"Too soon we grow olde to late we grow smart".
Before going to the garage I called "forks by Frank", very nice people there. I asked about making new tubes that are 2" shorter, no problem. They told me they had made them for lots of bikes and never had a problem with the shorter front end geometry, and never got any complaints. More to think on.
I also bought a square tubing die to go on my bender, that is made to be adjustable for 3/4" to 2" square tubing, And I ordered a Carburetor rebuild kit to fit the VW solex I am planning on using on this bike. I almost forgot there was a gel cell battery on sale on e-bay Wednesday only so I ordered one of them also.
I got out to the garage about Noon, a good day to be inside with the winds blowing the first snow fall of this year. Yuck!!!
I worked about 6 hours but the results seemed like it should have taken me about two hours to do.
I removed the tail light and cut & ground the rear fender at the tape line, then decided to make plates inside the fender to strengthen the area where the light mounts.
I also wanted to tap these so that I didn't have to try to get my hand between the fender and tire when bolting the fender on.
I cut & ground down the fender bracket to match the tail light bracket, and started to weld and grind the corners of the fender bracket to smooth it out. This is going to take a while, I have to weld, then grind, then weld again to fix the little holes and smooth it out.
I started with a 1 1/2" piece of channel iron and made some inserts to accept the threads.
I welded the inserts in the channel, drilled and tapped them, then welded the channel on the inside of the fender.
I had to make two of them to cover the top and bottom of the tail light bracket.
That was it for Wednesday.
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