Pulling Dents from my 4 gal. tank

Last Saturday I decided that, while Bondo works ok, pulling dents from tanks is probably better - so I went out and purchased a stud welder from a local auto-body supply.

$200 later, I was the proud owner of a 110V stud welder. This little baby welds studs right onto the tank, and with the help of a slide hammer, pulls the dents right out. Once they're pulled, you simply grind off the suds and smooth out the metal. Sounds simple right?

My first victim, I nice sized dent across the top of the tank.

Simply insert stud into gun, press down and pull the trigger.

One second is all it took.

Slide hammer ready for action, I wonder how much force it will take to pull the dent? I'll go with a TON OF FORCE and see how that works....

One hard yank and the stud pulled the metal right out of the tank leaving a tiny hole. Oops. I guess less force is probably still more than enough.

A few experiments later and I started to get the hang of it. Several studs in a row in the dent. Start from the center and work my way out...

This crease used to be pretty deep.

Maybe I'll leave the studs on and make a Mad Max style chopper....

Installed the Boyer Electronic Ignition

After messing with the points and unsuccessfully trying to time each side , I decided to take the advice of many, MANY other vintage bike owners and ditch the archaic Lucas ignition and go with an updated electronic ignition. This means easier timing, more accurate firing, easier starting, more reliable bike etc....

Step one was to study the wiring diagram. No condensers needed, and the 12 volt parallel-wired coils need to be 2 6 volt coils wired in series.

Condensors will go in the box of stuff I'll keep for who knows what reason.

Next, find the timing position of the cam with this little tool that fits through an aperture through the front of the engine casing. Basically I pushed that pin lightly into the engine, up against the cam inside and turned the motor with the kickstart until the pin finds the timing notch. This locks the engine in the right firing place, so that when installing the ignition, you install it where the ingition actually needs to come on.

The doomed lucas points system.

this comes off with two screws.

Underneath are the governor weights and the auto advance mechanism. This is the old way the engine "corrected" timing issues when the engine goes from idle to full throttle. These also are getting yanked. At this point I realized that I was missing a special tool needed for extraction. Its similar to a flywheel extractor. I decided I could come up with something that would work...

...and I did. I cut a small, thiner length of screw to insert into the spot where the idler pinion was.

Than I screwed a bolt in on top of it. This pushed the smaller loose bolt up against the inner timing cover

Like this.

Voila!

Next I inserted the new fly wheel and loosely bolted it in place.

The ignition plate goes over the flywheel. Then the magnet on the flywheel gets moved to line up with the timing hole in the ignition plate.

In place, tightened up and wired.

I still need to clean up the wiring here, but I kick started the bike, and my conversion works! VRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

BSA is waiting on parts but the cb360 is running!

The weather was just too nice and none of my bikes were road ready so I burned the midnight oil last night and fixed the overflowing carb on the Honda and threw the trickle charger on. Today she fired up and I cruised west Chester for a few hours. Ahhh.

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Chain guard resurrected

My chain guard was cracked where it bolts onto the bracket on the swing arm. My neighbor, Ethan offered to weld a washer to it. Well he had a co worker completely reweld a fabricated bottom to where the piece broke off. Thanks guys!!!!!

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4 gal tank stripped

Looks like the bondo was there for a good reason. A couple deep dents that creased the steel. Next step is to de-rust the interior, rebondo, prime and paint. Still having some timing issues. More on that later

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Changed the handlebars to a lower profile set

I always liked the lower profile bars on british bikes. I'm not putting clubmans on this bike since I don't have the appropriate seat, plus I don't want my main bike to be too uncomfortable for long rides. The low profile bars give it a sleeker look and the white Amal copy grips really tie in the white frame.

I havent tightened everything up yet because I still want to clean the left and right control switches and polish up the chock lever. I'll tighten everything down after work tomorrow since it'll be raining anyway.

Later this week they're calling for low 60's and sunny weather. WOO HOO!!!

One new pipe fitted, one old pipe refitted

I replaced the pipe with the one that wasn't defective and pit the other old one back in place and took her for a spin. The bike is running well. All leaks have been fixed except that acorn nut on the rocker cover. One more week till spring and I'm ready!!!

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