Friday, August 3, 2012

She's Got Dimples



Since I already had the side panels made for the 900, that looked like a good place to start. The panels are held in place with Dzus or 1/4 turn fasteners. Installing them is easy enough if you have all the right tools. First thing is to rivet the springs to the mounting plates, locate the place you want them to go and tack them on. If you look at the mounting plate in the photo, you can see the transfer punch inside it. That makes the job real easy. You put the transfer punch into the tack welded mounting plate and then put your sheet metal in place and tap it lightly and you get a center punch mark where you need to drill your hole. I use a chassis punch to make the holes. That's it on the top right. Then you dimple the hole and the Dzus fastener fits nicely in place. Nothing to it.



I also tacked the chain guard on. Nothing too tricky here either. Layout the first bracket, clamp an angle to the swingarm and clamp the bracket to that. That keeps everything in place and at 90 degrees. Get the first one on and repeat the process for the second one.



And this is what you end up with: two side panels and a chain guard. Not bad at all. I do need to clean up the shop before I do too much more. It's been a long time since I did much fabricating at the house. A little clean and organize session would pay off some big dividends in the long run. A lot of the stuff I brought home from school just got thrown in a pile, basically, and I've still got a bucket of tools in the new barn that I need to put away. I'll get a little more work on the 900 and start the cleaning process. It's always so much easier when you can find the tools and the top of the work bench.

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