Im home sick today so i thought i would start a post. I have been planning on and putting parts aside for a bonneville bike for alittle while now. When my 38U sold few weeks back i decided that i now had the money to try and make a big push to get there and run the bike this year. The bike is going to be a dual carbed knucklehead in a VL frame with a VL front end. I have been working on the heads with a good friend Chris Hamilton here are a few pics of the progress on the heads so far
Chris is a very talented welder and made welding these steel spigots to the cast iron heads look easy. You can see in the last picture how much running dual carbs helps with the flow of gas into the head.
Now with the spigots welded on the heads i had to get the frame ready to take the knuckle motor, so that we can make sure the flanges for the Linkert carbs are in the right place to let the carbs sit level. So on sunday after the LB swap meet fellow Wing Nut, Brent came by to offer another set of hands and he ended up taking the pictures. I started with a really nice mid 30's VL frame that was pretty much untouched. Warning!!! anyone that gets squeamish over original parts getting cut up turn away now
First i had to cut out the rear casting that holds the bottom tube to the seat post. Once that was cut out, i got the rose bud out and started heating up the tube to put an arc into it. I think that the arched tube looks way better then leaving it straight. Both Brent and I didnt know how this was going to come out but it ended up working great. Next i had to put an angled cut at the rear of the tube so that it would mate up correctly to the back bone. After that is when I got alittle nervous, i had to start cutting into the neck casting so that we could heat it up and bend the casting up. Once i liked where it was i put some welds in to hold everything in place. I put my other Knuckle motor in the frame to see what it looked like and i got super excited.
I pulled the motor back out and finished welding the bottom tube to the back bone and filled and welded the front casting. I added some gussets on the top and bottom to give it some strength.
I still need to plate in where the back back bone meets the seat post but getting sick made to have to stop. I hope to get back out in the garage tomorrow to finish that up. Then i will bring the frame to Chris' and me can get the heads all wrapped up. Im going to really try and take alot of pictures of building this bike and will keep you all posted with how its going.
Jeff
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