Sprint Progress & The Chicken Tax

I got the levers machined down to the right thickness and I made a couple of bushings to press in the pivot holes. The Sprint handlebars have brackets that use 6mm bolts to hold the levers in place. The bottom flange is threaded and after snugging up the bolt on the lever, you put a lock nut on it. It'd be nice to find a couple of chrome plated bolts to use. I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm rounding up parts for the various projects.

I ordered some cables for both the front and rear brakes, as well as a clutch cable. The cables I ordered are Sportster parts but the Sprint used the same large diameter cables. The front brake is a cut to length item. The rear brake cable crosses over from the pedal on the left side of the bike to the drum on the right side. That one might take a bit of fettling to make right but I've done tougher. The clutch cable will probably require me making a boss and sweating it on the cable - again, nothing I can't handle there.

I shouldn't have much more of a cash outlay on this one to finish it up other than some gaskets and deciding what I'm going to do with the rear wheel. I've swapped around a couple of wheels on various bikes in the past. The one I've got for this one looks pretty rough. I'd like to have an aluminum rim with stainless spokes but that would cost more than everything else I've spent on the bike plus. Probably would be money well spent, however. Have to wait and see when I get there. I'm just working on this one a bit here and there. Not too much left on it, however.

Got a little bit more done on the motorbike. Hooked up the drive chain and got most of the wiring taken care of - I still need to hook up the ground wire for the kill switch. Install the pedal chain and the fuel line and it should be done. Won't be long now.

The new Royal Enfield Himalayans are supposed to be arriving in the dealerships soon. I'm making a trip to Indy this week and am planning on stopping at the dealership and see when he'll have one in.

I came across an interesting op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day. There's a thing called the "chicken tax" dealing with the importing of pickup trucks. Rather an absurd tax thing but it explains why there are only about six brands of trucks available even though there are about 30 brands of cars here in the US. According to the WSJ, South Korea just re-signed the deal through 2040, which means no Hyundai pickups coming to America.