Not sure what’s going on in Mac and Sarahs garden when the sun goes down but the fruit  and veg are having a ball!

Mac sent a load of scabby bits from the Yamaharley project off to the blasters to clean and paint in satin black.

Included in the pile were the fake air scoops off the ‘runaround’ which had an unfortunate liaison with a dripping master cylinder.

Mac  uses BBC (Banbury Blast Cleaning) on the Welsh lane near Helmdon, great bunch of blokes (when you get a word in amongst their p#ss taking) who do a tidy job and don’t take the mickey when it comes to the bill.

Time to get the spanners out – then once the front end is assembled it’s off to Heisenburgs shed to marry it up with the frame to get the geometry right.

Heisenburgs been a bit poorly of late – put his back out unloading a trailer  -although rumours are  that he was actually  lifting a particularly substantial pie . He’s been to see the witch doctor and is getting better – the poor thing!!

Front end nearly assembled – no point  in tightening anything up yet as the yolks will need modding to fit the Harley neck. Discs and lines are next  on the to do list (as they’re so expensive) cause the old ones are knackered.

May look to buck the trend and fit these ‘street fighter’ headlights.

Will cover the upper fork legs with a tube which the headlight mounts will get welded to and utilise the indicators as mounting bolts.  This Bike will have to start life with all the bells and whistles as in all probability it’ll have to go through the whole SVA process as the previous owner of the frame kept the frame number and V5.

Heisenburg suggested that we needed to liven up the site, perhaps with some piccies of ladies……..

So – in the interest of keeping the team happy I found him this lovely lady currently up for sale on ebay!

No surprises here………………… knew it’d happen!!

Thankfully the judges saw the amount of effort, one off engineering and talent Heisenburg put into his XS project and rightfully awarded him a Winners plaque in the Northants V-Twin (God this must really be upsetting Dave – awarding trophies to non Harleys) Brackley Festival of Motorcycling Custom Show.

Well done mate…………. getting a bit of a habit – the Scavengers picking up awards?

Heisenburg during the ‘parade’ (an excuse to rag it through a town centre without being chased by the rozzers)

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I prefer this picture as I look a little less ‘substantial’.

Well, it’s finally here, one of the reason’s I built my bike but more importantly the big day of the year  for the Scavengers, the Brackley festival of motorcycling.

I’m not going to try to explain the content as there are two great websites and plenty of youtube footage to watch, fill your boots!

http://www.brackleyfestivalofmotorcycling.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/BFoMC

Starts about 10am and finishes about 5pm, £5 for the whole day.

There will be at least two of the scavengers bikes in the custom show, hopefully more….

Onions……………… Mac and Sarahs crop of Onions were ready ….. ever tried chopping 40+ extra strong onions without becoming a snot fest and your eyes bleeding……. Mac thought he’d got it cracked till his daughters swimming goggles fogged up and he nearly cut his bl**dy fingers off!

After a morning out at the Bill Pracey meeting at Evenley, Mac and Heisenburg decided to take a run out to visit the  Mad Prof.

Big grins all round as they popped and banged through the Buckinghamshire countryside – spoiling the Sunday peace and quiet through rural villages.

Thought they’d repeat the fun down to the friday night meet at Jacks Hill caf but Mac had been faffing around with his jets only to find that when it was time to go his battery was flat so he had to follow Hiesenburg on ‘the runaround’.

Nice to see that there were more than a few folk interested in the engineering and effort put into Heisenburgs  bike rather than how much chrome and tassles that were  bolted onto some of the other attending bikes.

Myself and Mac shall be attending the ‘First Friday of the month’ meet at Jacks hill cafe just outside of Towcester on the A5 if any of you fancy having a look at the bikes before the Brackley show, we will be arriving at around 7:15 – 7:30, you should be able to hear us coming from some way away as we have been accused of sounding like a pair of poorly working Messerschmitt’s, I think I’m mostly to blame as there is some issues with fueling and it pop’s and bangs a bit, but then so does Mac’s…….!!

There will be plenty of decent bikes to look at aswell so you won’t be disapointed.

Facebook info

Turns out my choice of rear sprocket was not so smart.

I chose a 49 tooth chrome sprocket as this was the smallest I could find to fit the Harley wheel, I thought it would be alright, a bit low geared but I’d manage, well I was wrong…..I can only get to about 50mph and it’s so high revving that the handle bars shake so much I find it painfull to hang on.

As you can see there is quite a difference, the standard XS sprocket is 33 tooth, now the problem occurs as you can’t buy an off the shelf solution (there is one available in the US but it’s very pricey) so I’d have to make something fit.  I used the inner of the XS sprocket as a template and marked it out on a bit of 12mm plate I had in stock, set to with the angle grinder and chopped out a rough blank to start work on.

I drilled a hole through the middle and kept drilling until I reached half an inch, this happens to be the same size as a bit of bar I had with a nut already attached, lazy boy.  I then set the bar in the lathe and attached the new blank, then proceeded to shape the outside to fit the XS sprocket.

Next I faced the blank to the same thickness as the XS sprocket, (9.3mm).

I now needed to bore the centre out to 56.4mm so I roughed it out with a Starrett hole saw, the closest I had was 32mm that I used for the frame if you can remember back that far!  I trimmed out the remainder with a boring bar and got a pretty good fit.

Here you can see the fit in the XS sprocket, fits very well.

It also sits well on the Harley wheel.

I would have welded it all up tonight and drilled it but I have ordered a new sprocket from M&P and paid for quick delivery so it should be here Wednesday morning so I can finish, pictures to follow.

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Well much to my suprise M&P did deliver on time, happy days.

Now armed with my new sprocket and it’s dodgy coating that doesn’t get on with my welder I got stuck in and nailed the two halves together.

I needed to make sure it all ran true so I decided to turn an aly spigot before I drilled the bolt holes, need to get this bit right or it’s all been a bit pointless, fingers crossed…

I drilled through the original chrome sprocket in to my new custom sprocket and it all went well.

Don’t look too bad, I wanted to ditch the Harley bolts as they suck but the bolts I had lined up were too short so Harley bolts it is for now.

I took it out for a test ride Wednesday night and again today and it’s much improved, I can cruise at I guess over 50, maybe even 60, who knows, the speedo is in a drawer in my workshop, probably.

The XS was finally dragged kicking and screaming in to the world of the living a few nights ago, turned out the spitting and banging was split inlet rubbers and the lack of a battery, seems they don’t like a weak spark, got it running pretty well now, stopped all the fuel from ending up on the floor due to gummed up carbs and a poor choice of fuel tap…..yeah right, it’s a great choice, just needs a little lovin’.

Managed to ride it up my lane and the brakes work, it steers and seems pretty good actually, heres a vid of it running for the first time in quite a whille and in new dress as a custom rather than a big green bogie.