License Plate Bracket

The last thing anyone wants to stick on the back of their bike is an ugly old license plate but I don't think I'd make it too far down the road without one.  I used the same 1" x 1/8" flat bar that I made the rear marker light mounts out of to make a license plate bracket.  I kept it clean and simple and rounded the ends to match the marker light mounts.

Clean and simple.

Nothing clutters up the back end of a bike quite like a license plate.  I used
the old one that was left on the bike when I bought it to check the clearances.
I wire-wheeled the finish off to make it a little less annoying to look at.

Building the Seat Plug #1

I'm a little short on cash for this project at the moment so I've decided to start working on the seat fabrication.  I've mentioned before that I wasn't thrilled with the seat that I purchased from BCR and I decided early on that I wanted to try my hand at building one.  Thankfully wood is cheap and I have all of the necessary tools to begin building a plug for the seat.  I'm going to use the BCR seat as rough guide for the style but I'm going to tweak some of the measurements a bit to give me a little more room under the seat hump for the wiring and electric bits.

I'm using 3/4" solid oak for the base and framing of the plug.

I had plenty of pine on hand from other projects but I wanted to go with something harder so I picked a few pieces of 10" wide oak boards at Home Depot.

I cut the tail curve using a router with a jig I made specifically for this project.

It would have been nearly impossible to get a cut this clean with a jigsaw.
After a few practice cuts on some scrap wood to get the jig set properly I
ended up with a perfect 4" radius cut.  No sanding necessary.

Mounting the Rear Markers

I used a piece of 1" x 1/8" flat bar to make a bracket for the rear markers and tacked it to the underside of the tray.  I rounded off the corners to follow the shape of the marker mounts.  The wires run through a rubber grommet in the tray and up under the battery box.

"Arrow Deco Style" marker lights from DCC.

The Battery Box

I knew right away that the battery tray I got from BCR was not what I had in mind. I may try and use it on a future project but for this bike it wasn't going to cut it.  I also discovered that it didn't have the necessary mounting brackets for the various parts that mount to the stock battery box.

I fabricated my batter box out of 14 gauge sheet metal and used 1" x 1/8" flat bar for the mounting points.  I thought I had taken some pictures of the parts while I was building it but it turns out I didn't.  I used some thinner (16 gauge) sheet metal to replicate the stock mounting brackets for the starter switch and rectifier.

The battery box with mounting brackets.

I was going to mount the regulator on the back of the battery box but there wasn't enough clearance for the taillight housing so I welded a piece of 1/4" flat bar to the tray and drilled and tapped holes in it so the regulator could be bolted down.

The battery box with the starter switch, rectifier, and my "battery."

Welding the Tail Hoop

I haven't had much time to work on the bike and I have even less time to spend blogging.  Here are some pics of the tail section.

I cut the "tray" out of 14 gauge steel.

Holes were drilled in the frame and hoop so they could be plug welded.

Clamped and ready for welding.

I'm slowly getting more comfortable with welding.

After grinding down the welds I noticed a few spots that I'll need
to go back and will with weld.

I gave the tail a quick coat of matte black to make it easier to spot the
little imperfections that I'll need to fill in.  Overall it came out pretty clean

Tail Hoop Fabrication

I haven't been able to spend much time on this project lately but I have made a little bit of progress on the tail hoop.  I wasn't thrilled with the battery tray from BCR so I opted to build my own.  I started with a DIY tail hoop from Dime City Cycles.  It seemed a little pricey but it saved me the hassle of finding a local machine shop to bend a pipe for me.

The frame hoop from Dime City Cycles.

I don't have a chop saw so to make sure I got straight cuts I used a regular old pipe cutter.

Cut to length with a pipe cutter.

I also cut some 2" pieces of 7/8" OD pipe to fit inside the ends of the hoop and frame so I can plug weld the pieces together.  The inside diameter of the frame tubing is nearly 2mm larger than the DCC hoop and a bit less than 7/8" so I had to bore out both the frame and the tail hoop with a step bit.

Pipes need to be plug welded before adding the hoop.

I want the entire tray and battery box to be removable so that if I ever decide to change the seat I have the ability to shift the position of the battery box if necessary.  I tacked in two pieces of 3/4" square tubing that will serve as mounting points for the bottom tray and battery box.

Getting the angles and curves just right took quite a bit of patient grinding.

I'm going to weld a 3rd piece of square tube to the frame.  This should provide more than enough support and mounting points for everything.

Checking the measurements before tacking in the 3rd piece of square tube.

Fabrication Begins

The first thing I wanted to fabricate for this project was a new mounting bracket to replace the one that came with the tank and seat I bought from BCR.  I'm sure Benjie's bracket would work just fine if the bolt holes in it actually lined up with the holes on the frame (which they don't), but like the tank and seat, it is a little rough in the details.

The BCR mounting bracket.  The bolt holes are a good 1/4" off.

I cut my bracket from a single piece of 12 ga. steel sheet rather than welding together pieces of  1/8" flat bar like the BCR bracket.  This obviously is a little more time consuming but the end result is much better looking.  Ultimately it took me 3 attempts before getting one that I was happy with.  In the first one the mounting holes were a bit crooked and I cut the second one a little too short.  Fortunately these botched pieces gave me something to practice the bends on  before putting the final one in the vise.

I still have a little more work to do, such as adding a spot for the seat tab to slide into but I think it looks pretty solid so far.  I should add that this is the first time I've ever worked with metal so I'm sure there are better ways of accomplishing this but with my limited experience and tools this is what worked for me.

I marked out the measurements in Sharpie on the sheet metal.

Cutting a straight line with a jigsaw is slow going at best.

I used a 7/8" step bit to create the curved corners.

I cleaned up the rough edges with a grinder.

This angle wasn't too difficult to get right.

The angles of the "wings" took a few attempts.

The bracket with the excess material trimmed off.

All mounted up.