Its a touch windy out there in our neck of the woods today,, but lovely to be out on two wheels nonetheless.
Removed the cracked exhaust manifold from the Explorer. Metal very thin around the welds of balance pipe and not worth trying to get it welded. Trying to source a cheaper alternative to the OEM replacement, only found Lextek so far at £300 currently out of stock and they might have some by late October. Anyone here know of any other options?
Yeah, back to plan A, silver or lead solder until you can get the replacement, though personally I would weld it, it cannot be too thin to weld as someone has already managed it.
@Koko55, I live many miles from you and I still have to put my shades on when you head out for a ride. Subtle and subdued are two words never used to describe that bike. I love it! Please just keep it in Dorset…
it may be worth considering if someone could saw through the cross pipes; remove 3.5” of central vertical pipe from the upper shoulder downwards; blank the cross pipes off and finally weld in a new 3.5” section of straight… avoiding the cross pipes altogether.
Thanks, but there's really not much to weld to @PatW , is cracked all the way round. But before I commit to buying anything I'll see if anyone willing to have a go particularly with the idea below. Thank you @DCS900 , that might be the solution to sort me out Now looking for a local fabricator who'll want the job.
Got the speed rs serviced. £275 as I wanted the brake fluid and the coolant done too. Otherwise it would’ve been £210. He gave me a rundown when I was at the counter and he when he said "they’ve changed the coolant", I genuinely said cool. I'm a twat.
Polished the tank and applied the petrol, guinness, ethanol, pepsi and nitro resistant epoxy to the edges inside the filler neck. Don't you hate it when the petrol fumes get into those edges a ruin all the airbrush work? Fitted the new stop cock, cut a new length of fuel line, fitted tank, chose a cap from the collection. And off.....nope, there's no bloody petrol FFS.
Customs/choppers are very definitely NOT my preferred style of 'bike but your work is endlessly impressive (to me) and stunningly beautiful. You, @darkman - and probably a few others - have a level of talent and ability that is simply mindblowing to a klutz like me. Just thought I'd put that out there.
I built a similar shaped hard tail XS650 low rider, also with the sportster style tank, though not finished to anywhere near that quality. The side panels were cut out of Castrol GTX tins and wrapped in vinyl. It was my daily ride and I rode it from uk down to Barcelona and back in 1980s, pounded my Kidneys to pieces and I sold it when I got back, anyhow, lovely work mate, Enjoy!
Adie - thanks very much. Each to their own, any two wheels are fine with me - I wave to scooter riders too. If any of the posts help others in what they are trying to achieve then goodie gumdrops. (I also quite like to show off a bit cause I like that some of my efforts have turned out quite nice). Cheers, Over...
Pat, yep, been there too. I went through the whole range XS650, XS1100 and even the triple XS750 (which was really horrible with a shaft drive. It dropped a valve on the way home from it's first MOT in Woolwich after being built.) Bits weren't available then, you either made them or converted something to fit. The 70s were worse, old C15s with sunset paintjobs, jeez
I was ripping it up on my RD200 and YR5, RD400 etc in the 70's, levi Cut off over my leather whilst thinking I was Dennis Hopper had a series of 2 strokes, last one a Boiler, as the eighties dawned I went 4 stroke..I do miss Bike magazine though
Well, I had planned to ride my Triumph today with our Sunday motorcycle ride group at 8AM but was foiled by mother nature. I'm glad I got out yesterday--but it wasn't on my Speed Triple. I'll try to squeak in a ride on Tuesday on that bike. So for today Speedy sat idle in the garage and I had a second cup of coffee and read the Sunday paper from front to back. Ellie the Boxer was none too pleased with the weather either. But it's hard to be too upset when it rains in the desert. We've been in an extreme draught for years so we'll take the rain when it comes and be (or try to be) grateful for it! \\
As I could not get any fuel for my bike this weekend I spent a bit of time making a battery cover for my speedmaster.
Pulled the thruxton out of the garage this morning and gave it a good clean. The weather improved at lunch time, so decided to get the tiger out to go for a run. A bit windy, but the sun did shine through the clouds. Lovely
