Leaderboard

Got some more lead the other week. Eldest-son-in-law said he'd got some from when he's had roof repairs done. I only wanted about 50lb but came back with 400lb. So up to the farm today, fired up the oxy/acet and topped up the weights. Guess work how much lead to add, more by good luck than judgement, the weights have ended up the same. 56lb. To tidy things up I found a couple of plastic bucket lids to replace the existing ones. Eight self drilling/tapping roofing screws and things looked better. Quick spray of primer. They'll get another coat and a couple of top coats before I refit them.

During this cold weather my woodstore level is going down and i keep finding things that I accidentally put in there out of harms way. This is or was a Wheelhorse clevis hitch that's been modified but i think it will clean up nice. ive put an original one next to it to see the difference.

Well worth the weight Norman !

What kind of place is this?

Looks like a John mod

I wonder what that was modified for?

The dogs bollocks

Time to sort the steering.. The problem I had was the Quadzilla steering column didn't fit the mount on the frame, and the gauge pods I made would not bolt on! But I still needed the bottom of the column as it does the steering bit! So I needed the Honda top half and the Quadzilla bottom half, of course they are not the same diameter and one would not slide into the other! A little bit of lathe work later had the solution to joining the coulnms together and keep them straight.. A close up. To make sure nothing would move lot's of holes were drilled so I could plug weld through to the adaptor thingy.. My Murex Mig welded won't go all the way up to "Spinal Tap", so I turned it up a notch to 6 and zapped the parts together.. Cleaned up.. The good news is the column ended up exactly the right length, straight and the top and bottom halfs lined up, so it was bolted back in.. To celebrate the light and gauges were also bolted on.. MadTrax looks kinda strange with no wheels, tank or seat on! I would Now onto something fun, or not.. Wiring!!! I had already removed anything not needed from the Honda CX loom, but I also needed to splice in some of the Quadzilla loom! With the Quadzilla loom trimmed back to what I actually need things didn't look that scary! I now need to find an "easy to read" early Honda CX 500 wiring diagram to double check which wires do what as the loom had been hacked about before I started at it!!

I think there's gonna be a shortage of grinding disc's in the south soon, I'd better stock up before everyone runs out,

Morning all, back to the metal work.. The removable bit needed to be made bolt-in-able, so some more metal was added.. Some captive nuts would be handy to bolt it on, but I didn't fancy burning my fingers trying to hold the nuts in place while welding... So may I introduce to you all the sacrificial pencil Not only does the pencil screw into the nut very nicely, any pencil that burns off is easily removed from the thread Welded in with not a welding splat on the threads in sight Ok, this pic may be of the opposite side to the above pics, but it does point out the big hole in the end of the tube where it's been cut off.. To fill the holes I found a couple of washers about the right, cleaned them up and clamped them onto a bit of brass plate. THe holes in the washers were then welded up, the weld won't stick to brass.. Then a couple of "trimmings" were tacked on to give something to hold on to. Once removed from the brass they looked like this.. Or this!!!! Washers welded in.. And once the welds had been cleaned back the removable bit was bolted back in..

Not much to report, I have made a good start on the left side with the suspension mount strengthening.. When I put the TB in I had to cut a bit of tube out, so back in it went.. A close up. The captive nut is for the TB side mount. Only a couple of small plates to go in at the bottom and a lot of welds to grind down..

As you can see the shifter stick er... Sticks a fair way out from the gas tank.. A bit too far out for my liking.. Before I could narrow it I needed to find out why the stick just fell to one side under the weight of it's self. Once cracked open I found two springs were missing that that should hold the gear stick in the middle.. Not being able to find any compreession spring in the workshop that were the right length, width and strength I found a couple of bit of clear fuel pipe work just as well Just over an inch removed from the shifter.. Both halves were V'ed before welding back together to give maximun strength.. It looked quite nice once the welds were ground down nice and smooth Bolted back on to the frame, but I don't like the look of the shifter knob, it's more "Montego/Maestro" than MadMax, but thanks to Nigel I have something a bit er... Different to graft on... Yes it is what you think it is... A titainium hip joint

Morning all, time for a long over due update, though not a great deal has been happening.. I needed a better looking bracket to mount the transfer box shifter stick as the Quadzilla one was too big and very ugly. I'm sure you can guess which one is the new one Shifter bolted in. Still not quite sure where to mount it on the frame at this point, so I welded a couple of bolts to soe blue steel bar. Very long bits of bar With the "bolt ends" of the rods stuffed through the frame and bolted on the TB levers, I could see there was a fairly straight run to connect the rods to a "next to tank" mounted shifter... But then I found out all the shifter marlarky fitted nice just above the exhaust, tucked into the frame a bit.. Just enough space to get the connecting rods on With one shifter box mount thingy done, the rods were shortened a bit, had a few bends put in and a bolt welded on the other ends.. It's a bit crude, I may re do the rods with rose joints, but for now the shifter works very well, and you get a reasuring "thunk" sound as the TB goes into gear

It is indeed Norm, the cleaner and faster the gasses can get away from the engine the better It will look a lot better once the welds are ground down and it's all been wrapped in heat proof tape sort of stuff The solution to joing the two bit's of pipe together was this ear trumpet shaped bit of pipe. It's a tight fit around the transfer box, a very thick ally heat shield will be going between the exhaust and the black electrical gizmo with the word up, upside down.. Don't want to melt it! Apart from grinding down lot's of welds that's the exhaust system done Next on the hit list to sort is the shifter for the transfer box.. It needs to go somewhere around here, also the bracket looks really ugly so a new one is being made.. The fun bit is going to be making the rods that connect it to the transfer box, but luck might be on my side as I found an easy route through the frame, above the carbs that will require minimal bends to the rods.. Oh, a scrap pile raid produced all the rods I could need To finish off this update have a moody smokey picture of the MadTrax