Today, I'm pretty sure the bike has moved into the next phase.....
As she has now become a "Roller"! (well, sorta)
First we must backtrack a bit to last winter when I was trying to figure out where this bike was heading as far as overall design/style was concerned.. I knew that I wanted it to be a "nod" to an early/scalloped tank H1, and the seat was already on its way to what it has become.
The headlight and fork ears were still up in the air. I like the small stock headlight and fork ears on the early H1, so I gave them a shot.... Nah, too easy and I like to torture myself.
So I set about to find a headlight that I thought "worked" with this gastank. After who-knows-how many hours scouring the interwebs (google pics/etc) I kept finding myself coming back to a headlight that I just did NOT want to use as I feel its been a bit "played out" in the world of Cafe/Custom bikes. I like doing things a little bit different, and I was really happy with how the PIAA turned out on the KH750.. Basically, its so small it disappears... and I love it.
The light that I did not want to use was the Harley V-Rod light. Google it, and you'll see what I mean about everybody and their uncle using it. (There are a couple of Ducati's that look pretty sweet with them mounted though!)
But (and this is a HUGE BUT!!), after photoshoping the V-Rod headlight onto this bike, I just laughed. I don't know if Ive ever seen a headlight that was meant to go along with a gastank/lines of a bike as this stupid v-rod light does this tank.. It shares the same dimesions height and width-wise, and even the color (primer) matched the tank!
Sucky part is, they ain't cheap! ($200.00
), but it had to be done..
So, headlight arrived and the next step was to start fabbing up a set of headlight ears.
My first attempt (actually, was 3 different attempts as you can tell from the multiple brackets...lol) was going to be something like these..
But with a bit more of a "radiused" shape to kinda-sorta mimmick the lines of a stock set of early H1 headlight ears.
Here is what I came up with..
I bought four (4) 35mm Mountain Bike seatpost clamps and hogged them out to 36mm... Then bent up some aluminum rod and bolted the crap together. The headlight was going to be bolted to an aluminum "puck" which was to be welded to the inside nook at the front edge.....
Well, I still like the style, and it will work cool with a stock Round headlight....but when you bolt the V-rod light in, it sits WAAAAAAAAAAY too far away from the headstock and looks like absolute CRAP!!!!!
Good thing I only wasted about 12 hours of time on that!
I then thought about slightly modifying and using the factory mount that came with the headlight (See the Ducati above as he used the stock mount), but it just looked too "Bulky".
So I started googling headlight mounts..
nothing looked right
and then life got in the way and spring/summer/fall blew by........
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.
I was putting together another load of stuff to bring to the powdercoater, and in that was a set of early H2 front turnsignal mounts..
Wait?, these.... might.....
............Work!!!
I slipped them over the fork tubes and bolted the headlight to them.... Freaking sweet!!!
The main issue was that they just weren't quite long enough and the back of the headlight was rubbing on the fork tubes and lower triple clamp.... So I clearance the triple clamp a bit and got to work on some hillbilly blacksmithing......
Step 1. Insert a thick washer so "ears" aren't touching
Step 2. Remove paint
Step 3. Insert bolt, roughly the same diameter as the original mount-hole to act as "filler"
Step 4. Weld bolt to mount on both sides
Step 5. Build up about 1/2" of weld at the ends of the ears...and Yes, I am using a $50.00 Flux-Core welder..
Spatter anyone?
Step 6. Grind and File everything to shape. (newly shaped mount was rattlecanned for these pics..they have since been sanded completely smooth and powdercoated
)
Final Result!!!!!!!!!!!!
These new "fork ears" worked out sweet I think. Not only were they "free" (aside from a bit of fab work), they are rubbermounted!, so they won't scratch the Ti-Ni if I ever decide to change something up.
The only sucky part is that now I have to buy another set for the '72 H2 I'm building..
So as of today, I mounted the rest of the front end, handlebars and both wheels.. Then set about figuring out fenders (and other stuff). I was initially going to use a plastic inner rear fender (see early posts from earlier this year) and small plastic front fender hung from the Tarozzi fork brace.... but then remembered I had some chunks of original Early H1 fenders.
The rear chunk is what is left over from piece I sent Stale a couple of years ago for his W650 rear-fender conversion (anybody have a picture of that???....edit!! Found it!!
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6082/img2664e.jpgAnd the front fender was a "shorty" that was mounted on an H1a parts-toilet I have.
Mocked them up on the bike...and that is it!
I'm going with it. Have to move some frame tabs around for the rear and bit of messing around in the front, but its pretty straight forward.
Yeah, I know, I added another pound or so by using stainless instead of plastic, but whatever. I'll ride barefoot. I think my boots weigh about 19 ounces.
So here she sits as of today... Tomorrow should be productive as well.
Tired of typing now...
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