Aidan

No chance of it being finished for a while Norm, but you can have a good nose at it tomorrow when you drop by the workshop
 
 
The sp-z wagon sounds like a Japanese import car
 
I guess it's about time for another update as it's been a while.
 
The fuel tank gained a couple of these strange looking brackets.
 

 
 
If your wondering what they are for, they hold the front of the seat down.
 

 
 
The rear of the seat has a couple of plastic spikes/pointy bits which fit into the rubbers.. I found a couple of washers which were the right size inside but too small on the outside..
 

 
 
So I cut a hole in some plate..
 

 
 
Dropped the washer in..
 

 
 
Then zapped it up..
 

 
 
Tack welded in place.. They will get fully zapped up when I pull the quad apart to finish all the welding..
 

 

You would be right Norm... Which is why I made this
 

 

 
 
Not perfect but it should help the gasses flow in the right direction now
 

 
 
Getting the down pipes from the engine to the 2 into 1 thingy was interesting, lot's of measuring, bending, welding and trimming a few mm's of here and there until it all fitted together..
 

 

 

 
 
The exhaust system is split into 3 parts so I can actually get it in and out of the frame.. Here's the front part on the bench getting fully welded up..
 

 
 
A couple of little holes like this to fill or it will be louder than I think it's going to be... Quite loud I'm guessing
 

 
 
The rear section with the two shortened silencer boxes and some 1 into 2 pipework..
 

 
 
Here's the completed system, me thinks it looks quite mad
 

 

 

It was a pleasure to meet yourself and  Nigel the craic was mighty , I could have stayed much Longer but the handbrake was getting too warm sitting in the car so we had to move on. The levels of craftsmanship on WN was excellent,  the photos really don't do it justice. 
 
 

Thanks mate, it sure makes a difference when you have the right tools
 
The Honda MadTrax now has a backbone.. Sorry about the rubbish photo, my phone camera is starting to have problems now it's getting on a bit.
 

 
 
I'm sure all you bike folk know what these bit's of small tube are for..
 

 
 
These are old mounting rubber from a Ford P100 pick-up. After a bit of trimming..
 

 
 
They were perfect for mounting the fuel tank in the normal bike kinda way.
 

 
 
With some cutting, shaping, welding and adding a captive nut the rear tank mount was made.
 

 
 
The top engine mount taking shape, I just need to find a couple more bolts.
 

 

 
 
To finish off here's the latest MadTrax video.. Enjoy
 
 

The new bit of the rear frame has been sorted, I think your agree that "kick up" gives MadTrax an aggressive mean sort of look
 

 

 
 
Of course as soon as the frame had enough strength put back in to take the weight of a person.. I just had to have a seat
 

 

 

 
 
You know the saying of "A bad workman always blames he's tools".. Well in this case I can rightly blame my small Mig welder..

With the aid of a new welding mask and Nigel's 30+ year old heavy duty Mig I produced the best welds I have ever done This is the start of the lower rear engine mounts..
 

 

 
 
A couple of rear upper engine mounts..
 

 

 
 
MadTrax can now hold it's own weight up including engine
 

 

Finger looks nasty Ian but look on the bright side.  The blob of weld might have landed on your wedding tackle instead of your wedding ring.

Thanks Alan, I should be a lot further ahead than I am really, but life, looking and giggling have slowed me down
 
 
 
It's called visualizing and working things out
 
Well, early Monday morning my welding wire turned which was very nice of it.. Tacking tubes together with a Arc welder has not been fun..
 
As it happened Mig welding was not fun for long!!    A word of warning chaps, always wear gloves when welding even more so if your welding something galvanized!
 
Why??
Well a rather nasty evil big blob of molten weld decided to jump and land on my wedding ring where it most unkindly burnt a hole through it and at the same time super-heated the top half of the ring to a very "ouch" sort of temperature!
 

 
 
Getting the ring off was interesting to say the least, it's always been a very tight fit but still turned, but once my finger started swelling!!    With the help of Google, a good chap by the name of Matt, and a length of fine string we managed to get the ring off without having to cut it!   
This was quite bad timing as it was our 9th wedding anniversary yesterday!
 

 
 
For those of you (Hi Nigel) who are saying I shouldn't wear the ring in the workshop, I've never taken it off as it doesn't/didn't really come off without a big fight!
 
And now onto something tubular..  The quad frame.. A lot of new tube work has gone in to add strength and also give it a bit of style..
 

 

 
 
While my Mig welder did an "ok" job of welding the frame up, it did seam to be lacking oomph and not powerful enough to do a good job.
So Nigel the good chap he is suggested we drag he's welder through and give it a whirl...     Strong welds??   Ooooo yeah baby
 

 

 
 
This was one of those corners with a lot of steel bar showing.. It now be filled with weld
 

 
 
So thanks for the use of your welder mate, I now feel a lot happier about riding the quad
 
A blurred view of the other side..
 

 
 
The rear or the frame is getting a re-shape to to keep the curved theme of the frame going, here's the first part of it.. 3 tubes all with slight bends to get them fitting under the seat lip. When the seat if clamped down only the bottom half of the tube will be showing.
 

 
 
I just love this view from the back, the tank makes it look so meaty and MadMaxy
 

Thanks mate
 
 
 
Don't you mean Australian Norm?
 
With the fuel tank braced in the right place I could make a start on rebuilding the frame.. This may sound a strange way of doing it, but I want the frame to be a feature and not hidden away under bodywork.
 

 

 
 
Every cut and join in the frame has some nice thick steel bar inside to make sure it's all strong enough when welded up.. Everything is only tack welded at the mo as I've run out of Mig wire.
 

 
 
I like the "double down pipe" look, the o/s was easy..
 

 

If your thinking the n/s looks a bit close to the carb then you would be right!
 

 

It's so close that I had to notch the inside of the pipe to give enough space to get a fuel pipe on the carbs!
 

 
 
Putting some strength back in the front, roll on Monday when my welding wire should arrive and I can zap all the tubes fully together..
 

 
 
 

Stretch it out and make it into a drag quad for the dirt. You could put big tractor cleat tyres on the back. 
 

Are he's not telling you the real story here, this has been blocking up my workshop for months it was owned by my boy Karl, now as you all know ime a bit of a grumpy git and have been moaning to Ian for months about it, so today I was ready to take Ian home and was sitting in my truck with the engine running  then I cought Ian doing the deal with my boy he came out with a big smile deal done,hit me right up the ribs he did, bought it from under my nose, caught me napping, 

It would seem that somehow today I managed to buy one of these with a shot engine (not this one) late this afternoon...
 

 
 
Well, I needed somewhere to put the spare CX500 engine I have
 

 

Yes Chris. I gave it a test with good results.

Did a bit of multi  skilling today. Gave the blade four coats of paint and finished the base for Carols new studio.
 

 

 
Job done.

Lengthened the lift bar today. Just by about 1/2". Now with the tractor on 3/8" boards, the blade just touches the ground. That will do me.
  With the tractor down on terra firma and the blade up, there is about 3" clearance t'ween blade and ground. With the blade angled, there is roughly 2" difference side to side.
  All primed now and may get top coats tomorrow.
 

Had a bit of time today to do a couple of modifications to the blade.
ive dropped the mounting and cut a piece out of the top of the blade, now it lifts higher and has given me 4" of ground clearance which is double what i had.
the blade is still 5 1/2" wide in the middle which is plenty 

The graderblades looked good mounted on the tractors at Biddenden ( see photos) but in use they are a bit low with not much ground clearance, the soil was very soft and full of weed which gathered in big clumps making it easy to get stuck.
Im going to make a small modification to mine which will lift it higher and try again but in all i was very pleased with it as it got plenty of abuse and it didn't break .
I'll do an update tomorrow 

Chris/Norm,
The blades look great, you have done a fantastic job in a short time. Unfortunately I now feel the need to make one, another thing to add to the list.
 
For a future modification, you could make the attachment bracket in two parts that can swivel. That way you could have one side of the blade lower/higher than the other, to enable you to grade an angle. Just a thought...
 
Iain
 
 

We didn't have to reposition the lugs for the lift. Chris had a good hunt through his stock of brake/clutch/lift rods and found a couple that got modified. His is the fully assembled one, the other is mine. The wear strip has yet to have the holes squared. I may not fit the rubber strip, then I may. Depends on what I using it for.
  They are only painted in primer and will be fully painted in the near future.
 I reckon we haven't done so bad in the time we had and we didn't fall out. I know one thing. I could do with a holiday.

Had a really good day, here's some photos to update you all.

Lunch time update on kit number 1

Got the frames and swivel heads done. Couple of minor hiccups but sorted now. Been trying to work out a lift rod tonight.  Things a bit tight. Going to move the lift bracket on the frame in the morning.   
 
 

well explained thanks

a mid mounted blade has feed back from front wheels if front wheel drops in a hole blade drops and fills hole if blade is out front a pothole causes another to be made just in front of it

Hi Chris
The idea behind  in using an existing fixing point is if the valve block or in Rollomans case was that if the pump was fixed to the tractor frame next to the 1032 number on my tractor you would have to remove the tank to bore holes in the panel and weld on captivated nuts to hold the pump or valve block. I thought this was a better idea. see photos  good thing about it is anything goes wrong with one tractor you can move it to another tractor without leaving holes or spending a lot of time doing  it
Sorry for hijacking your post Rolloman 
Have fun 
George S

Now thats tidy
 
Like the way you not welded anything to the tractor. Just used a bracket which was there