Two steps forward, three steps back

It drives me nuts that the Aermacchi pretty much requires every size wrench in my tool box, whereas I only need about 4 sizes to do everything on the BMW. When I win the lottery I'm going to have to get one of those tool carts with wheels to push around a garage bigger than my current 1.5 car size one...

I got the front wheel back from truing this week and when I took it to get the tire mounted I realized there was a tear on the inner sidewall. No bueno. Unfortunately I've been sitting on this tire for months now and the time to return it has expired, a brand new tire right into the trash. Despite that setback, I removed the rear wheel and de-laced it so I could take the rim for powdercoating and lace with stainless like I did the front. Also, took the fenders in for powdercoating and maybe even the tank at a later date.

Once that was out of the way I started disassembling the handlebar controls so I could start prepping the Tommaselli Condor bars I have, along with the Tommaselli/Domino race throttle, and Ducati (I think) levers.

It's looking pretty bare right now...

I used VHT Satin Black Engine Enamel on the front brake hub as it matched the semi-gloss powdercoat pretty well. I chose paint instead of powder because the hub bearings looked good and the only way to remove them would be to destroy them (there's nothing wrong with them now) and they couldn't be in the oven during the powder curing process. It looks good though and should hold up well. The reason I bring this up again is because now it was time to paint up the brake side of the hubs, along with the rear hub (not pictured).

I really like the finish. Unfortunately, the arms had peeling chrome and I couldn't clean them up as much as I would have liked. Maybe I'll strip them and polish them at a later date, but for now they get the same treatment as the rest of the brake assembly.

While everything is off the bike I think I might start work on the exhaust. I have a nice dunstall reverse cone replica ready to mount, along with enough black exhaust wrap for the header pipe that was left over from when I used it on the BMW (we all remember how that went).

Problem is I'm not sure if I want to sweep the exhaust up or not, and if so where to place it to avoid rear set placement. I don't have rear sets ordered yet or have quite figured out where I'm going to mount them, so I' may just go for aesthetics now and functionality later on.

The turnaround for the powdercoat is going to be 2 weeks or so and that'll really slow progress down as I felt like I was just getting on a roll... I'm still waiting for the new tail light from Germany for the BMW and with spring weather rapidly approaching I'm worried I'm going to be bikeless once the nice weather hits. Good thing I don't stop riding in the winter or I'd really be upset.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just stare at a model with her tits out modelling my Swiss goggles I used to use when driving my VW Typ 181 with the windshield down, but more currently for grinding

 

BMW Tail light woes

I'm getting sick of this shit...

The one on the right is the original, cracked and scrapped. The one on the left is the replacement, which I reinforced with metal strips on the inside of the housing and where it attached to the fender... No avail.

Now I'm just going to lose the cheap, stock, plastic crap and go with an old Hella aftermarket piece and fabricate my own mount out of 18 gauge. Also losing the rear fender, but I think I'm going to pick up some stainless sheets to protect the seat and battery along the subframe

Italian Motor Magazine

I finally got around to subscribing to this and it's by far the best moto mag I've read regardless of brand or country. I'll have to look into obtaining issues 1-4. You owe it to yourself to subscribe

Italian Motor Magazine

shedding weight / ignition relocation

Besides having an issue with the steel panels on the frame and mounting the gas tank (slight interference in the rear), I had enough of the battery box and tool box. I'm getting quite a collection of Aermacchi/H-D Sprint parts that I no longer have any use for. I'd say I shed about 5 lbs from the  bike just in the parts below.

The tally of non-used stock parts now equates to something like, panels, bars, boxes, tank, intake assembly, and skid plate, I'm going to have to get these on eBay or to a swap meet sometime soon.

Because I deleted the side panels, I had to move the ignition onto the frame. Not a big deal really, just had to get a 19mm hole saw and cut into the frame a little. It looks like I belongs there.

Clean up of all the wiring at a later date

Next on the list is a battery tray, since the battery box is now gone. Dunno if I'll weld a tray to mount on the engine case somewhere, or switch to an AGM battery like I did on the Beemer and hide the battery under the seat or something.

The look of the bike is a lot cleaner now, I'm into it.

                                Before                                                                      After


My brother in law mentioned that he wanted me to weld up some kind of platform/anchor for a boat pretty soon and my father in law wants me to weld a spindle or something next week. I think I've welded more this month than the past 2 years

the hard(ish) work is done

Finally got around to welding the last mounting ear on the gas tank, nice fit and looking good. Obviously it'll need a final dressing up before paint...

Due to the length of the Benelli tank, I had to move the seat back an inch or so, because it mounts to the fender this raised the seat a hair. In order to mount the seat back I needed an angled extension for the seat brackets which was accomplished pretty easily by welding a piece of 1/8" steel bar. Again, still needs a bit of dressing up.

Had my wife sit on the bike to get a better idea of the fitment/modifications. Also tried to visualize the posture of the rider once the Tommaselli condor bars (clubmans) go on. Looking good again, much better than the bike looked stock in my opinion.

Loving the shapes from the rear view

Now it's time for some cleaning up of the welds and mods, then off for paint and a tank relining. I hear the kids are going to radiator shops nowadays and getting RedKote applied to the tank innards. Depending on the price I may go this route, but wonder how that'd hold up with E10 fuel... If anyone has any better options let me know

I'm psyched I found that Benelli tank. It's really got the exact look I'm going for with really a minimal amount of modification

I took off the stock seat to get an idea of the fitting since the benelli is a good 2"+ longer in length. No big deal, will need to move the seat back, drill a new 13mm hole in the fender to accept a mounting bolt, and weld in extensions to the seat pan brackets for the front mounts. I'll be tackling that sometime later. I wanted to see something more immediate with the tank

I jumped into making all the adjustments to get the tank to mount to the frame.

First had to cut off the Benelli's mounting ears, too narrow and no way to bolt onto front of the frame. Only cut about half off because I figured I'd weld in a section of Aermacchi ears from an old tank I have laying around. Great success, only got one welded in though because the baby woke up and I had to go back to being a daddy. Still need to clean up the weld, but you get the idea

Stock rubber bumpers for the original tank extend off the frame like a T, that will have to be eliminated for clearance. In their place I welded in a piece of straight tube steel a couple inches back. This extends up and rests of the foam bumper already on the Benelli tank. I'm going to put a real rubber bumper on the tube, but for now a discarded plug will work. Old is what's left of the stock bracket for the tank bumpers, new is my modification

The new tank sits just about 1/8" in front of the T for the front seat mount. More than enough clearance, but I'm going to have to move the eyelet to attach the spring clip for the tank, that's going to have to wait until I get the seat refitted though

this is how it stands after today's work. I still have to weld in the hook for the left side tank ear, but I'm pleased with the fit.

Asked my wife what she thought and she's not into it. This means I'm doing it right. I can't wait to see it with the reworked Radaellis and Tommaselli Condor Bars/ Levers. Also digging the stock seat, think I might leave it on the bike instead of making my own

Benelli/Motobi/Wards tank, no more leggero

Picked up this Benelli Cobra 125 tank for pretty cheap, has exactly the look I wanted for the macchi project and will spare me all the additional work I needed to do on the Leggero tank

I widened the Leggero, but still needed to clean up a few pinholes, then I needed to lengthen it, but you can kinda see a side by side that the Benelli took care of all of that.

I love the knee pockets and shape of this tank

The width of the tunnel is perfect for the Macchi, and will only need a very minor tweak at the front mounting ears to get it to mount right up. This is a longer and racier tank than the stock Sprint one, so I'll be losing the Bates seat and fabbing up on of my own - not sure if I want to go with a bench look or cowl it up yet... Still going to go with black and white paint, also want to see if I'll be able to save that faded "Made in Italy" decal

need to take care of the rust in this, but it's nothing too serious, that was the one benefit of the two macchi tanks I have, still had original tank lining

Chicks dig Benellis

but then again I'm building this for a girl... may have to reconsider the style so she doesn't pose with it in her underwear

Radaelli re-work part II

Finally got the time to paint my front hub and then the motivation to actually start lacing the front wheel. Pretty impressed with the results and glad I didn't waste money by sending them out for lacing. Also happy that the paint matches the powder coating so well, VHT engine enamel saves the day again

Went from this:

To this:

To this (you can see I messed up the lacing a little, had to go back and re-do that):

And then ended with this:

I really love the contrast of the stainless spokes/nipples and the semi-gloss black powder and paint. Glad I refinished the Radaellis like this instead of springing for Borranis. Despite the bling factor of the Borranis and the weight savings, I think what I ended up with is fitting the character of the Macchi and the direction of the build much better

NJ happy place

This week my world was rocked, quite unexpectedly. My bearings are off and I'm wounded. To compound things I'm on night shift, which means I'm left to my own devices, replaying scenarios over and over in my head and getting agitated. Talking to friends helps, talking to Shane last night really helped, but I don't talk nearly enough about important events, in fact by all outward appearances things are normal.

My usual response, in lieu of socializing, is to retreat to Sewaren and meditate along the Arthur Kill. I grew up in Sewaren, and even among the tank farms, refineries, power plants, and blight of what was once a resort town, I find solace sitting on a bench and watching tanker barges go by. Directly across the Arthur Kill is Staten Island, if you wore a full body nitrile suit, you could swim the 100 meters to NY and not get cancer. To the immediate south is the Outerbridge Crossing, and immediately beyond Staten Island on the horizon you can view the lower Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn. When I was a kid everybody would go down to the waterfront on the 4th of July to watch the fireworks from the East River.

When things were bad as a kid, I'd hop on my bike, sometimes with some Salems I "borrowed" from my mom, park myself by the water and just clear my head. I still do the same, except my mountain bike is replaced by a motorcycle, and the salems, well, now it's natural tobacco in one form or another... It's amazing, at home, at work, even on my bike lately, I find it hard to relax and just think about nothing. The second my ass hits that bench on Boynton Beach (nerd out on some history), instant nirvana. I looked up nirvana to make sure that's the word I meant, as it turns out it's perfect, even in literal Sanskrit form.

I don't know what I'd do if I moved out of state and lost that place. I went there after the shit hit the fan this week, I might stop by on my way home from shift and watch the sunrise... That should be just enough time to recharge and return to the madness

Alfredo Rocco - 1925

"Socialism, then, as experience has shown, leads to an increase in consumption, to the dispersions of capital, and therefore to poverty. Of what avail is it, then, to build a social machine that will more justly distribute wealth if this very wealth is destroyed by the construction of the machine?"



wake up and get to work

Glory, glory

Hallelujah

East coast nightlife tradition

Radaelli re-work

Typical of 60s Italian bikes, ther Macchi came stock with Radaelli chrome steel rims, with the thinnest possible chrome plating. Between Italian chrome and paint, I think they wanted their bikes to decompose at an accelerated rate, probably good for keeping up sales.

The Macchi appeared to have been stored properly for the 46 years of its existence, there was minimal rust and the original Pirellis didn't even have dry rot cracks, but the rims were rusty and chrome was peeled off all over the place. This is the front rim, the pic is bad, but everything that doesn't shine is rust. Actually the pic makes the room look much better than it actually was...

What you also can't really see are broken spokes and seized nipples, they are all being replaced by stainless, expensive, but worth the money in my opinion... I figured I had three options for cleaning things up 1) wire wheel it and respray black, probably the cheapest option but the least desirable 2) media blasting and powder coating, sounded good but I never had anything powdercoated and was concerned about the price, and 3) Replacing the rims entirely with alloys

Option one was out of the picture pretty quickly, I'm building this for my daughter, I don't want the paint to chip and flake after only a few thousand miles of use.

Option three was looking like the way I was going to go, but was the most expensive route. I could source new Borranis for about $150 a piece, but they'd be blank stock that would need nipple holes punched through the dimples right off the bat. That cost would work out to about $50 per rim, so going with alloys before I could even factor for lacing and truing, I'd have about $400 spent on the rims (with the punching) and $200 for the stainless spoke kit. I like the look of black rims, so maybe even tack on the cost of black anodizing... The one way to justify the expense would be the weight savings and trying to eke out every last bit of HP from the 250 engine, and the fact that I'd be rolling Borranis, and that racing pedigree would really fit the bike.

The cost got me thinking more and more about option 2. I'd already spent the $200 on the stainless spoke kit, but by using the existing rim I wouldn't have to worry about getting new rims punched out or the $300 for new rims, and I assumed powdercoating black would be cheaper than anodizing aluminum. The deciding factor would be the cost of powdercoating, if it was close enough to $300 I'd just go with alloys, but having never gotten powdercoating done I didn't know what to expect. As it turns out, it wound up being only $35 a wheel which included all the prep (blasting, sanding, and cleaning). Option two won out, big time, and I'm really pleased with the results.

Nice semi-gloss black finish, smooth as glass. I told them not to worry about the inside of the rim since the tube and tire would be covering it, so you do see evidence of pitting there, but the stuff visible when the bike's in use is beautiful. Powdercoating is definitely the way to go.

When I dropped them off I wanted to make sure the Radaelli stamp would still be visible and they said they couldn't guarantee it, but it made it... Now the world can easily tell just how cheap, errr shrewd, I am. Hey look how greasy my fingers are too!

Since I'm not shedding any weight by keeping the stock steelies, I figured I'd drill out the hubs. I probably only shed about a gram of weight, but it looks good.

I saw a guy with a Sprint H that made an Ala d'Oro replica and he added a brass mesh behind the holes, it looked sharp, gonna have to try some things out...

Now the question is, do I polish the aluminum to match the stainless spokes, or make the hub black to match the rim? I'm leaning toward the latter

Awesome.....

Spotted at Lowe's

Infidelity and Italian sex

A strange thing happened the other day after a longish ride on the BMW. Had a good ride, parked the bike on the centerstand in the garage, went to bed. A couple days later I want to take the R90 out for a midnight run and the rear tire is flat. So flat I could take the tire right off the rim with one hand... Fuck me, put some air in it and couldn't hear any leaks, spin the tire and can't find any punctures or tears, check the rim for cracks and the like and nothing... Decided to let the bike sit overnight and see where my tire pressure winds up... Wake up fresh and head to the garage where the tire pressure is exactly where I left it. It being exceptionally nice out for a January, I just want to make sure my tube is good, without spending the time myself to whip out the tire irons and dunk the tube in our claw foot bathtub - I think my wife would've killed me anyway - so I take it to a shop.

The whole ride I keep looking down at the rear tire, waiting for a flat and the inevitable dilemma of limping along or getting a tow - it never came. Made it to the shop, checked the pressure, awesome. They dunk my tube, can't find any leaks, but I tell them to replace the tube anyway because all that air had to get out of the tube somehow and I don't want to risk it blowing out going 110mph on rt. 440 - took all of 20 minutes and a little chunk taken out of my wallet. Honestly my pride wasn't hurt that much because tire mounting isn't something I pride myself on, in fact I've only had to do it once. Since I've owned my BMW I've replaced most of the electrics, clutch, rear main seal, trans. input seal, had my flywheel lightened, redid the top end (well a machine shop did the major stuff I didn't have the tools for), rebuilt my final drive, and alot of other crap I can't remember now. Part of those involved the complete removing of the entire drivetrain and trans, or taking apart the engine and that's cool, I don't shy away from mechanical stuff, but I did rip a tube my first attempt at mounting a tire.

The thing that did hurt me, quite a bit actually, was seeing someone else test ride my bike. It's how I imagine it'd feel to catch a dude banging your wife, well maybe not. Here's a bike that I built, that I've been inside so many times it's now romantic. There's not a part on the bike I haven't had my hands on and I know every detail like it's in my DNA, and some stranger is taking it out for a couple miles. I never want that to happen again.

There was one benefit though. I've never seen how my bike looks with a rider on it because it's only been me on it and the roads in NJ aren't curbed with mirrors. I've also never heard the sound of it from any other perspective of being on it, along with the wind and other vehicles. That was something... my pipes sound damn good, and the bike looks good with a rider on it. It was interesting to see the riding posture assumed by the test rider, and it was cool seeing him come back with such a huge smile on his face... This brief spat of moto infidelity sucked, but it offered me a fresh perspective of MY bike and made me appreciate all my work that much more...

And that got me thinking about sex... kinda

Sex in general is probably on my mind more than most, I blame it on the fact that for half the year I can't sleep with my wife, it's the nature of working rotating shifts. I really never think of it relating to machinery though. I've always had an affinity for German stuff, and that's about as unsexy as it gets. Function over fashion triumphs every time and I love that. I love the boxer engines on my old VW and my BMW, I love that the BMW one looks pretty much just like an aluminum box with cylinders sticking out of the side. I get it and scoffed at people who referred to their cars and bikes as she, especially the harley guys.Then I saw a show on MagRack about Italian bikes...

They featured this guy with a collection of vintage Italian motorcycles and he was breaking down how the early designers (the Benellis, Tonti, Bianchi, etc.) were designing bikes in the feminine form. He had a few backbone frames like the Macchi I have an was going over the details.. "See this is the spine, see the shapely curves in this tank and how the frame narrows at the waist..." Now I see it, now I get it... If any culture could be said to be opposite the Germans it'd be the Italians, I only have to look at my mom and dad as proof. They also take the cake in the category of appreciating fashion over function.

I am enlightened, and richer. Thanks to a football pool I won (first time ever), I should be able to swing some Borranis to replace my rusty Radaellis :-)

Gas tank fab part 1

I've been thinking about how to go about cutting up this tank for two days now, trying to determine the least amount of cuts and thereby the least amount of welding. This is my first shot at welding up a gas tank and I only have a MIG welder

The pitch of the tunnel makes a vertical cut pretty hard to get straight. I had to use a sawzall just to get in there and sure enough it was uneven, but this it the part of the tank that needs 1/2" of widening to accommodate the 250's wide frame.

The rust on the inside wasn't nearly as bad as it looked from inside the tank

I welded a 1/2" piece of 18ga mild steel to the left side, you can see on the right side that the sawzall didn't cut so straight... unfortunately the tunnel is so deep in the middle/front area that my angle grinder couldn't get in. There's a couple tiny pinholes that'll need patching, but a pressure test when all is done will reveal just how much more work I'll need to do to make this leak proof. I'm going to have to make a horizontal cut to deepen the tank, so I'll fix that gap still

I put a few tacks on the top to hold it together as the widened bottom looked good with the top of the tank in the original position. You can see how the widened bottom affected the front of the tank

I still need to cut horizontally across the tank to deepen the tank by about 2", but that's going to have to wait, my neighbors will kill me if I start up with the angle grinder at this point in the evening. Once that's cut, I'll get a better shot at joining up the two sides of the tunnel area, from the inside of the tank. Then after welding in another 2 inches to deepen the tank, I'll finish the welding on the vertical cut on the top side of the tank and start pressure testing. This is a little intimidating being my first tank job and having to weld something not for structure, but for holding liquid, but I think I'll be able to work through it and have something neat

put it on the bike for fitment and the tunnel area is just right, though the rest of the tank is a little out of proportion

a little work with photoshop came up with this

A little off, but a lot closer to the direction I want to go

more to come when I get some more free time, lately it seems to be harder and harder to find my way to the garage