, y'all know what time it is? it's beer 'o' clock......

 yukimi nagano

at last, the frame is finished, i weighed all the redundant bit's i've cut off, 7.2 lb's, that's a free horsepower according to the model's on the 'tinterweb, bloody hell, it's been hard work, tonight i turn my attention to the swingarm, dangerous chipping in with comment's as i remove the diff, he's dicking about with the bonnie, he's tickling and cleaning and i'm nitromorsing and scraping away, removing 30 years worth of shit, corrosion paint, undercoat and anything else that the previous 15 owners cared to throw at it, you need a factory part to remove the drive shaft from the swingarm, i decide to go with the clean-up and ,smoothrite' finish to keep the cost's down, nitromors fumes, rust particles and growler's in my finger's, why?....

brinng, brinnng, briiiiing, bbbriiiinnnnngga, bbbbriiinnnggaaaa, briiiinnnngaaaaahaha, mz's, brilliant...

the daily grind. yep, cut, file, grind, file, wet and dry, laborious, time consuming but well worth the effort i reckon in the long run, the last cut was the steering lock, on the beemer it's hard to cut it out and make a decent job of cleaning up the headstock, [had to drop the frame on the miller to finish it off, it's a bugger to get a file in and clean it up, had a bit of a flashback and checked out the blog from a year ago, 17/11/10, i was doing the same job on the sportster, almost a year to the day, spooky......

bill tuman, wrecking crew, #51