still alive.

dangit! i had some rough times and some good times. all that's important is that i'm still here! granted, i have been awfully quit on this blog for the last year, and i also have been scary little in the garage. some of the rough times were that all my tools got stolen. the tools i collected in the past 18 years were gone. and since i collected them in 18 years i had not much proof for the insurance to claim enough to get my tools replaced. this my friends was such a bummer i stayed out of the garage for way to long. so not much work on bikes and not one spanner on my own bikes. i have ridden a lot with the digger though..

 also the XJ got his needed miles at high speed. ;)

 Peter Pan (you know the dude with the franken pan (european) scored a nice little suzuki but it looked like crap. he is in love with Daddy Cool (the digger) and wanted a quick fix.
so with a little grinder action and white paint he was satisfied for the time being.
 

i promise i will try to ride and share more of these rides and build more on my bikes! i'm back! and i'll keep on riding and chopping!

hope to see you soon on the road or the blog!

occupied..

alright, i'm a bit in a pickle here..
all of this:

still has to become a complete bike before the BigTwin bike show next Thursday.
and i only have the Wednesday right before that Thursday to make that pile of parts into Daddy Cool again.
ow shit.. that will be an all nighter to finish the damn machine.
i had planned to do the job last week but i got occupied. the FrankenPan (European) gave some grief again.
an coolant manifold leaked and later on broke. and just to give me some more pleasure it was the one the was the hardest to get to.
things to remove: fairing (a shitload of plastic), fake fueltank, air filter box, air box, carbs,the actual fuel tank, cables, some rubber covers and after all that work..

the whole shabang had to go back again.. and i'll be damned, it wouldn't go easy. carbs in double "V" will not cooperate into the manifolds. and the airbox thought the same. so i ended up taking the carbs apart to fit the airbox to the carbs and after that fighting the whole setup as one part back on the manifolds.
needless to say... it took the whole day... the day that was planned for Daddy Cool.
a well.. one built day remaining!

frankenpipe (aka Peters Pan)

today my colleague Peter came by to have me check his bike, he had some problems with his water temp gouge.

it's a Honda Pan European and he uses it as daily, any weather driver, so it is somewhat important that he could keep an eye on the engine temps.
before he arrived at the Garage i could hear him coming from far.. not a sound you'd expect of Pan European..
ah well, i would check that out later..
first up: the water temp sender. as i screwed the thing out the radiator no water came with it.. ouch.. the sender is in the lower parts of the radiator, so there has to be water surrounding it! and it has to pour out when you remove the sender...
that's an easy fix for the sender... fill the engine with some water again, so it's surrounded with water, and hope there was enough in it before to save the bike from serious damage. it seems no serious damage had been done.

now let's check out that loud exhaust sound!
after a short "finger feel" i could sink my whole finger in several holes.. wtf?
so off with the rightside pipes!
now that's odd.. it's a Honda so it's build to perfection right? wrong! the headers are stainless steel but the collector (which is a integrate part of the headers) is of plain steel. so that part was rusted to oblivion!

and trust me.. the other side was even worse!
but as long as the headers were of the bike i could always do some patching up, bastard style!! (my colleague is also a poor fucker like me and a new exhaust system is just to expensive)
so i took some scrap sheet metal, a hammer fired up the welder and started forming and welding..

so after a little while the Franken pipe was ready!

at first i thought i could patch up the holes with small patches, but the collector was to worn out, the metal was way to thin to weld something tight. so on the side where i started it looked like Frankenstein..

for the other side i started making a brand new side of the collector and welded it to the last thick parts of the collector.
also the outlet pipe was rotting away on the welds so i tackled that with some metal sheets to.

the Frankenpipe is air tight again and the Pan is a little more quit!
i used 0,8 MM (MiliMeters) sheet, so i think the collector will survive the bike!