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Why am I building an electric motorcycle, when I could be building one of these...?
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Demo Day 2
What better way to work out your issues, than by ripping apart a 40-year-old motorcycle!? Was in a bit of a mood last night, and needed to let off some steam, so I cranked up the Led Zep, and went to work (at midnight, of course - did I mention I’m a bit of a night owl?).
And boy did it feel good. Made a shit-load of progress (after doing shit-all for a couple weeks), and even managed to hammer out the damnded swingarm bolt. Now that was cathartic!
So without further ado, demo day 2!
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Demolition Begins
It has begun! Here are the results of my first day of stripping down the bike, and pretty much just ripping off anything I don’t want to keep on it. Thankfully, it came without an engine, so that was a big load off, and the because there was no engine, the pipes, chain, and gears were also already dealt with. So basically, it’s just a matter of getting it down to bare bones (or bare frame, as it were), and painted fast enough so that once the new part arrive, I can get them fitted as quickly as possible.
By the way, for those following along, I picked up a fairly heavy-duty set of socket wrenches, along with other provisions, which has made the job about 1000 times easier. Like I said, the right tools for the right job.
Here’s the progress I’ve made after this first session…
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The Right Tools for the Right Job
So, I have a pretty crappy set of tools that I use around the office for the basic hammering of nails, driving of screws, and measuring of tapes. I’m talking about one of those $20 tool sets that might as well be made of plastic, and have a Playskool logo on the side. It barely gets the job done for assembling Ikea furniture, but naturally, having never attempted to strip down a motorcycle before, I figured they’d do the job…
Well, about 15 minutes into trying to twist a rusted-on bolt with the crap-assiest basic wrench (you know the one where you twist the rolling thingy to make it bigger or smaller - yeah, I don’t even know what it’s called), and getting absolutely nowhere, except sweaty as all fuck (did I mention I’m also really out of shape - though it was really hot in the garage), I decided it would probably be a good idea to head over to the hardware megalith, and pick up a decent set of tools.
Seeing as how it’s 2am on a Saturday night (or Sunday morning), though, it’ll have to wait till tomorrow (or is that today?).
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I Bought a Bike…
It’s Mother’s Day, but before heading to my parent’s house for an awkward family gathering, I went to pick up my new motorcycle. Well, not that new actually. It’s a 1973 Honda CB350G Super Sport. Black. It doesn’t have an engine, but that’s okay, because I’m turning it into a Cafe Racer. An ELECTRIC Cafe Racer. Oh yeah, that’s right. Electric!