The beginning. Two car wheels, two non-functioning bikes.
Time to get the tyres off the rims! Break out the Abba Bead Breaker and the tyre irons.
That's the easy part - next is the "wrestling with tyre irons"-part.
So here we have a steel rim with a centre - centre is not desired.
One of the rims was spot welded. Had to do a lot of grinding on that one.
But finally, centre out!
And the other wheel.
Both rims centreless. One for the trailer and one for the chopper.
Starting with this front wheel, I'm going to make the trailer wheel - oh, and with one of the car-rims obviously.
Take the tyre off, inner tube off, rim protecting thingy off, undo spokes, diassemble the hub. Cut the axle in half, cut extending piece for the axle. Cut the hub into two pieces, cut an extending piece for the hub...
Hub ready for welding...
Axle ready for welding.
Tacking the axle for the fat trailer tyre.
About to weld the hub for the fat trailer tyre.
Some tack welds.
And fully welded. But here's where I boo-boo'd. I used too much power and penentrated all the way to the inside into the bearing surface. :(
And here's the damage to the bearing surface. I'm going to have another try at saving it as I was unable to do it with a Dremel and sand papper.
Otherwise, a nice widened hub for the fat trailer tyre.
And then I started filling in the grooves from the "decenterification", in the rims.
Tools to mark out the holes to drill in the rim for the spokes. Vernier Callipers to get the distance correct. A scribe to scribe the position onto the wheel. A compass to draw the distances. A hole punch and hammer to mark the spot where to drill. Finally an engineers square to transfer the first mark from one side to the other. Easy peasy!
You can't really see the markings well, but they're there on the sides. Ready to have the drill applied.
Holes drilled. In this case 2 x 18 holes, 4.5mm diameter at 61.6mm distance.
Holes now countersunk and ground a bit.
Too bad the picture is blurry but you can still see the hi-tech "balancer". ;)
Another shot of the wheel. It's obviously only a test-build as I'll need to paint it all before final assembly. Not to mention that the bearing faces in the hub currently are screwed.
As I had screwed up my bearing faces beforehand I really hoped that a bit of work on my friends (Thanks Mr T.A!) lathe would do the trick. Well it did do the trick, but I did have to cut the hub in half. d'Oh!
As you can see, hub is cut into two pieces.
For the cycle's rear hub I used this frame tube from the big MTB.
Something like this...?!
The two axles; one needs welding and the other one needs a bit of repairs. ;)
Drilling the spoke holes into the 2nd rim which is for the cycle.
About to extend a brand new axle and widen the hub (background).
Clamped and ready to go.
A few tacks on the hub.
Getting the axle straight is annoying work. Weld a bit. Take off angle-iron. Grind down any welds sticking out. Clamp down again. Weld a bit more... repeat. The hub is easier once you start to learn that it's very hot and you shouldn't turn it by hand. d'Oh!
Close up of the hub weld (and the axle weld).
Then it was time to repair the other hub that I had to cut in half.
I managed to burn a hole, and fix it, and touch down the tungsten. I'm clever like that. Pah!
And there we go. Axle welded and ground. 2nd hub done, and first hub repaired.
Not too bad for a beginner welder. :)
Same with the repair on the first hub. Not too shabby if I may say so myself.
And one more shot of the hub we had to turn down on the lathe. Not perfect but at least the wheel spins now. :)
Trying to build the bike wheel. Notice how every other spoke is sticking out - apparently the hub isn't twisted in the right way - thanks to the guys at Broadribb Cycles in Bicester. Must try harder. :)
Another shot of the wheel on my hi-tech wheel lacing device (buckets).
Trying to figure out angles etc. of the rear forks.
Trying to figure out whether 45 degrees is good enough. I can't do bending because I don't have a tube bender, so the "design" will be angular.
Let me introduce to you; The rear forks (or whatever they're called)
45 degrees it should be.
My hi-tech 45 degrees jig.
The rear forksthingies.
And a pic of my crude welding.
Now hold on.. what's this?! Weren't those welded?! Yes, they were. But they were too narrow. I didn't realise that the tyre is 195mm wide and the rim isn't nearly as wide. *face-palm*
I have a weird sense of Deja Moo - something tells me I've been through this bullshit before.
A good while later and they're welded back together and ground nicely. I hope.
You can barely see it - sadly it's all set me back a whole day, maybe more. I have about 23 days to go.
This is where I left off tonight. You can't see it from the picture, but there's another mistake showing here. I went and cut the rear forks to size; The old, too narrow size, before I realised they were too narrow. I will now have to fix this problem. More time wasted. Anyway, that's sort of my jig there. With a bit of luck I can get this done quickly. Mañana...
Bits in the "jig", weighted down and a few tack welds.
And some crude welding later.
Next one's up.
And more welding done.
Then it was time for some drop-outs.
There we go. Brand new drop-outs!
And that's as far as I managed. Two forkthingies and two drop-outs.
Last night was an annoying and boring day; Sanding the two extended hubs and mostly the bike's phat rim. I only took a few pictures, and most of them blurry. Anyway, here's one of the hubs.
And the rim. Not nearly perfect, but it'll have to do.
And some of that lovely grey primer on the rim. More work to do, pics to come...
Painting is boring. Tons of work and you don't see any results for ages and anything you screw up you have to fix from the beginning if you want it perfect. Either way I figured that I needed the wheels done before I could proceed.
I need a bigger oven; I usually cure stuff that I've painted in the oven, a 14" car rim doesn't fit. :(
But the hubs worked fine. :)
Painting the rim...
Curing the rim and the hubs in the garage using a hot air fan.
Shiny hubs.
YAY! Rear wheel spoked. :)
Not too bad!
Super high-tech wheel truing machine. A wheel balancer with a light. :)
I think that's "true enough" for me. :)
Rim tape, and I mean tape. :)
One bead is on... inner tube in, then more wrenching and sweating and cursing and agony...
And you get this. :)
Then I moved to the front forks for a second. Chopped the bottoms of these off.
Like this. Ready to be ground to length.
Then back to the rear. Adjusted the width of the chain-stay (bottom rear fork), and adjusted the dropouts to width too. Then angled it all up, in my "jig".
Drop out weld detail.
More drop out weld details.
And there's the chainstay on the rear wheel.
Chamfering the chain/seat stays (rearforkimathingies).
And yes, I had proper penentration when welding the drop outs. *arf*arf*arf*
Offering it all up. Notice the gaps. Not very good.
Another picture of the gaps. It's not very good, but I spent a lot of time grinding and offering up, but I felt it was more important to get the position right, and use filler.
Here's how it's all "jigged up". Notice the files, squares and other measuring equipment. Trying my best to get it all aligned up.
And a few shots of the welds on the chain/seat stays.
Another shot of the welds on the chain/seat stays.
There we go. That's as far as I made it last night. It's amazing how strong the construction is.
Trying to true up the boom tube (that's the bottom horizontal tube). Using a big sturdy piece of metal clamped to the chainstay (bottom fork) and then offset with tons of metal plates.
Cutting the slots into the frame tubes for the seat- and chainstays.
Boom tube welded.
Another shot of the boom tube in place.
Then it's the top-tube's time. I made sure the wheel was vertical, then used a spirit level to make sure the top tube was vertially above the boom tube.
Both tubes welded. They're 1.5m long and maneuvering the thing around was a bit of a challenge.
Detail shot of the welding.
Another angle.
The tubes are now cut, and I need to make the forks and the head tube next.
Cutting the head tube off the donor bike.
One donor fork.
Welding the drop outs from the donor bike onto the 1 1/4" fork tubes. With total luck they're the same size. Sweeeeeet!
Bottoms of the forks welded.
This is a bit like it'll look.
And in true Atomic Zombie style the ends of the forks were capped with washers.
After a bit of grinding, not too bad.
The top part is for the top of the forks, where the bottom part will attach, and the bottom part will be welded to the gooseneck. I need captive nuts welded onto the top part, and I hate seeing nuts welded onto stuff so the nuts are ground round.
Like this.. Ready to weld the nuts onto the fork-part.
And there we go. Top part with nuts welded.
Ready to weld the bop part to the fork. Notice the temporary bracket a bit further down the fork.
Nice welds, even if I say so myself.
Another ego-buffing-weld-picture.
Welding the part onto gooseneck. Notice the extra spot weld-hole in the middle.
Test fitting the gooseneck.
I knew I'd have to raise the part, so that one can slide off the main steering tube (the part that'll be welded to the bike). I could have done the bracket in a different way, but I found this way quite organic.
With the steering head tube moved to the correct position, I could work on the bottom fastening. Two 20mm x 20mm angle irons.
Ready to weld the bottom parts of the steering tube.
Bottom of the steering head tube all welded up.
As I said, I needed to move it all backwards a bit, a few 12mm long tubes will do the job.
... and welded...
...and ground. Done.
Crummy picture of how I aligned the forks, the head tube to the main tube. I simply used an angle iron bar, offset the correct amount to the front wheel. Then I simply tacked the head tube.
The bottom tube being offered up to the boom tube. The final part in the frame construction (apart from perhaps a fake seat tube).
And there she stands for the first time.
First test rides of the rolling chassis. No seat made the experience a bit on the painful side. But you know that if you're not in agony when you finish your chopper ride, your chopper isn't cool enough. ;) To my surprise the frame is very stiff and despite the car rear tyre, it rolls really well, albeit, turning is obviously a bit of a chore.
With the pain fresh from the seatless test ride, I hastily fitted a seat. Here's the seat tube offered up.
And seat tube welded onto the frame.
Phew a seat. Comfort improved by miles!
And another angle of the chopper. Next up is transmission and then the trailer eventually. As I type this I have 10 days till my friend arrives. I better chop-chop-on-the-chopper.
Time for the crank and the bottom bracket. This is how it started.
And there's a lot of stuff cut off with this...
Cutting...
Grinding...
Sanding...
Welding and sanding all of those holes...
And then a few minutes on my "cheapskate lathe" (a.k.a the "big disk sander") it looks almost new.
Trying to fit it up on the bike.
After a hole is cut out of the frame, it's time to fit it up.
One of my "plate" jigs again. This way I hope to get it as square as possible.
And there's the result.
Another ego-inflating-welding picture.
Something like that. Now the "propulsion interface" needs to be connected to the "road interface".
Another angle of the bike with the cranks on.
Now I need to figure out how to connect the sprockets through the brake disk to the small sprocket, using the old hub above.
And the alignment needs to be something like this. Left hand rod (from the cranks), connected to the right hand rod (from the rear wheel sprocket).
With a bit of grinding, well, a lot of grinding, I can get the brake disk rotor over the sprocket threads. I can also squeeze the small sprocket onto the end of the hub (to be welded in the future). But before all that happens I need to elongate the hub (and axle) to the right width and also weld on tabs to hold the disk rotor onto hub.
How nice! Seat stay tube's inner diameter matches the outer diameter of the hub! Perfect.
So we have a long hub.
Which now needs some sort of brake disk attachment.
Like 6 tabs of flat iron.
Brake disk rotor tabs drilled and tapped.
Unfortunately I ground them too short, so I had to use a second tube of larger diameter. I turned the tabs a bit, all in the same direction so they reached the tube. Then I put the tube into another tube to get them all aligned.
I spot welded the tabs, then turned the screws.
Man these are difficult to weld. Either way, it seems to be straight and all fine.
I need to do a bit more welding (between the tabs, mainly) then grind down the sharp edges of the tabs, then cut the tube down and we should have ourselves a brake disk holder, that can be welded onto the axle.
Right, tabs welded to the tube
Then ground a bit to make it a bit less crude.
Then cut off the tubes and grind the edges down a bit.
Then weld the tabholderthingy onto the hub's elongated axle.
And then run out of Argon in the middle of welding the elongated axle to the hub-ends.
So I had time to do a test-fitting.
And the transaxle looks something like this.
And from the other side.
Transaxle hub-ends welded to the tube... one weld..
And the other side of the transaxle-hub-weld.
Transaxle sprocket ready to be welded.
And there we go. Sprocket welded to transaxle. I will not grind this weld down as I pretty much like it as it is.
Then welding the transaxle axle.
And there we have the transaxle assembly. Derallieurs come from the cranks, and the small sprocket transfers the power and braking to the rear wheel.
And then fast forward to welding old front drop-outs onto tubes for the transaxle holder.
You can't clamp down too much! (and apparently I didn't take any pics of the welds of that, but I can tell you they're pretty. Hehehe!)
This is the general position the transaxle is going to be welded into (brick for display purposes only!). Will this cause any problems? Please let me know! I can see that the shifter cable is going to have to have a cut-out in the axle, but that's the only problem I can foresee. Please let me know!
Another angle of the proposed transaxle location (brick for display purposes only!)
Yet another picture of the transaxle's proposed location - please let me know if you can spot any problems! (brick for display purposes only!)
And a final picture of the proposed location of the transaxle. (brick for display purposes only!)
Finally a short movie of the transaxle spinning. Not bad! I had to adjust the brake disk a bit, and it turned out well. The sprockets are a bit wonky, but I think it's within tolerances. I hope!
Offering up the transaxle to the rest of the bike. Note the toothbrush as a spacer betwen the rear wheel and the guiding L-bar.
Cake tins, magnetic squares, whatever you can find until you've got it in position!
Tacked... one side.
For the other side I had to make cut-out in the arm so that I can get the gear shifter wire to clear.
Something like that....
Then some welding later and it looks dog ugly.
But give it a grind and a sanding and it looks just fine.
And that's how it clears the frame now.
Transaxle stays welded.
Also had to tack weld the rear wheel sprocket onto the wheel because of the threads being the wrong way as the sprocket is now on the left hand side.
Transaxle in place.
Another shot of the transaxle.
I also needed somewhere to attach the gear shift lever. A bit of old tubing from the donor bike ought to do it. Cut it off and then mitre the end that goes onto the frame.
Then do an Atomic Zombie plug (that's a washer with the hole plugged).
Bit of grinding and sanding and it looks like it was meant to be that way.
And there's the shifter mounted under the frame in front of the seat.
Then it was time for the brake calliper holder. About to be welded onto the frame.
And a second arm just to be on the safe side.
Most of the bits are there now - ready for a test run!
Another angle of the rear showing the chain arrangement.
Caz, my chicadee, posing on the Chopper.
Meet my chain tensioners. Two M8 nuts, Two M8, 1mm thread, bolts with two nuts each. - nylock ones to be used at final assembly.
First I drill out the threads so they fit over the axle. And I do the same for the M8s.
Let's weld!
Let's weld some more!
Some weldin' done!
A bit of rough grinding and they look like this.
And some more grinding and sanding.
And then we grind/sand down the "slider nut" (giggety) so it doesn't look like a nut, and a flat spot that goes against the frame.
Then it goes on like this, and apparently I didn't take any pictures of my bad welding.
I did however notice that the transaxle stay on the tyre-chain side flexed a lot when the brake was applied, the result is this braced tube (the almost vertical one). After a bit more testing, we've decided to do a similar brace on the other side, and then brace to the boom tube on the bottom. This will also act as a seat tube for more generic stiffness. Tomorrow..!
Offering up the RHS bottom brace tube.
It'll be something like that.
The left hand side bottom brace tube needed a cut out to clear the chain properly.
Offering up the left hand side bottom brace tube, note the cut out at the top for the chain.
Something like this - all tack welded up ready for a test ride. Man is this frame stiff!!
Pic from the other side. Time to dismantle, do the welding then prep for paint.
And the whole thing just before being dismantled.
All the bits that need painting hanging up from the washing line ready to get sprayed.
Another shot of the frame hanging, ready for paint.
Primer on the frame - weighs less than 4kg in this shape.
Several coats of satin black.
Time to assemble after the painting.
Doesn't look too bad - from a distance. Hhehe.
Assembling the transaxle.
Pinstriper pondering whether it's a worthy bike to pinstripe.
Assembled, pre pinstriping.
The saddle will be changed at some point to a wider one.
Another angle - bars will also be changed at some point, and I have a longer brake cable that I'll put on once the pinstriping is done.
Pinstriping has started...
A bit more progress on the pinstriping.
"How will I do this...?!?"
Master at work. Please be quiet.
(blurry) Pinstriping detail on the side of the seat stays
(blurry) Pinstriping detail on the other side of the seat stays
Pinstriping in front of the seat - remember these are painted by freehand!
Pinstriping detail at the top of the main tube.
Detail of pinstriping at the head tube and forks.
The forks pinstriped.
Forks
More forks.
Yet more forks...
Even more fork pinstriping.
And there's the bike as it stands today (+ brake cable and brake lever). A huge thanks to Mark Willhans - of pinstriping.se - for doing the pinstriping. You've taken a home made bike and made it a custom bike. You have amazing talent and I hope you can keep doing pinstriping as much as you have time and energy. I love the pinstriping you've done. Thanks!
A pic of the Chopper bike in front of a yellow door.
And another one. :)
The Choppa.
