We are a full service motorcycle shop, serving Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. since 1965. The oldest, and probably the last, truly complete shop in the region. We do everything from tune your modern sportbike, to restore your vintage brit-bike, to build you a custom chopper. Vintage Triumph and Harley-Davidsons are a specialty. Full machine shop, as well as powder coating, welding, and paint work are offered as services.
Well we couldn't have a running bike without taking for a ride, could we? The video is a bit dark, but worth watching. This is later in the evening on the 23rd, the first day the bike ran. We just added a primary cover, some footpegs, and zip-tied the hanging bottle to the frame. Fantastic!
We were really exicted about this project when Dennis picked it up, and immediately put the bike back together using mostly what came with the bike and stuff we found on the shelf. Our original plan had been to get her rolling, then see if she might want to run. We got as far as a roller that would kick over, and then the workload at the shop became too heavy to spare any more time.
So fast forward several months, and Dennis decided there would be a shop fun day on the 23rd (last day we were open during the year). RC spent the day getting the odds and ends sorted, and then...
Started on the first kick!
How's that for a bike that had been dismantled for decades? You just can't kill these old Triumphs!
The chain adjusters that we had on Japanhead were a little too traditional chopper and stuck way too far out. These are Jap dirt bike eccentrics, indexed for easy wheel alignment.
After setting up our chin spoiler oil bag, we decided that the exhaust needed to be routed differently, for a lot of reasons. So, we started playing with some bits of stainless pipe in different bends.
Hours and hours and hours and hours.....
Twisty
Spaghetti, anyone ?
The slip fits are held together with loops of stainless and hook springs, superbike style
After having a temporary tag bracket for the mechanical shakedown for almost a year, it was time to work out something sleeker and permanent.
After building a tab that comes off of the axle plate we drilled it and tapped it. then we cut a bung and welded it to a piece of strap.
Dual purpose, tag bracket and chain guard!
The absolutely coolest part of this system, if traveling through certain states that may or may not have a ban on vertically mounted plates, it's a simple switch thanks to the channels we cut in the bung with the mill.
We wanted to put the battery box inside of the primary to keep it nice and hidden.
So, we grabbed a stainless trapezoidal rectangular prism, out of our pile of stainless trapezoidal rectangular prisms and started chopping with our new band saw (ain't it a cool bandsaw?)
Mounted some tabs with Dzuz fasteners for the cover and bracketed it to the frame.
Check out our cool stainless cover/door.
And the best part, with our tiny glass mat battery there is enough room for a shelf and a space for a tool kit or whatever else.
Where oh where can we put the oil bag? We didn't want to put it under the seat, because that's where it always winds up and it wasn't "race" enough for a Panhead with Tecnomagnesios.
So we started beating on some stainless and digging through some of our stock
Tack and Whack
We ended up with a rubber isolated (it's on pins in the rear) chin spoiler oil bag that's held firmly in place with a couple isolators and spring power. Super race looking, who says you can't have show AND go.
We'll have more later on about our oil fill, drain and fittings.
