78-79 E/F/SF Simplified Wiring

[Brian_D]

Holy %$@* Batman, after reading thru your linked thread on the UK site, I'll definitely be following your progress - I'm only in the early stages of dissassembly. Money and time retard my progress to a snails pace.

My original plans included

• 4-1/2 inch stretched and braced swingarm/driveshaft (bracing fashioned after AlanB's braced swingarm)
• new rear frame with stepped/lowered seat section and Mustang-style seat
• wiseco big bore kit
• custom exhaust (Jardine-style 4-2 headers w/MAC-style turnout exhaust)
• New oem undercut tranny gears
• Barnett clutch kit with frictiions and steels
• V-Star Custom tank,gauges, and rear fender
• custom paint and powder coat throughout
• misc other mods (head work - to the bike, not me; performance ignition; fork brace and Progressive suspension front and rear)

Of course, after reading thru your experience with the frame and steering head, I'm back to considering adding a slight change to the front rake. Also would like to go fatter on the rear tire but unwilling to go mono shock or chain drive.

How difficult would it have been to added a 33-degree rake to your rat bike during the straightening process?

[TomB]

Brian

Altering the rake is quite an easy job if you can weld or have a mate that'll nip round and weld it up for you.

I left the four frame tubes intact and removed the under gusset plate to allow my frame to straighten, but cutting through two of the frame tubes was considered as an option, if you did that you could quite easily pull the rake out.

You would need to set up a measuring jig similar to mine to ensure you kept the frame straight whilst doing it but the jig was very simple.

You could cut a 1/16" out of the top tubes at a time then pull the rake out to close up the gap, then check your rake angle, then cut more out of the top tube and rake out again if more rake angle is needed, keeping going until you're happy with the amount of rake, in the end the two cut ends would be out of line slightly but with a bit of plating to strengthen the top tubes wouldn't be a weak point.

Anything done on the top tubes would be hidden by the gas tank.

With my frame, it was a wrecked frame anyway so I had little to lose if I got it wrong, old frames seem to be unwanted from parted out bikes, so if I were you I'd be tempted to get hold of an old frame to rake out then swap all your bike parts onto it, that way if you get it wrong you havn't wrecked your bike.
And you can always revert back to standard at a later date.

These are just my thoughts.



You have the same problem as me with time Brian, where I differ is I want to build this bike for as little as possible and am getting a real buzz from doing it this way

Tom