I've finally got everything finished!
That's the underside of the frame and the bottom of the battery tray. I anted to figure out a good way to secure the battery tray while still making it fairly accessible.
Looking at the frame for a while, I figured that I could use the stock threaded inserts on the frame to hold two brackets that would be welded on to the tray, something like this:
So, from the top side, I centerpunched a point through the threaded insert, drilled the hold through the bottom of the frame brace, and then ran a tap through:
Testing with some threaded rod showed it fit perfectly:
A close-up of the tray, bracket and thread:
I found a hex head bolt that was of the appropriate length, even though I was looking for stainless:
I drilled (intentionally oversized) holes in the bracket:
Marked off the excess from the bracket:
Trimmed the brackets down:
Then welded them onto the tray:
Next up comes the seat pan!
I had to trim down some excess bits to even up the rear o the pan:
Then I looked at the whole underside of the pan and the frame, trying to think of the easiest way to mount the pan to the bike while still keeping it very easily accessible.
Then, it struck me! Why not just use that nice elliptical-ish area of the frame bracing to drop a stud from the seat pan through a plate to hold the seat in place? That would work nicely since the seat is held in place longitudinally by the bracing and all it needs is to keep it from popping off the frame.
Cue the "stud:"
The plate made from leftover stainless:
Installed:
Closeup of the components:
I wasted some time making a spacer to fit over the stud to keep the seat pan from pulling too much, but found it to be completely uncesseary and . . . well, I welded the stud in the wrong spot to use that (there are pics of the endeavor as well as some tricks for safely drilling small pieces) and the seat pan is really heavy enough to not get pulled much at all by a wing nut, so I just left that out.
Final profile view:
Mike should be by hopefully tomorrow to pick up the bike. I can't wait to see what he has in store for it! I'm looking forward to seeing how the seat looks when it is covered.