Been a while

Well moving house over the summer has slowed me down but I've had a little progress on a few things over the last few months, with Tuesday night becoming workshop night.

I got the rear wheel into the lil Honda so its now a roller and is much easier to get in and out of the large cupboard it lives in at the unit.

The tube and tyre will need replacing and I'll probably go for new brake shoes before I try taking it on the road.

The tank has moved on a bit too, I finally finished cleaning up what will be the filler neck and cap, I cut it out of an old BSA oil tank I got cheap on ebay, and its taken ages to properly clean up and remove all the brass from where it was brazed into the oil tank.

I used my trusty dremel to cut out the hole for the filler, great little tool for the job, easy to control, didn't run away with me and fairly neat. I finished off the hole slowly and labouriously with a hand file as I want to be sure to keep it round.

If anyone out there in blog land can tell me how to make these pics sit side by side I'd appreciate it, I cant figure out how and its doing my head in.

The Trip Out 2012

What blew me away the most, was that literally every bike there was awesome and would of been happy to have it in my garage. The bikes in the bike show were all really cool and it was amazing to see Toddys Triumph in the flesh, (what an immaculate work of art) but even a walk around the camping field had me reaching for my camera at every other step.

The cars totally blew me away too, all shapes and sizes but every one of them an awesome vehicle I would of been happy to take home. The size of some of those cars in real life is just mental, they are absolutely huge and must be real pain in the ass to manoeuvre around on out british roads.

Add to that the skateboarding, superb atmosphere, great merch stalls, a free copy of the new issue of Dice, two great nights of bands, reasonable beer prices, and the sun cracking the flags all weekend long it was an great event, and one that I'll be heading to next year for sure if I can.

New Project

Well, inspite of the board tracker bike not being properly finished, and being right in the middle of moving house away from my workshop and working flat out on my old house to get it ready to rent, I thought it would be a good idea to sidle myself with another project.

So here in all its errrrr glory? is the little Honda C200 I've just bought.

Current plan is to leave it rough as guts and just get it functioning properly with fresh brakes and bearings etc where needed, lob a chinese pit bike engine in it and get it on the road. Once thats done, it'll get a bobbed rear end, some phater rims and tyres and possibly a different front end with a disc brake.

Rear wheel pretty much  finished, spokes could probably do with another quarter turn and I've not checked the dish but I just wanted to see how fucking phat the new tyre rim combo is. I'm pretty pleased

Got new rims for the board tracker, here's an old and new for comparison.

New ones are a touch wider, got some super big slick tyres to go on too, should look awesome with those tyres on these rims.

Rim swop onto the rear hub is almost finished, the front wheel will be an entirely new build onto a sturmey archer hub brake hub

Got my tickets and stickers, cant wait, roll on Saturday

Finally there's been a bit more progress on the tank, the bottom and the two front panels are fully welded on, I've checked the welding as best I can at this stage by going into a pitch black room and shining a super bright LED down the welds. I'm still not sure if it will hold petrol but I'll test with soapy water and some air once I've welded the top of the tank on, fuel tap fitting in and tank filler on. I got a lucky break the other day and found the custom fasteners website, they have a weld in bayonet style petrol tank inlet for £4.95 and appropriate tank caps for £9.95, not bad.