When in doubt, throw it out, Part 2

First picture depicts the previous stop/tail/turn/license mounting placement. Once the fender was on, it became PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that the license was totally buried and not viewable at all from the rear. I verified at night that not even the license plate illumination light was visible from straight on from the rear. So this configuration had to go.

Obvious solution is to create a higher bracket to raise plate so it is visibly above the fender from the rear. So I made a cardboard mock up to see what it would look like before I start cutting and bending the stock aluminum plate I have to fashion a new bracket.

After some measurement, I decided I needed to raise the bottom of the plate at least 3 inches higher than the seat frame making it nearly level with the seat back, plus I need to extend it out to clear the rear of the seat.

NOT. HAPPY. WITH. THE. LOOK. So now back to square one.

Plan is to revert to the axle mount for the plate and add illumination bolts to hold the plate and build small mounts to hold each right and left turn/stop LED lights just under the seat frame which will be visible on either side of the fender.

I will relocate the plate mount to the LH side of the bike to move it away from the pipes on the RH side. This opens up the space so the exhaust can flow freely out the back and not blacken the plate, plus I was always catching my foot on the plate when I swung my leg over.

(The primer grey color of the tank and fender signify the work in progress nature of this project. In the 50's/60's wrenchers would paint their body work in primer grey to keep the body work from rusting as they were making progress on their hotrods, so that's where I got the idea for the paint color.)

Old mount with fender in place:

Cardboard mock up mount:

Fender rises with wheel and the distance is very tight. A disaster waiting to happen:

When in doubt, throw it out!

When in doubt, throw it out; as the saying goes. The old stop/turns/tails on the sides of the bike had to go. They were not legal in the sense that they were only 16" off the ground level and FL requires at last 20".

Plus I had to deal with the plate off the axle on which I was never keen. I had to do some kind of illumination of the axle mounted plate also. So I pitched the entire idea out.

I bought an LED tail/turns/stop/license plate bracket off eBay. The seller sent me a chrome one, which I returned on my nickel and he sent me the black one. Then I started testing the LED lights and found that half of the lights wouldn't illuminate. Finally I decided to just use the bracket and make up my own lights. In total I must have $66 wrapped up in this new light, not counting what I spent on the old lamps.

I found some nice bright LED lights from Revival Cycles. These bolt through the bracket holes for the previous LED light bar. I wired them up to my previous circuit for stop/turns. Revival also suggested I can run them dim for tails by using a resistor (and I added a diode to prevent back surge when the turns are flashing) to the tail light power. The only thing left was a license plate light which I found a nice one on Amazon.

Left as details is to find a nice 2" round reflector to cover the center hole and give me some additional red reflection off the rear of the bike.

The next series of pictures are of the lights in various lighting configurations.

This is of the lights when off. The LEDS are mounted in a clear lens. Nice touch!

This is of the lights lit like running lights. I have a 50V forward bias diode and a 1K Ohm resistor in series, one for each LED. This gives a nice red glow without being blinding.

This is of the turn signal. The full voltage is applied to the signal light and it is blazingly bright. When it flashes there is no flickering on the opposite tail light as one would expect with the diodes in the circuit.

This is when the brake is applied and both lights light up. No mistaking this for something other than brake lights. Note: from the previous blog entries, this setup allow for turns and brakes to be applied. The non-flashing LED lights solid due to the brakes switch on and the flashing LED does what it's supposed to.

(Note: the speed of this project is slow owing to my lymphoma, white-blood cell cancer, treatment. Today I am 8 days out from my last chemo and was feeling pretty good so I completed this sub-project. I have many more to do, but the goal is to get the bike back on the road ASAP and complete the small sub-projects as I have time and energy.)

More Than Meets The Eye!

Tank and fender are back in the most beautiful shade of  "primer grey" or as it's known in final paint: Battleship Grey! Painter did excellent job. Even cleaned up and smoothed out the fender welds. Primo job!

Look at the seam. It's filled and smooth. Better than factory!

And the surprise! I bought a couple of Transformers Autobot vinyl decals. These the painter was able to apply under the clear coat.

The motto of Transformers is: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.

I have some more final hand painting to do before it all goes back together.

Fast and furious, Part 2

I got the power coating back today and they parts turned out nicely.

Before:

After:

The camera augmented the F-stop and made the black look mottled. It is not.

I pick up the tank and fender on Friday. Then I will reveal the surprise!

Fast and furious, Part 1

A couple of quick posts as parts come together. First off, I painted the stop triple clamp. I would have had it powder coated, but there are rubber vibration isolators for the handlebars which I can't press out and the powder coater won't run their process with any rubber in the part as the 400F oven would destroy them.

These clamps are aluminum so I had to use a special spray primer before the black top coat. Both of these products were applied via rattle-can!

Before:

After:

I'm please the way it turned out.

I'm going to paint the lower fork legs the same way, but it's been raining here past few days.

Miscellaneous parts to be painted and powder coated

I took the tank and fender over to be painted at Florida Custom Painting. yesterday. We settled on a variation of Battleship Grey which is what a final coat color is called that looks like a Primer Grey. The significance of which is that in the olden days of car rebuilding, auto bodies in flux were always coated in primer grey to prevent rust of the raw steel, but the final product was still a ways away. It meant things were coming together, but still in transition. That's how I envision this bobber project. Coming together, but not complete, so that's how I picked this color. I envision changes ongoing.

Here's the tank and fender on it's way to the painters. I do have a surprise when it comes back that I will save until then.

Today I took the various chrome bits to Brothers Powder Coating to have these metal bits coated black. What is shown here is the tank dash, secondary belt cover, gas cap and key cap, mirror arm, kick stand, handle bar clamps, and the insert that goes into the secondary belt cover.

I still have a few more parts that I will spray paint black that I couldn't have powder coated since they are baked in an oven over 400F degrees. These include the air cleaner cover (epoxied into the air cleaner itself), the upper triple clamp (containing the rubber handle bar mounts), and the lower fork legs (containing suspension fiddly bits: oil, seals, springs...).  I'll post on these individual as I get to them.

Comments?

Peak fender achieved!

Well, I'm going through antibody/chemo therapy for my follicular lymphoma. I just had my 4th out of 6th monthly treatments and was feeling pretty good (relatively speaking) so completed my rear fender and bracket cutting. (It will be one year since I wrote about buying the fender on May 8, 2015! A lot of nothing can happen in a year's time.)

The brackets were tacked on while the fender was positioned in place and I had a friend complete the welding using MIG. Came out nice. Here's the fender in place and a close up of the top bracket.

Next up is painting of the tank and fender and powder coating of various chrome bits. I will also be rattle can spraying a few parts myself.