TUESDAY MAY 23rd…..ASSEMBLY

The engine and box went in a doddle, with not a single scratch, although I did take the precaution of bubble-wrapping the frame. Because I’d done a really thorough dry build first, everything was fitting properly first time….I thought! Assembling the Harley (original @1942, but extended) wasn’t so easy. I think the bottom springs are non-standard, and the only way I could compress them was to put a ratchet strap between the top yoke and front forklegs. They were so stiff, I snapped one strap, but after a lot of swearing they were assembled. Took the metalflake paint off between the springs, down to the primer, but as all the spraying gear was still out, I managed to do an invisible repair.

Next job, before the frontend and rear wheel went in, was to wire in the LED lighting. There are 16 in the back end, and another 30-odd hidden elsewhere in the frame, so that, at night, the whole bike lights up, even the front wheel, as there’s a blue wide-angle LED (these are ultra-bright ones) concealed at the base of the speedo. A lot of fiddly work, as each LED has to have a tiny resistor soldered to it. There was also a computer hidden in the electrics box, as the LED’s in the tank sequence. The beauty of these little lights is that they consume virtually no power. I left one set of 8 on the battery during the build. They were still going 3 weeks later!
The rearend of the bike was already pre-wired. The wires for the rear lights were installed and hot-glued in place, and are now hidden under the molding. The ones under the mudguard were tucked in the mudguard edge-roll, and also hot-glues and a lick of filler laid over them. A nice neat way to do it, and no cable ties or visible wiring!

By the time it was up on wheels, the BogSmashers Ball was a mere two days away. The seat arrived in the nick of time, but it became obvious the bike wouldn’t be finished. It looked complete, but there were tons of little jobs left. We loaded it into my missus’s horsebox and set off. Myles had made a nice sign to go over the one that said “Horses”. It said “INDIAN”. There were 5 of us in the truck, and after a 6 hour drive, we arrived at 4.30 in the morning, totally shagged but ready to party. For my report on the “BogSmashers” go to “Silly Stuff”.

The nice thing about the “Ball” was that it was the first meeting of the “ChopperBuilder” website, and the organisers wanted as many unfinished projects there as possible, it being a “Builder’s” site, not a “Riders” one. We won “Best Unfinished Project” which was pretty nice! The bike’s first “Real” outing was in a week’s time, at the Newark Pro-Builder show. It HAD to be finished for that one, so, when I got back from the Ball Sunday night, I still had just over 4 days to get the detail work done. Should be a doddle, I thought. How wrong I was!