Thanks man. Ya, everything adds up. I think each of these mods is cool by themselves but when you add them all up...well, I'm hoping it all flows together into a really nice package. And there's so much more that could be done, but hell, I want to ride it someday.

That's exactly what I did the first time...after waiting a month. I dropped by and walked in on one of the guys pulling the tape off the last few of my parts. Maybe I'll swing over there at lunch time and see what's up.

 

Just got back from a Four day backpacking trip and just HAD to catch up!
The curiosity struck me on my way down the Mountain back to the Cages. ErgoNight, you did not disappoint.

 

Thanks SportE!

So we were in the shop last night until about 10pm and Oz finished up work on the frame. Here's one of the struts after polishing and then the needle gun treatment.



Drilled a 3/4" hole in the bottom of the rear downtube. This is for additional electrical harness access to the battery compartment area.


Also drilled a half inch hole on the underside of the main backbone to drop wires for the fuel injectors straight down, and drilled a smaller hole over the rear cylinder area to run the heat sensor wire straight up and through the frame.



And finished the skid plate.






Everything turned out really great. All the welds are filled and smoothed, holes drilled and we were ready to go to powdercoat. I loaded everything into the truck and dropped it off this morning. Got a call back from the powder guy who said I need to take the damn fork lock out before they do it. When we were doing the frame work I thought about having Oz just cut that thing off and fill the hole but didn't. Now I have to go pick up the frame, take it to the shop, pop out the fork lock and take it back to the powder guy. The good news is a lot of the other parts I gave them a few weeks ago are done and I'll be able to pick them up...

 

This will be so cool when you get it out on the road......................................next year, hahaha

 

Ergo, the bike is shaping up and looking great! I had it in my head that your skid plate would run along the entire bottom of the frame...any reason you didn't do that? I know I wish I had one when I go over a speed bump that a scosh too tall and scrape the bottom center of the bike.

 

Needle gun treatment? As in a needlegun scaler? Cool stuff, but curious what this accomplishes on your struts that the powder guy won't take care of in media blast. Guess I just thought they removed tough rust and sort of etched the surface. Too sweet man, you got a real badass one off frame there Ergo.

That was harsh Rog. LOL

 

Haha......I just want to see it on the road. We use something similar to the needlegun with aircraft parts. If you do it a certain way for a certain period of time it will actually harden the metal.

 

this... is insane...

 

Damn, sometimes I think you could be right about that. But then, our weather turned cold again and it doesn't seem like summer anymore and, well, there is still hope.

 

Thanks GW. I guess there are threee basic reasons for doing the skid plate:
1) Looks. I think it looks cool and it's kinda unique, though I did get the idea from the Sex Panther bike over on Chop Cult.
2) Hide the horn. I hated that thing hanging between the downtubes and there's really no place else to put it. It will be largely unnoticable behind the skid plate.
3) Provide some protecttion to the front of my newly painted engine.

Going much farther back might also create difficulties running the wires for the voltage regulator and the oil pressure sensor - those will go under the engine between the frame rails. Bottom line, the skid plate is mostly for the look, not to protect the entire bottom of the engine, though where it covers it certainly will provide some protection.

That's the way I was thinking about it.