Choppy Choppy

This is the first Christmas in 5 years that we will be home alone, so we thought we'd go all out this year. We went craft crazy inside. We hung up lights outside. Lori and I both come from a long lineage of fake Christmas trees. So this year we decided we want a REAL goddamn tree! We found a place in Martinez that lets you cut down your own tree so we had to go there.

Nuts and Bolts and Clam$

November 11: Soda blast cases
November 18: Polish head ports in evening, send cases to Pops to weld/fix, send head to Troop to finish, clean and layout all motor parts
November 25: Rebuild sludge trap in crank, order necessary motor parts
December 2: Bore barrels, get crank to spec, paint jugs
December 9: Assemble gear box
December 16: Get cases back from Pops, polish, put bushings in cases, reassemble connecting rods to crank
December 23: Assemble lower end
December 30: Inspect and clean up magneto, get head and carbs back from Troop
January 6: Install head
January 13: Finish minor fab work (tail light, license mount, kickstand), disassemble chassis
January 20: Get all necessary SS hardware, grind and polish bolt heads
January 27: Rebuild forks
February 3: Primer and paint misc chassis parts
February 10: Assemble chassis, install motor
February 17: Wire & plumb
February 24: Have exhaust made
March 2: Fire up and ride!
March 9: BABY!

The cases are in Grass Valley to be welded. I removed the sludge trap from the unit crank this weekend, and right now I'm sourcing where to bore the barrels and have the crank shaped up. I think I will be taking my barrels to Petaluma to Engine Dynamics ($150) and my crank to Bailey Bros. in American Canyon ($125). I'm going to bring both the unit and the pre-unit crank to see what they prefer. But before that I need to get my new pistons, rings, and a couple different shells for the rods.

There's no way I'll be able to keep to my schedule, but I'm going to just keep hacking away. Last night I put my Thunderbird cases in the frame to see what mounting bolts I have that are good, what needs replaced, and what needs changed. It's a puzzle to figure out what goes in first.

Turkey Lurkey

Actually we had ham, and it was delicious.












I decided to bring one of the not ripe watermelons up... lo and behold, a Thanksgiving miracle!

Sludge Trap's Out

Mission accomplished, sludge trap removed, with help from Lucas.

Buy this

So we can be twinsies

A much more graceful sludgetrap removal

Holiday Spirit

Lori and I are huge blasphemers, but we love love love Christmas. This will be our first Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. And our last one without little Baby XY. We did a little crafting this last weekend and then some decorating. We're also getting a real tree this year, my first one. I'm going to do my best Clark Griswald this year on our house, too. Already have the lights! Atheist Christmases are the best.

3 Vincents

On ebay

Death of a garden

Cliff Burton said it best, "To live is to die."

24 Weeks

16 to go

Results from the Brooks auction

Results

Wow... some screamin steals, some not so much. And some people walked away with some cool shit!

1982 Ariel bobber went for $1840!
Yet the 48 SQ4 went for $8000+

a 1951 Goldstar for $7500...

1958 AJS dirtbike for $2000...

The 1947 Velocette KTT for $7500...
The 1948 Velocette KSS bobber for $4500

And all the expensive Indian stuff which makes me glad I'm not into Indians...

Luka video test

How to kill 90 minutes of your evening

Now to do the other one.

Case Issues Up Close

A gallery of all the issues with my cases. I'm debating sealing everything up and retapping back to Whitworth from 1/4-20.

Care Package

I'm not able to make a trip up to Grass Valley to see the boys anytime soon, so I'm sending my cases up for Pops to weld, some parts for Troop to inspect, and the head for Troop to finish. I'm also sending Pops a tank and clip-ons for his cafe project. I can get a better shipping rate sending from work... this stuff has taken me all week to transport here in my hard bag on my KLR, and I still have one more trip of stuff to get. I started sanding and polishing my intake last night, I hope to finish tonight, or this stuff won't go out until next week. I have a schedule to keep! Last night I also honed my cylinders, but unfortunately it looks like they will need to rebored to the next size. I'll probably need new pistons, too. The money keeps adding up...

He was born with a gift

RIP to Punk Rock Johnny Cash

Bed Hog

Sheena's a bed hog. Luka doesn't give a flip.

Go time

Enough dillydallying. It's been 6 years since I got my Triumph, but I need to finish it by mid March. I have come up with a week by week game plan to try to get it done before the baby comes. I put a realistic goal for each weekend. Some things depend on other things to get done first, and others can be done whenever. Mixed in with all this is birthing classes every weekend, creating the nursery, and planning the 2nd Unfinished Projects Show for February. This would be so much easier if I didn't have a day job.

November 11: Soda blast cases Never again will I do this myself. What a PITA!



November 18: Polish head ports in evening, send cases to Pops to weld/fix, send head to Troop to finish, clean and layout all motor parts
November 25: Rebuild sludge trap in crank, order necessary motor parts
December 2: Get cases back from Pops, polish, put bushings in cases, reassemble connecting rods to crank
December 9: Assemble lower end
December 16: Hone cylinders, check specs, paint jugs, clean pistons, reassemble pistons
December 23: Assemble gear box
December 30: Inspect and clean up magneto, get head and carbs back from Troop
January 6: Install head
January 13: Finish minor fab work (tail light, license mount, kickstand), disassemble chassis
January 20: Get all necessary SS hardware, grind and polish bolt heads
January 27: Rebuild forks
February 3: Primer and paint misc chassis parts
February 10: Assemble chassis, install motor
February 17: Wire & plumb
February 24: Have exhaust made
March 2: Fire up and ride!
March 9: BABY!

I was really hoping to start reassembling the lower end earlier, but I have some aluminum repairs I should do, well, have Pops do for me.

Fill the 3 thru holes, re-helicoil


Fill and reshape chip by hole


Fill and shape the chain gouges


Fill and shape worn down areas, re-helicoil



Big thanks to Jason at SF Vintage for hooking me with a unit crank to use so I don't need to have machine work done. For comparison, left to right, '53 Thunderbird, '62 Bonneville, late '60's unit cranks. Notice the '53 doesn't have a sludge trap.


And different alternator attachment.


Here's to getting shit done.

Typical Crazy Night

A Virago I Like

I am not much of a fan of Cafe Racer TV, but I watch it for it's occasional old British bikes. Surprisingly, this Virago really appealed to me. Greg Hageman is such a sedate person, but his work is truly great. And I had no idea how sexy a Virago motor could look and sound. So, call me a heretic, I actually like an 80's bike!

Guerilla Cruise

This is happening Saturday:
Cruise from Emeryville Pier over Bay Bridge to Red's in San Francisco.

Meet at:
3199 Powell Street
Emeryville, CA 94608

Exit at Powell off 580 and head West towards the Bay, it's a big open Marina parking lot. If anyone gets lost or has any questions the day of the cruise, PM me a number and I'll send you mine. We'll play it by ear on Saturday, but let's plan on leaving as a group at 9:15 from the Marina towards SF. If you can't make it then, that's cool, just look for us at Reds in SF. Hope to see you guys there, this is gonna be fun!

More Details

Tightened Up

Gonna ditch the cracked helmet.

Bad JuJu

I've been discovering all sorts of issues with my preunit motor. This is why you tear it all the way down!

This the alternator side keyway on my crank. I'm going to have to have a machinist recut a keyway on the other side (and put a new timing mark on).


This is the clutch hub. Quite chipped up, but it should be ok as it's inside the clutch center. But there is that one good chip on the side where the rollers come in contact. I may still use it. No sign of wear on the rollers.


Here's a nice WTF. Most of the outer Whitworth threaded holes have been helicoiled for 1/4-20. These 2 holes that hold the inner primary on have been drilled all the way through the case! Looks like I'll need a machinist for the crank and an aluminum welder for the case. So much for slapping it back together easily!

Mama's Cookin'

500 degrees for 20 minutes, serves 1.

Crime Show Time Killer

The wife started watching a 48 Hours Mystery so I dusted off my pad and sketched this...

Results from the Lee Hartung Collection

The auction results are in. EVERYTHING went for big bucks, probably most way over value. But the Model A's went CHEAPPPPP!

You Been GWAR'd

Max Schaff posts Paul Simon, so I'll post some GWAR.

Deez Muttz

More pics of the retarded stepchildren.








Escaped hairball