My Motored Bike

chilled to the bone

Its been cold as hell here the last few days and this past weekend the snow fell and didn't stop until we'd gotten 23 inches of the cold white shit. Its hard to think of bikes wen its 13 degrees and you've got snow up to your crotch. To make matters worse, starting tomorrow we are supposed to get some rain, they are predicting something like 3 inches. That means that it will be warm and wet, which I can only conclude that we will have flood watches because the drainage on the roads will be clogged up. Yeah happy biking. Just looking outside makes me want to hole up next to the pellets stove for the rest of the winter.

Between massive bouts of shoveling this weekend I managed to get out into the garage once when it peaked at freezing outside. Kid you not, that was the highest temp of the weekend 32 degrees. I measured wrong twice and cut my mount the wrong size by about a half inch, just less but still enough for me to want to kick my own ass. I'll be able to fix it easily but it's still annoying.

The mo9unt is a skateboard truck, with the legs cut to 3.5 inches on center. The bushing is tightened down so there is little movement and a screw will be put in to pin it further into place. IT should make a great lowered vibration mount.

The part f the truck that usually attaches to the bottom of the deck will be put onto the bottom tube, and u-bolts threaded through the holes on the mount. Some epoxy will be used to keep the mount from sliding around. Tighten that down and the whacker will be bolted onto the former axle of the truck. It should make for a rock solid and tight mount.

mounting ideas

I have been attempting to figure out how I'm going to get the whacker mounted on the bike. I want to mount it high up in the frame. Taking the stock gas tank off has caused some issues in that all the smooth surfaces that were once on the bottom of the engine are gone. It has left me with some great sturdy areas to mount, but at odd spots. It's also too damn cold right now to do anything in the garage. It's 14 degrees here right now and that means my garage isn't much different. I took a look at the engine yesterday when I was getting my snow shovels out and I came upon an idea. I can build uo layers of thin aluminum to create a mount. I can drill a hole the whole way through the stack secure it to the engine and then shape it how I would like with my dremel.

I've also considered getting 2 happy time engine mounts from BoyGoFast on eBay and using those to attach to the engine.

I was frustrated with the whole project It just seems to be taking longer than my other projects. Going from friction drive to gears drive with a whacker is a lot harder then just strapping a whacker to the side of a bike with a BMX peg on it.

IN reading some posts on the forum. I thought of epoxy. Someone else has made a mount of epoxy and I have a couple of tubes of plumber's putty, which is just a kneedable 2 part epoxy. It makes a thick moldable putty. I can use that to fill the weird shapes.

I was reading this thread specifically. The mount pictured there looks a lot like a skateboard truck. Good thing I didn't toss that skateboard last week when I was cleaning. So here is my plan. I'm going to use the trucks AND epoxy to create hopefully a sturdy mount. The axles for the wheels will come off, and the axle base will be trimmed to fit under the whacker. The mount for the trucks will be fitted tot he tub of the bike and epoxy will be used to form a curved surface. If I need to put some epoxy under the whacker I'll do that too. The idea is to turn the trucks so that the bolt for tightening the bushing down is accessible all the time this should allow me to tighten it down and diminish some of the vibrations. I will also have to figure out how to stop the truck from turning. It could be as simple as putting a pin in or more complex. I'll figure it out when I get to looking at it.

Kick it

I'm kicking myself right now. I had this bike in mind for my winter build. One of those late 70's early 80s mixte frames. Yeah it's a road bike but I won't be going over road bike speeds with it...So I've been looking on clist for ages now.

WEll this weekend one came up. I told myself not to call or email because I have the TREK, no need for another bike...

It was $10. Not in very good shape. But it was $10. Deacon told me to go for it, and I didn't.

Yeah, you want to kick me too.

I love the mail!

I ordered 2 11tooth sprockets from a business on eBay called TNC Scooters. I ordered them, I guess on Friday op last week and I received them today. Boy am I happy. Immediately changed into my garage clothing and set to work on the motor for my build an Echo Weed Whacker in great running shape. I chopped the casing for the whacker down, solid aluminum so that the shaft was sticking out enough for me to work with, about 1 inch, not a lot of shaft BUT enough for me to mess with.

First I headed to my vise. I had hoped that with some brute strength that I could manage to squash the square peg into a vaguely oval shape, it wasn't working for me. Instead I ended up with a rhombus. That steel shaft was stronger than it looked. So I whacked it a few times with a hammer... Still no oval, but I was able to make it rectangular, getting closer. I got it to about the correct shape and headed to the garage for my dremel. Oh my trusty dremel, it's so useful. I can't imagine doing one of these builds with out it. I used it to grind of just a smidgen from each corner, about half a millimeter. I was able to force the sprocket on to the shaft just a hair. I got it centered and used a #12 metric socket to pound it on there with my hammer evenly. It forced the shaft to the shape of the interior of the sprocket.

 

 

Tomorrow I'll grind a piece of ¼ inch all thread to the correct shape, mix some JB weld and force that into the shaft. Trim it to size and it will be good to go. I”m pretty happy with how the sprocket looked on the shaft and how the clutch ran with no load and the sprocket on there. We'll see how and if it pulls later.

I took a lot of pictures and even a video of the sprocket on the engine. I'm still figuring out how the heck I'm supposed to upload a video from this damn camera.

This kind of afternoon makes me so happy. I spent a warm (60 degrees) afternoon, about 2 hours working on this and it just came into place. So I suspect that  when a load is put onto this that it will fail misreably.

progressing

I spent much of the day in the garage. I managed to get the Iverson stripped of its parts and ready for sale as a frame. I got the pics and have it listed. We'll see if it sells. It probably won't.

I also got the Raleigh stripped of most everything I want. All that is left is the crank and gears. I'm ordering a bottom bracket tool on eBay next paycheck. The frame is actually in better shape than I thought. I hit the back of the frame up with some sandpaper and saw that much of what I thought was rust was actually staining and it came right off. There is some rust but not nearly as much as I thought. The front fork is in the same boat but with more rust. I was able to get a lot of it off.

I pulled the neck and swapped it out with the TREK neck and it looks a lot better than the one that was on it. The lines are so much better looking. Tomorrow I'm pulling the brakes off the blue 'Ray and seeing if they might work on this build, otherwise the brakes on it will have to do. Either way the brake levers are coming off and going on it. I'd like to use the handle bar from the 'Ray on the TREK but it would be hard to get on if not impossible.

When I get my freewheel took I'm going to see if I can get the freewheel off the Raleigh wheel and put it on the TREK.I 'm not sure it will work or not. We will see.

So far I'm pretty happy with how the bike is coming out. The mix of parts is nice.

Been Working the DayJob

It's been awhile. I've been working a lot and not doing as much with the bikes. I have been working on my other hobby, making books. I haven't been on the computer nearly as much as I used to be but I suspect with Wint now in full swing I'll be spending as much time as I was this summer, with this being the only room with AC.

Anyway. Some updates. I found a totally sweet Haro mountain bike on Craigs list for good money for my winter bike project. Turned out to be a nice bike but not for this project and not for me. When I took it for a spin I nearly took a header over the front, I'm just too long in the torso to ride a bike with 24 inch tires. SO I've tuned it up an put it up on clist. Hopefully the person who is seeing it on Thursday will make a good offer and it will be out of my way. After bringing the bike home the significant other took one look in the garage and told me I wasn't to buy another bike until I got rid of at least one of the bikes that I currently have.

Ahem.... I think it's a bit of an addiction. I have the MadWagon cruiser with the weed whacker on it. The StingRay with the happy time engine. Another StingRay sans motor and mid project. The Scwinn S95.6 with no motor and no plans to motorize it. I picked up a cheap Iverson GrandSport 10 to scavenge for vintage friction shifter and dérailleurs. Anyway, when I brought the Iverson home is when the plug was pulled on more bikes.

So today when I saw an ad on clist for 2 bikes cheaper than dirt* I paused for a second before sending an email... I did it and figured that because they were so cheap it would be okay... One is a Trek 800 Antelope, most likely a 1991. The good? It's in very good shape. The frame is steel and while slightly heavy it is strong. Perfect for motorizing. The stand over height is about 29 inches which is just about right for me, and the frame is a good size for a motor. I'm very happy with this bike. The bad? The components are pure shit. When I say pure shit, I mean they are the very bottom rung that Shimano made, with plastic components. I would be better off putting the SunTour Honors onto it from the Iverson and replacing the crap plastic shifters with the sweet shifter levers from the Iverson. The brake levers are also crap and integrated with the shifters. I hate plastic on bikes, hate it. This bike will be more work than it is probably worth but for a beater bike or for motorizing it is perfect. The Antelope/800 series was TREK's cheap line of bikes. This has26 inch tires and has a 17.5/18inch frame.

The other bike in the deal is a 1980 Raleigh Reliant, 21inch frame. The components on this one are SunTour Sevens Dated to 1980. The bike could be older but I don't think so. I had emailed the guy a few times and he let me know that he was no bike mechanic so I suspect that everything on both bikes is original. There is some rust on the front forks where the chrome is, but everything else is in good shape. Brakes work, dérailleurs appear to work and friction shifters move with ease. It needs new tires and brake pads. This bike is far too tall for me to ride with any comfort. I'm going to put the new tires on it clean it up and make it look good then get rid of it. I'll probably hold this one until summer for selling it. Though it is ripe for a fixed gear project.

Anyway, I paid so little for it that any work I put into it will be worth the pay off.

I also bought a freewheel removal tool so that I can work on the hubs of my bikes. It's about time. I've been messing around with bikes since I was a kid and never had the proper tools to do this.

^*This is a bit of a misnomer on my account. Have you bought dirt recently? the stuff is crazy expensive... For dirt. These bikes were cheaper than dirt but dirt being expensive it's not a good comparison. Lets say that these bikes, both of them cost me less than what I spend on coffee a week, which isn't much, seeing as how I make it at home. So you figure that out.

Winter Build Off

So my winter build is progressing nicely, sort of. I have an engine- an Echo GT160-AE 21.2 cc in great shape and running very very well. I have a gas tank- a round plastic tank from eBay no name brand with the words 2 Stoke Mix on the top, a rusty chrome cap and lots of character. I stripped that down last weekend and I've gotten 3 coats of flat black BBQ paint on it, and it looks great. I will pick up my bike for the build tomorrow. Its an older Haro, small frame with 24in tires and 18 speeds. Looks great, should run great.

I am hoping to find a tandem freewheel hub for a single side drive. That way my engine can run the crank but I won't have to pedal all the time and I'll have the gears. However all the set ups that I've found online have been outrageously expensive. I'm looking for something cheap and I'm not finding it.

The plan is to run my jack shaft from the engine to the freewheeling crank and then back to the gears so that effectively I have a 6 speed bike run on the engine..

To complete my build I need a banana seat, sissy bar, high rise handlebars and chrome fenders.