A Sad Day...

After a falling out with our metal worker - he kept making the bike he wanted and not the one I wanted - we have found a new metal worker and things are looking good, or actually better, for Betty's future...

... but we are not going to be ready for Dirt Quake 2.

:-(

I think Betty will be finished sometime end of summer / early autumn.

... but we will be ready for Dirt Quake 3 though.

:-)

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:

Long time silent...

OK, so long time since the last entry. Work has been crazy busy so not had any time to spend on the bike. However, the wheels have been away being made and without them we can't do too much as we need a rolling chassis... and Five-One Wheels have just called me to say the wheels are finished and will be on their way to me as soon as Steve can find (or make) a cardboard box large enough for them!!

Photos soon...

Hubs away...

No pictures, but just a note to say that the hubs were painted satin black by DW Automotive last week, dried over the weekend and were sent up to Five-One Wheels middle of this week. I had a long talk with Steve at Five-One after the hubs had arrived and agreed on a few detail things.

Five-One are very busy at the moment but Steve loves Flattrack projects and said he'd do his best to move our wheels up the list.

Metal fuel tank taking shape.

I went over to Chris' workshop last Wednesday to see the progress. The fuel tank looked great. A very good interpretation of my foam model. I spent ages looking over it and we discussed a few different aspects, but basically he'd got it spot on.

The tank is currently just a top with no base or innards. Those comes next...

Even the rough tank was perfectly square.

Metal plates welded to the frame hold the tank in place as it doesn't yet have a bottom or mounting brackets.

The 'knee hollow' is a thing of beauty.

The lines of the bike are coming together.

Richard and Chris discuss the intricacies of metal working... either that or which curry to order...

Fuel tank fabrication

While I continued to die of ManFlu, Richard and Chris started work on the fuel tank, making cardboard templates for the flat metal they would cut out to make the tank. The tank would be made of steel as it is the easiest metal for us to work with. In the back of our minds is to make an Ally one later on, probably in a year or two.

Model fuel tank gets fitted to bike

So, I took the styrofoam model fuel tank over to Chris' workshop and with a little bit of alteration fitted it to the tank. Everyone was impressed and felt the shape suited the whole Flattracker / Streettracker idea. Chris now had a 3D forma to follow and we discussed at length how to make the tank before cutting some templates for the flat metal sheets that would make up the finished tank.

The blue tape denotes the flat line we are trying to achieve with the tank and seat unit to make the bike look like a Flattracker. My Styrofoam fuel tank only rested onto of the frame whereas the real one will protrude through the frame and follow the blue line.

Shamfa's workshop. An Alladin's cave of project bikes, cars and all the welding and fabrication kit a man could ever want :-)