Learning something new on a twice barn-found beater

Playing around some more. Working on the seat bump. First attempt was more of a test, I didn't really expect it to work out. Tried to get all fancy, and it didn't turn out.





Second attempt turned out much better- less fancy, and less shape to it but I think it looks good.

Nice work Dorkpunch.

These are great small projects for your students to see!

More on the seat... Hacked out a seat pan and marked out the hole I'm going to cut in in to get it to sit down over the frame.



Trimmed the cover up to accomodate the thickness of the wood.



And worked a bit more on the lip of the cover... getting closer but still have a ways to go.

That is a good looking project you have going.
I let my mom's 69 Trailmaster go @ VMD last year. It hadnt run in 10 years. The guy had it running after 2 days of working in his vender area. We still have a blue 75cc with the long tank and seat with low bars. I found it full of water under the eaves of an old house. The motor is solid (one rusted lump) the tank is full of rust.

Cut the hole out of the seat pan so it would fit down over the frame, made a cover for it out of sheet metal, and temporarily mounted the bump. Also cut down the tank mock up a bit, I like it a lot more. The tank will have radiused bends (hopefully) so it will be a little curvy-er.

It's slowly starting to have a really nice and different look..

Thanks for sharing the build with us.
I can't wait to see the tank finished!

Greetings!

Started on the tank today...







Even got the pieces tacked together with my crappy TIG welder without blowing any (major) holes. Turned out great I think, even though I got a little excited about finally starting and used my old measurements, which means the tank sticks down about an inch further than I wanted it too. Oh well... I can camouflage it with some paint if I don't like it.

I like it!! What TIG welder are you using? Thinkikng about getting one for my garage use...

Its just an old beater Century DC/AC welder a friend gave me broken... I fixed the amp selector thingy and scrounged up a tig torch for it, bought a bottle of argon and a regulator and used it a bit. Couple months ago I finally decided I wanted to do something with aluminum so I figured out how to wire the high frequency stabilizer and set it up for AC...





I don't think its going to work for this thin stuff. I've been practicing a fair bit and I can get some decent beads but not having the foot control to vary the amps while welding means welding a teensy bit and then waiting for the metal to cool down... My welder only goes down to 30 amps. Seems like thats okay to start, but when I get going it needs to drop down to more like 15. I'll probably tack it all together for now and see if I can figure out how to get my hands on a newer ($$$) machine, or see if I can borrow one at the high school. Thinking I might try to sell this one and maybe a bike or two to fund the purchase of a nice one later this summer.

This plate started out at 1/8" thick.. It's well over an inch thick now.

Cool project. I've got a YL1 I'm giving a mild cafe treatment but the project has stalled with the crappy winter weather. Love these little Yamahas. Looking forward to seeing how yours turns out.

Little more progress on the tank. I'm not real happy with it, and I expect I'll probably scrap my first attempt but here you go anyways...

I built a set of "radius fingers" for the brake at school, this was kind of the maiden voyage. Turned out okay, but the fingers still need some work. To make a longish story short- here's the fingers.



Made them by splitting a 2" dia pipe in half, welded a cap on the pipe, made some new bar mounts, welded the bar mounts to the pipe halves, made an extra attachment for the folding blade, and there you go.

Works okay, but definitely not a perfect bend.





A little trimming and beating...



Sorta what it'll look like.



Like I said, first attempt. I'll probably screw up the corners where I have to trim the overlap on the bends. The flat part on the top will also be quite a bit shorter, and then angle down toward the back.

More work done.

Tacked on an extension.



Did some bending and trimming.



Trimmed it a bit more...







I like the shape so far, but its got a long ways to go.

Looking Good!!

can't you tie the seat and the tank in together? placing the fuel filler up hole thingy behind you.

been meaning to ask, is it a mono rear shock by normal means or something your trying out?

Integrate them to make them one piece or just for looks?

Making the tank and seat one solid piece was going to be way more work than it was worth, plus it wouldnt have looked very good on this bike with the frame the way it is. I plan on building some side covers to kind of fill in under the seat and blend from the tank back and down a bit eventually.

Tried doing some actual welding today... didn't go very well. Not happy with the way the joint along the top of the tank turned out so I think I'm going to cut the back half off and try it again.

I took the shock off when I was doing some figuring on how to run the rear brake lines. It will be going back on.

Another update, although no forward progress has been made. If you look at the last set of pics you'll see where I tacked the back half of the tank to the front? Well, I thought I was getting along well enough with my welder to give it a go. I still can't get pretty beads consistently on the this stuff, but I figured this part was going to get ground down smooth anyways so what could it hurt?

It became painfully obvious that my welder coupled with my (lack) of skills is not going to work for this project. My welder only goes down to about 30 amps. I think thats about the max I want to start, and then it needs to drop to maybe half that.

I'm embarrassed to post these but here you go anyways. If you look really close you can see a crack at the back edge of the weld where I ground through trying to get it flat. I didn't take any pics of the underside but there are some huge nasty boogers hanging off the inside from piling the filler in to keep from blowing holes. Yuck.






I tried a couple of corners too. They turned out okay, but still have the nasty boogers inside from too much rod.




Oh well... hack the back part off just in front of the weld and start over. I'm *almost* back to where I was.

You don't give yourself enough credit!! Only you know those boogers are there...

Little more... Really don't like the craftsmanship. The shape I love. I guess the old saying SHOULD be: The mind is willing, but the skills are weak. Its getting there. Gotta start somewhere!

Side piece with a "sample" logo. Thinking I'll make them out of copper sheet but nothing is set yet.



Tacked into place.





Settin on the bike. I dig it, now if I could just weld!

It's getting nicer and nicer..

Thanks for the pics!

Nice work on that old rotary yamaha