New build- from scratch onto a brick...PROJECT PLATFORM IS BORN

[Fanum]

THIS was our build on an 1100, which has now completed over 10k miles including the Nordkapp and the Elefant

We've been threatening to do a build on a K bike, and here it is......

(ongoing)

 

[jackassdave]

excellent work that man

 

[patzx12]

Love it, nice build I missed that first time around.
I enjoyed viewing the build.
Did you consider using box aluminium for the chassis?
Lovely to weld if you have TIG.

 

[Fanum]

Love it, nice build I missed that first time around.
I enjoyed viewing the build.
Did you consider using box aluminium for the chassis?
Lovely to weld if you have TIG.

No.......Box aluminium is bloody expensive, plus it's harder to fix if it gets crunched far from home.

The K series one, like that 1100 build, is steel....heavy but cheap, easily fixed and easy to work with/on.

Ok, so here we go....the brief for this customer's bike was for a strong, wide load carrying platform to go onto his brick.

It won't ever have a chair fitted.....this guy just wants to use it for long distance heavy work like touring and winter rallies.....loading capacity and off road/ruggedness were higher on his list than aesthetics

We also chatted about a split charge system, with the idea that a separate battery would run an LED floodlight on a telescopic pole for camping, would charge his gadgets on the camp site and would be isolated from the starting battery so he'd not pack up and find he couldn't start the bike after a week's camping.

On a K bike, you need a subframe that mounts on both sides of the engine block but there's also onto a four point area underneath that's available.

(Don't worry about the welding etc at this stage, it all gets tidied up and painted )

 

[Fanum]

Now it's not perfect, but I think this is bloody nice

And the rails mount on the other side in a similar fashion

 

[Fanum]

The bike no longer needs a centre stand, and we KNOW that the centre stand mounting area is solid, so why not use it

 

[DrFarkoff]

I'm no "Engineer" (allegedly cos I as no letters after me name like!)

But is that not a tad light on resistance to the "yaw" type forces Surely that is only the Sump held on by a dozen or so M6 bolts

Edit Yup it is LINK M6 x 25 to be exact

Here's a pic of a bought frame Bill most of the frames I have seen use the top forward engine mounts as locations

 

[Fanum]

I'm no "Engineer" (allegedly cos I as no letters after me name like!)

But is that not a tad light on resistance to the "yaw" type forces Surely that is only the Sump held on by a dozen or so M6 bolts

Edit Yup it is LINK M6 x 25 to be exact

Here's a pic of a bought frame Bill most of the frames I have seen use the top forward engine mounts as locations

Patience

 

[Fanum]

Ok, I'll jump ahead a wee bit

(compare the acute angle on the left hand crossover rail in its first offering up to the angle we ended up with)

 

[Fanum]

Rated at 5 tonnes

Then on the back end, the final linkage (all are adjustable)

 

[Fanum]

The deck frame is made of granite.

Or Steel, I forget

(and yes, that's scaffold tube )

The cut-outs are for hooks BTW.....that worked on the GS rig quite nicely

 

[Fanum]

The top front mounting point, tweaked, painted and ready to take the attachment rods

And the left side view of the cradle, painted.

We've only used red oxide paint, sanding and Wurth satin black spray so far in this build......powder coating is probably going to happen, but this is a cost-price to customer build and as such, it's also a test rig and learning set up as well......when we get a few more done and a couple of thousand K miles of hard real world use, the plan is to build different modular sections and powder coat them as standard, then mix and match them with custom storage/design/pods etc

Yep, Thunderbird 2

 

[NeilDD]

Bill,
Looks good, but what about a little bit of triangulation between the 2 front tubes?

 

[Fanum]

So the bike subframe is on, has been jumped up and down on by an (almost) infinite number of monkeys to show that if anything can go wrong, it will.

The linkages from the subframe to the platform are on but just 'on', not tweaked or locked off, we can't do that until it's been around the fields for a couple of hours.....so next it's the suspension on the platform

After a very brief experiment with various bits of old sidecar scrap we obtained for the last build, we settled on using a Ford Fiesta stub axle and arm....

You can get a fiesta/focus stub axle from Ebay for under a tenner delivered, and they are available from pretty much any European scrap heaps 'just in case'.......they are reliable, well tested and bearings to fit are pocket money, standard sized (anywhere!) and so they make sense....plus, the one we fitted to my old Kalahari 1100 is properly tested out and has not been found to be lacking in any way, so we know they work

If you look in the background of some of these pics, you may notice that Gert bought a stupidly enormous old stylee lathe (which he got for a conversely low price, as it weighs so frigging much that any potential buyer was looking at the equivalent of a Myford hobby lathe cost just to shift the fekker to a new location )

Anyway, he's the guru on turning metal, and he made a prototype adaptor to go from the fiesta hub to a GS wheel.......the guy for this bike didn't want it though (it's a brick durrrrr) so the razther lovely hub adaptor will be used on the next build (already started) which will be a leading fork GS build, possibly (if we can get the parts at a 'price sensitive' level) 2WD with disc brake on outboard wheel

So, unsurprisingly, this K rig will run on a standard Fiesta rim and tyre, which frankly is a good thing anyway given the price and availability (let alone longevity) of the hardware and rubber ( 13 inch rims will take 8 ply heavy duty trailer tyres ) around the world

Swing arm pivot mock up being offered up onto frame:

 

[Fanum]

Bill,
Looks good, but what about a little bit of triangulation between the 2 front tubes?

Easily done, and will be if it 'feels' necessary IYKWIM

I guess this is the beauty of a painted 'testrig' framework over a powder coated final product.....we had the whole suspension setup on and off the GS rig four times or more for total re-thinks as and when it didn't quite 'feel right'.

If it needs 6 mill plate, we'll fillet in some 10 mill plate

PS my gut feeling is that it won't need it.......look at the subframe again, but imagine a solid engine block connecting the lower 4 points through to the upper two points plus the upper left one, plus the sump plate.

We're going to load this up with 40 stone of man beef and seriously abuse it, with accurate witness marks and even (horror of horrors!) a bullet cam watching things stress.....any doubt, and that angle will be filleted



EDIT............Now you have me looking at it again, I suspect it'll be done anyway, git

 

[Fanum]

It's nice having a chunky lathe.....
Gert made up some bearing housings for the swing arm pivot........

 

[Fanum]

and the swing arm was built up, with the Fiesta stub axle

Bearings pressed in

 

[Zx9man]

Keep going this is getting interesting now

 

[Fanum]

Standard Fiesta rim with a slightly wider than base model tyre (possibly from a Fiesta S or something, I'm not sure) mounted up to the swing arm, with outer swing arm pivot tacked up for clearance checking.....

 

[Fanum]

Suspension finalisation TBC, but for now, my old K100RS rear shocker was offered up together with an inexpensive bog standard trailer wheel arch to see how it all starts coming together.......Gert's satisfied

Looking viable......