I shot a text to my friend Robbie reading, “Moto bro?”
An inside joke from at least ten years ago—an old weekly call-to-action text.
Time to work on bikes.
It’s not that I can’t assemble the main components of a bike myself but an extra set of hands when you’re sliding 160 pounds of motor into a sparkling clean frame is always nice.
Plus, hanging out with old friends…
The troubles began before we even met up. I let the assortment of bike parts gather dust in my home garage and while moving them to my shop I notices flakes of plating and rust inside my tank—leftovers from the chrome process. Not what you want for serving 91 octane to a fresh engine.
I did an overnight vinegar soak and got most of it, but the tank still needed a thorough cleaning inside.
A sticky note seemed like the right place for a to-do list, so I wrote, “clean tank” on a fresh yellow note to keep on the side of my toolbox.
Assembly Sunday rolled around, and Robbie beat me to the shop—more reliable than an old Harley. More reliable than me.
We unloaded the rest of the parts and got to work.
Everything started smoothly. The neck cups slid right it with some coaxing from a three-pound rubber mallet. I still had the spacers for the rear wheel for once so we slid the axle right in and hand tightened the nut.
Halfway to a roller.
I’d purchased a new lower tree a few years prior after disassembling the bike. I’d been running an FLH style front end and didn’t want the clunky mounting tabs. Somehow, I’d lost the aluminum, one-inch inner diameter tube I used for a punch to seat bearings on lower triple clamps.
We searched my shop for an acceptable substitute and discovered that the pump handle to a hydraulic jack would do.
With the bearing seated the rest of the assemble was going to be easy—just twisting a wrench.
Right?
No.
The lower tree went on like normal as did the top clamp until we tried running the fork tube through them and the holes didn’t line up. I always have a “I hate motorcycles” moment with any job that’s supposed to be simple.
It turns out the set of 41mm wide glide trees I had were de-raked so the new lower I’d bought was at a different angle than the old top.
I wrote “new top clamp” on my yellow sticky note and we finished assembly with the old trees instead.
We didn’t torque down the drivetrain so we could wait and alight everything when installing the belt and chain.
What’s left:
I still need to clean up the exhaust and install that. Plus, after assembling the bike, which I built two years ago, I decided I’m not into how the sissy bar looks.
I’ll be making a fresh stainless sissy bar for this thing.
I also didn’t like foot control’s location, so I’ll also be making a set of stainless mids along with a new clutch and brake pedal set up and all the linkages.
After those last two fab jobs are done, I’ll just have to button up the final drive and build a wiring harness.
And shave the forks.
And tackle the problems I haven’t run into yet.
I’ve got a full yellow sticky calling me from the side of my toolbox.
I’ll keep you posted.