Well, the progress of the project has suffered over the latter part of this year, but I thought I would post some of the work I have managed to get done.
The latest part of the project to receive my attention has been the brakes. The easy part was stripping, coating, and rebuilding, the calipers and rear master cylinder.
I used ground and brushed stainless bolts in the rebuild of the calipers. The originals and the ones provided in the rebuild kit were grade 8. I hope the stainless ones don't pop under load...
I have also tackled the relocation of the rear master cylinder (technically front and rear given that it is a linked system). As I wanted to keep the frame open, I needed a place to hide the cylinder. The bottom side of the central frame rail under the tank seemed like the idea location, so I set about making this work.
The brackets the hold the upside-down cylinder were the easy part.
Routing the cable that now drives the cylinder was a different story. I had to bend this 1/2 tube, and turn the bung that holds the cable housing back on the bottom side of the frame housing on the lathe. You can see it held in place above.
While this picture is of the system finalized, this gives you an idea of the new brake system on this end of things
The system is now more or less complete, and I will add photos of the completed system once I restart the project in the new year.
While I had the frame apart I also redid the bottom engine mount bracket. With the removal of the battery tray the bracket was unnecessarily long, and I couldn't live with the nasty mig welds along the seam from the original time I trimmed the bracket.
Original:
Timmed:
Then with the some creative brazing and filing, I hid the weld and blended the bracket into the frame.
Not that anyone will notice, but it should look beautiful below paint.
I also cut some head guards. The ones commercially available for the v50 don't really fit my tastes. These wont protect the spark plugs in the event the bike is dropped, but the will protect the irreplaceable parts. If anyone wants the cad file for these LMK.
Here is how the project stands at the moment.
Also, I really want to simplify the gauge cluster by buying one of these:
I always loved the way my friends 911 put the tach in the center of the instrument panel. I feel like it appropriately focuses your attention on what one should be concerned about while driving.
Happy holidays everyone. I hope to have the project hit the road in 2014!