Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb a couple more days away. Extremely devastating to the people of Japan with both the immediate and the long-term effects. I'm not qualified to comment on the decision to drop them both but now there's talk once again of a nuclear strike involving the Russians and Ukraine and the NATO countries. Seems it will never stop.
On the home front, I met with my financial advisor for my annual review yesterday. He said I've got enough money to last the rest of my life - as long as I die by the end of the week. Actually, I'm doing pretty well. I should be able to keep buying motorcycle and car parts - especially at my glacial pace of working on them.
I made this tool when I first started working on the bike. I have to remove the exhaust pipes and the support bracket for the pipes to install it, but that only takes about 5 minutes.
With the support bolted on and up on a pair of jackstands, the bike is supported well and up high enough to easily remove the rear wheel. I'm going to install the new shocks while I've got it raised up, in addition to correcting the problem with the brake drum.
After pulling the wheel off I checked the runout on the drum. The difference between the high and low is about .015", with the largest diameter being right at 8.000". Cast into the drum it says the maximum diameter is 8.046", so I've got plenty of stock to work with. The drum bolts to the wheel with the sprocket riveted to it. I'm going to make an arbor to bolt the drum to and then chuck it up in the lathe to true it up - shouldn't be too tough.
I've got a rebuild kit for the front master cylinder. When I get the back end back together, I'll get the front brake working, and then I should be able to see about starting this beast. I might yet be able to go for a ride on my birthday.
3 comments:
I think that Sportster should be painted metal flake (Aqua metal flake)) with stock decals then clear over. that way the bike will look up to twice as nice. then enter the bike into a bike show to receive the GIANT 1st place crowd favorite best bike ever in show. Sportster script tank decals white outlined in black. 1000 clear coats on top. Harley installed belt drives because the vibrations kept popping the master links off, that's the only reason they went belt drive, true fact look it up.
I can't see me wanting to paint this thing. At this point I just want to take it for a ride. If I was to paint it, it would be black with white stripes down the top of the tank like the '68 XLCH I wanted but couldn't afford so I bought the Sprint instead. Interesting about the belt drives. I'd never heard that before.
I made up the belt drive story. that's why you've never heard it before. BUT it sounds plausible.
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