Last little bits and a completed race bike!
The end has been so near for the last couple of weeks that I could smell the race gas and burt rubber. I've been sneaking into the garage at every available opportunity. Little by little I've found solutions to fix the list of small things that kept me from calling the bike done. Today that ended.
One of the last little bits was the cooling system. There are 5 small pieces of rubber hose and 10 hose clamps that have failure potential. I wanted a little extra insurance to prevent a popped hose. The tracks in SoCal are often in the desert and the temps can be brutal. The rubber hoses could soften enough for a clamp to slip. I safety wired over top of the clamps for that extra piece of mind.
This is what it looks like. I pulled off 10 inches or so of wire from the spool and folded it in half. I then made a small loop and gave that a few twists. I looped the closed end around the back of the clamp's worm screw then over the top of the clamp band. I brought the open end around to the front of the worm screw and used my twist pliers to tighten down the open end just under the screw head. Now the clamp is held together with wire enough that it can't back itself out.
Here she is! The Silver Bullet is ready to race! I removed all the graphics so that I can make room for future sponsorship stickers (For sponsorship opportunities email me here) <-- only slightly kidding. The sun was right so I wheeled her outside and got her up on stands for this proud shot.
There are just a few tiny projects to do, but as she stands she is track ready. I'm searching through my database of tracks and track days to plan when I'll give her a shakedown run. She looks ready!
Well there you have it. Thanks for sticking around with me to see the project to completion. Come back soon for some project work on the Yamaha TX750 engine rebuild as well as updates and video footage from my upcoming shakedown run and races.
See you at the track!
Blue
One of the last little bits was the cooling system. There are 5 small pieces of rubber hose and 10 hose clamps that have failure potential. I wanted a little extra insurance to prevent a popped hose. The tracks in SoCal are often in the desert and the temps can be brutal. The rubber hoses could soften enough for a clamp to slip. I safety wired over top of the clamps for that extra piece of mind.
This was a new technique for me. It was straight forward, but I used twice as much wire as I needed to with waste and do-overs. All the snippets and missed attempts went into the recycle bin
This is what it looks like. I pulled off 10 inches or so of wire from the spool and folded it in half. I then made a small loop and gave that a few twists. I looped the closed end around the back of the clamp's worm screw then over the top of the clamp band. I brought the open end around to the front of the worm screw and used my twist pliers to tighten down the open end just under the screw head. Now the clamp is held together with wire enough that it can't back itself out.
Here she is! The Silver Bullet is ready to race! I removed all the graphics so that I can make room for future sponsorship stickers (For sponsorship opportunities email me here) <-- only slightly kidding. The sun was right so I wheeled her outside and got her up on stands for this proud shot.
There are just a few tiny projects to do, but as she stands she is track ready. I'm searching through my database of tracks and track days to plan when I'll give her a shakedown run. She looks ready!
Well there you have it. Thanks for sticking around with me to see the project to completion. Come back soon for some project work on the Yamaha TX750 engine rebuild as well as updates and video footage from my upcoming shakedown run and races.
See you at the track!
Blue
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