Tuesday 19 March 2013

Jeez, how long since the last update...

Whoops, where did 11 months go? Anyway, the blog hasn't been updated, but in-between real work and family life, work on Betty has been carrying on. While I have been snowed under, my friend Pete Sutton (a master of metalwork) has been busy fabricating all manner of goodies:

Fabricated two beautifully sculpted exhausts.

Fabricated custom inlet manifolds.

Moved shock from one side of bike to the other to allow better routing of rear manifold and air filter.

Fabricated a new swing arm from two separate ones and then made a custom upper bracing arm to meet the new shock position.

Fabricated an asymmetric rear hugger that will hopefully stop the shock and rear air filter from getting full of dirt.

Fabricated an aluminium seat unit which houses the bikes battery and LED tail lights. Not sure yet how we're going to mount the license plate. Maybe we won't bother...

Louigi have been busy with the engine. The bottom end is complete, top end is away being powder coated. The engine is truly beautiful and a technical tour-de-force that I cannot claim any credit for apart from the odd "what if we did this..." and "what does that do..." comment. Louigi Moto www.louigimoto.com are rightfully very proud of this motor, but I'll talk more about it in another post.

About to start:

Re-work the fuel tank so that I can reach the bars easily! At the same time re-shaping it so that it doesn't cut into my thighs either!! Also make the false bottom to the tank which will be a tray housing all the electrics - the aim being to hide as much as possible and give the bike a very clean and uncluttered appearance.

Make silencers.

Make brackets to hold digital dash and number board with integral front lights.

Get heads back and finish engine build.

Make wiring loom.

We've also been busy with our Makerbot Replicator2 3D printer and have made parts which we will be sand casting in aluminium sometime next week.

Our aim is to have Betty finished and on the road April/May as we hope to race her at Dirt Quake II, Sideburn's awesome wacky races day on June 8th.

So, until the next entry, which I promise will be more often, here are some photos that are roughly up to date: