I'm gonna build a new bike, part 2

[bluegoatwoods]

Part 1 got a bit too long and was meandering some. I doubt if anyone wants to read all through that.

But I don't really mind tooting my own horn. So, if anyone is interested, here it is:http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?t=57449

I've got this one practically finished. All of the cutting and drilling is finally done.

Oh, wait....I've still got to make a couple of bend clamps for the headlight bar. And there's probably one or two others lurking in there. And I've still got to fasten down the wiring.

Here's a few DIY parts. They're not Earth-shaking. But they might be useful ideas.

A cable guide.



A combination cable guide, chain guard mount and muffler clamp.



Plus a couple of views of the overall bike.



I've probably got a couple more weeks to dot all of my "I"s and cross all of my "T"s. The weather here just isn't quite right for taking this bike out and firing it up.

We had rain followed by snow over the last day and a half. Followed by a deep freeze. So now all that wet stuff under the snow has frozen into hard and uneven ice.

It's so bad that I doubt if I'll even try to ride my pedal bike until we get at least some thawing.

But that's kinda okay. It'll give me a chance to really button this bike up before I take it out.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

A little bit of progress here.

Weather is still a bit bad here. I could take this bike out and ride it. But, still, once it comes out of the basement it's not going back down there. So all tweaking and adjusting will be done outside. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks before I take it out. But that leaves me time to get it really finished.

The only progress in recent weeks has been a few clamps to hold down cables, wiring, muffler, chain guard. And I see that I've already posted pics of that stuff above.

But now they're painted.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

Here's something that might be useful.


Just a small addition to the choke lever. It ought to help to find that lever when riding with gloves on. I don't have a lot of trouble with that. But I've always wanted something that's just a bit more certain.

It's not hard to center a 3/32 inch hole in that lever. Grind off the edge of a small coin and drill. Then open those holes to 1/8 inch. "Wallow" out the holes just a bit and a #6 machine screw will fit.

I've also been having a bit of trouble getting my driveline just right. I haven't mentioned it before because, in the various configurations, I've been feeling as though I've almost 'got it' and only small adjustments would be needed. But it's been a bit more troublesome than that.

When I first cut my chain I chose a length that would put my axle out at the front of my dropouts. That would've been fine, but the axle was so far forward that the lug was only barely holding onto the derailleur. While building I figured that would be acceptable, if only barely.

But it worried me. So I added a half-link. This gave so much slack that it was almost, but not quite, tight enough at the limit of my adjustment. I might have lived with that but I also discovered that something about that half-link changed the 'pitch' of the chain. The link just after the half-link would not seat on the output sprocket properly. Instead the chain bound up under the cover.

So I pulled the half-link and added one complete link. That made the chain far too slack, of course.

So I had no choice but to add in the kit chain tensioner. This is less than ideal. I dislike a bottom chain run that has such a bend in it. I also am not very trusting of those cheap tensioners. Perhaps I'll work on a mount that grabs onto both the chainstay and the seatstay. I'd feel more confident in that.

There is one advantage to this setup, though. I can partly tension the chain using the plastic wheel. Then I can fine tune the tension using my home-made axle adjuster.