Dang It. Another Thing Followed Me Home.

[cheesy]

The swap was a dud. The threat of rain, along with the heat and high humidity, kept the bulk of the vendors away. Mrs. C went along and noted that while the bulk of the parts for sale were HD, the bikes for sale were everything but. I just remained non-committal.

Weld-The Briggs is already fit with a float style carb. No worries there. I do plan on shortening the bars as they are part and parcel of the forks. The headtube angle itself is a tad laid back for my taste. We will see how things pan out.

[BlackBike]

This is gonna be good. As a kid I could never convince my parents/grandparents of the necessity of a mini bike

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by BlackBike

As a kid I could never convince my parents/grandparents of the necessity of a mini bike

Me neither.

[Bruce's]

I bought my own ! I traded an Estes rocket for a 1967 honda minitrail 50 ,no parents involved with the deal ,paid about $5.00 for the rocket kit ,then figured out that I didn't want to spend a dollar every time I lit it off ,so after the first 3 pack of engines it became a honda .That honda today would be very high dollars ,like $5-7 thousand in the condition it was in .

[cheesy]

Some parts accumulation happened. Scored a clutch on amazon for $21 AAANNNDD a friend of one of the guys that works for me gave me a brand new 5" wheel with the rear hub and bearings. It has 5/8" ID bearings and I happen to have about 8' of 5/8" cold rolled round stock in my stash, so free rear axle.

Also ended up with about a thousand pieces of 1.5" x 1.5" x .125" steel plate with a .5" hole at work this week. Stuff that was leftover from a different project I wasn't involved in but I ended up with the extra hardware and was told to do anything I wanted with it.

Anywho, I figure I can pop the .5" hole to 16mm in four pieces and weld those to the swing arm for the axle to slide through. I plan on having the axle position fixed and use a tensioner to take up chain slack. It works in my minds' eye, anyway.

[cheesy]

Ran into the first of what I suspect will be many reworks of the original design. The swing arm pivot has no bushings. It never had any. As such, there is about a 1/2" of play at the end of the swing arm. The pivot axle is only 12mm, too. Time to make use of some more of that 5/8 stock I have laying around.

[cheesy]

Note to self. Do not wear shorts while using plasma cutter.

[BlackBike]

Originally Posted by cheesy

Note to self. Do not wear shorts while using plasma cutter.

I will own a plasma cutter one day...someday jealous

They refuse to make a sub $500 model.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by BlackBike

I will own a plasma cutter one day...someday jealous

They refuse to make a sub $500 model.

Campbell Hausfeld discontinued their dandy little unit last year and it was the sub $500 one you were looking for. I got mine on closeout at Menards for under $400 and it has been worth every penny.

I was using my Thermodynamics Dragonfire, or tail, or breath, or whatever it's called when the shorts incident occurred. It's completely portable with it's own compressor and was a lot more than $500. Not to me but the guy I got it from.

[BlackBike]

Originally Posted by cheesy

Campbell Hausfeld discontinued their dandy little unit last year and it was the sub $500 one you were looking for. I got mine on closeout at Menards for under $400 and it has been worth every penny.

I was using my Thermodynamics Dragonfire, or tail, or breath, or whatever it's called when the shorts incident occurred. It's completely portable with it's own compressor and was a lot more than $500. Not to me but the guy I got it from.

https://www.menards.com/main/tools-h...4426149352.htm

Wow, this is nice to see they are finally coming down. Have not seen this, thanks. $444 this is approaching "do-able".

[Weldangrind]

Maybe you can trim some bronze bushings for the swingarm pivot.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Maybe you can trim some bronze bushings for the swingarm pivot.

I spent some money at Mcmaster-Carr and got some 3/4" ID tubing and 3/4" x 5/8" bushings, along with some other stuff.

I did some investigating, i.e. actually looking, and found that the swing arm axle was a long 3/8" replacement, sitting inside a 12mm ID tube. Hence the slop.

No more work on this for a while. The World's Greatest Granddaughter will be here, sans parental units, for two weeks, starting Sunday. We have some serious fishing, birding, and science to do.

[Weldangrind]

That sounds like a properly sorted priority. I'll just wait here until you get back on the mini chopper project.

[cheesy]

The Worlds' Greatest Granddaughter has been returned to her other grand parents and will be back at her parents house on Wednesday. It was quite a trip for someone not quite eight years old and to be away from home for a month. Maine to Pennsylvania to Illinois to Northern Wisconsin. Back to Illinois to Pennsylvania to Maine. I know that I'm beat, having put 4500 miles on the Chevy.

No work was done on the minibike but there were trips to Brookfield Zoo, Blackberry Farms, and the Kane County Fair. There was one trip, however, that was just the two of us.

She caught her first fish and was excited as all get out.

So, it is very quiet at Chez Fromage at the moment. Mrs. C and I are reveling in it. Work on the mini bike is still on hold while I'm wearing the aircast. I'm pretty sure that it and welding won't mix. It's also ungodly hot and humid. My friend in Finland IM'd me this morning to tell me how warm it was at his place; 25C. Told him he loses because it was already 30C here and heading to 35C. He agreed.

While the mini bike is on hold, I came across the basis for another future project. Work was scrapping a nearly new Lambordini single cylinder diesel engine, with electric start. I had them scrap it into the back of the Chevy. I think it is in about the 12-15hp range. So, how about something like an old CB350 frame with a torque converter drive? Huh huh?

[cheesy]

Okay, pics of the little diesel that's not going on the minibike.



I made a liar out of myself and over estimated the hp rating because I transposed the kw rating. It's 4.8, not 8.4. Anyway, it works out to about 6.5hp@3600rpm. 315cc displacement, 1" output shaft. Kohler bought Lombardini around 2008 and the engine is still in production as the KD315. This engine is a 2004 with MAYBE three hours on it. It just needs air and fuel filters then it's ready to rattle the neighborhood. These little boogers are loud, with the accompanying diesel rattle and stink.