Let's build a girl's bike: a 1967 Sportster XLH

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Over the last few days, we continued to fill, sand, and fill the cracks/voids/breaks in the bubble bags. With the exception of two spots; they came out really good. In one spot; I left a void right at the mounting strip. The bag broke around the strip -- and I patched it around the strip vs. removing the strip and riveting. This is because I learned with my tendency to load the right bag more than the left; the bag vibrates right at the spot where I left the void. The goal is to see if this minimizes future cracking. Only time will tell :-) The other spot is on the left lid -- I should have filled it better and will likely re do it this weekend.

IMG_5743.JPG After the first sanding with 120 grit paper; a few low spots needed to get filled. Previously, these cracks were about 1/8th inch wide! I do drill holes at the terminus of cracks to stop the radiation -- and that is what you're seeing at 12 oclock in the photo.

IMG_5745.JPGIMG_5747.JPGIMG_5744.JPG In the above photos you can see how the bags look after the first coat of cement is leveled. A bit more here and there, plus build up on the interior and we're ready for paint.

Please keep in mind I am not RESTORING these bags, I am REFURBISHING the bags. True restoration of this stuff is a few more steps . . .but for 90% of us who just want to keep on riding our bubbles as they burst (sorry, couldn't resist) then this is a very viable and useful way to do things.

So, after I'm happy, I wash the bags again in dawn dishwashing soap and flush them with a ton of very hot water. Then, I let them dry at least 24 hours.

After they are dry; it's time to prep.

I prefer to use all SEM products on ABS. First step is plastic and leather prep:

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

After hitting the bags with the plastic and leather prep -- I then spray them with a light coat of SEM Texture paint.

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This is the same stuff we used to recreate texture on the frame. Used close, it looks like a casting -- used 18-24" away and it looks like pebble grain on vinyl.

Once that dries; one or two quick coats of SEM Color Coat (Landau Black is my favorite).

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And, with that, we have refurbished bags

IMG_5757.JPGIMG_5758.JPGIMG_5761.JPG In this last photo - this is the bag featured in a few posts that had some major cracks in it. I did remove the rivet in the front corner to get a full "glue" of the parts. If I were restoring -- I'd also restore this rivet. But, being just for me and Mrs. Chuck -- I was cool with filling it in.

I have done several sets of bags in a similar fashion over the years. This particular set saw six years on the road -- five of which were near daily use to carry my gear to my second job. I shoved all sorts of garbage in the bags and rode them in all sorts of weather down to 20 degrees F. No fade, no problems. One set I did is going on 10-15 years old and still looks fresh. The SEM color coat really holds up well to UV, etc.

Also, please note the badges and emblems are taped over here.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Whilst I was waiting on the bags to dry -- I went ahead and fit a bunch of stuff to the chassis.

This includes the -73 solo instrument cup; a bendix choke tube top mount; the universal snap throttle; the master cylinder (5/8th/16mm to work with the GMA caliper) and the solo seat.

The only part that gave me a fit was the seat kit.

In the past, I've used two of the COLONY repo seat kits with the seat T from V twin. The V twin seat t needs the nose opened up to take the original sleeve and bolt. If you run the whole v twin kit, you can ditch the sleeve.

The first challenge is that I had to finish the down tube machining. Being a replacement frame; this one was unfinished.

Second, there are a few problems with the V twin kit.

1) The kit is made of SOFT metal. I'd guess it is 1040 mild steel. It is so soft, I was able to mark the seat roller just by dropping my but on it. This does NOT happen on the colony roller
2) The kit is black oxide coated -- basically a nicer version of gun blue. Colony is cad and will last much, much longer.
3) The plungers are incorrectly made. They are too tall by 1/8" and do not allow the roller to sit proud to contact the seat T. I ground and reblued them as needed.
4) The plungers are rough on the "piston" OD
5) The plunger bushes suck -- they are loose machined and just "eh" the end result is stiction.
6) The springs have rough ends and catch together on compression making them "unwind" with a weird feel. This will wear in over time -- but is not present on the colony bits
7) The hardware is not correct
8) The retainer plate is the best part -- it fits better than the colony kit.

Overall, I won't fit a v twin kit again and expect this one to be pretty worn by 20K miles. Conversely, I adore the COLONY kit on my 64CH and expect it to last the life of the bike.

Some folks may like the V twin kit . . . but for my money; the COLONY kit is that much better and that much more correct.

IMG_5755.JPGIMG_5754.JPGIMG_5752.JPGIMG_5756.JPGIMG_5753.JPG

[joe fxs fxr]

Looking good! No surprise the V-Twin Taiwan Ted stuff is junk. Colony has been known for quality hardware for a long time.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

No surprise the V-Twin Taiwan Ted stuff is junk. Colony has been known for quality hardware for a long time.

It's interesting. Some V twin items have improved greatly in recent years. For example, rear sprockets don't seem as soft as they were and some other bits I fit were indeed very good copies of stuff. One can also order a number of better quality things through V twin dealers such as Andrews gears and most colony hardware items.

But, indeed, a lot of V twin stuff still needs considerably massaging.

In this case, I wanted to try the V twin kit to show people the "lower cost" alternative -- and this is one of those times when saving $$ does not equal good. Had I ever held these parts in my hands before I went to fit them . . .there's no way I'd buy them.

I know a couple of buddies who are happy with the V twin kit. I am not one of those people. I don't expect it to "fail" -- it's just not as nice as COLONY.

[belmont]

Very informative, as always. I really enjoy these posts. I have a question or two on reworking Royalite bags. I have had a set of these since 1988, back when I had a 4 digit member number. I got them from a fellow member back then who found them at a swap meet in New Mexico a few years earlier. The left lid still has the large deformity to this day.

After reading your posts on refurbishing yours, I have to ask you if my theory of making a mold of the "unmodified" lid I have and using it to maybe reform my lid to its "originalish" shape.

What do you think? It seems to be a large area to reheat and push back into shape. The picture will show the extent of this project.

belmont

[chuckthebeatertruck]

who found them at a swap meet in New Mexico a few years earlier. The left lid still has the large deformity to this day.

After reading your posts on refurbishing yours, I have to ask you if my theory of making a mold of the "unmodified" lid I have and using it to maybe reform my lid to its "originalish" shape.

What do you think? It seems to be a large area to reheat and push back into shape. The picture will show the extent of this project.

belmont

Good Morning and thank you for the kind words. I posted the Bubble bag stuff because it is so hard to find good information on the internet about working with these older bags.

I bolded a very important part of your message -- New Mexico. One of the things I discovered working with older thermoplastic bags and some thin section glass fibre bags is that those which lived in warm, sunny climates almost always show a distortion to the lids. This is most often a "twist" that makes you have to move the lid around to get it to close, but some also develop depressions where they sag. The few Royalites I've done all had at least one, if not multiple depressions in the lids. Put simply -- ABS goes soft at 200F and in the sun . . .it's pretty easy to reach that.

So, I have done it a few ways. The first time I tried to remove the "dents" I heated the lid and carefully pushed them out with my hand :-) I screwed that one up and then had to push the dent back down. I eventually filled it in with a slurry of abs dissolved in MEK (slower melting of the base) and some high end poly filler. Surprisingly that held up well but looked terrible inside the bag. Second set of dents I went to repair I made a simple mold out of high density (400degree) foam. It wasn't an exact shape but really a rounded dolly I used like in metal bumping to work the low spot up a bit at a time. I would heat -- push -- cool -- repeat.

The third set I did was the set in these pictures. The first time I repaired them, the lids had VERY similar dents to what you show, but more concentrated on the sides of the lid. It also distorted the fit pretty badly on one of the lids and the PO had taken to using leather tassles to try to keep the bag lid from flying off (you can still see the two holes for the tassles on the bag bodies -- I haven't filled them in just in case!). Anyways, I did the same foam trick. The dents came back about two years later. Less severe, but none the less dented again. You can see two of the low spots in the photos above.

This time I did not try to remove them. I filled them a bit and let it be. Then, to see if we can prevent "sagging" I coated the inside of the bags with a water-borne polyurethane truck bed liner. The idea is to see if the "structure" of the truck bed liner helps prevent the dent from reforming by "resisting" the sag ever so slightly. I'm not at all sure if it will work here -- but I figured someone has to try it once.

So, yeah, you should be able to give it a go. Just use a heat gun on low and be careful to not let it go liquid. Second tip -- it is NOT metal. It doesn't spring back to shape and really doesn't shrink. When you take the dent out; you have to be careful you don't actually stretch the material in such a way that it tries to "push out" on the metal support ring riveted to the inside of the lid. If it does; the bag tends to twist and the lid needs to be moved around and pushed down just to latch.

The nice part is that you can't really screw it up so bad that it can't be fixed . .. so why not give your idea a try :-)



I'd be curious if anyone else has found a better way.

I'm still experimenting with these repairs myself -- and still trying to find ways to make the repairs very long lasting.

Fiberglass bags -- no problem.

[belmont]

Thanks Chuck, last year I reached out to the company that makes the repros of these bags, B-B Reproductions in Spring Hill PA. I was told that unfortunately his new lids don't fit the originals. He makes out off thermo formed plastic. He felt that heating my lid and using mold to reshape it would not work because thermo formed plastic, at least the type he uses, shrinks when heated.

I bought a mismatched set of bags with lids on ebay that are in relatively good shape despite having been painted at least 4 different colors over the years. I will try to find something oven safe, maybe tile setting thinset left over from a "yes dear" project, to make a mold and give it a whirl.

You think a surface temp of less than 175 will do the trick? We have a counter top convection oven that I use to preheat cases when I weld them, really keeps the distortion down to a minimum, that should be big enough to avoid having to use the wife's oven.

My hope is to not destroy a working cover, been using these for over 30 years now. I have the only set of what look to be period correct bag guard rails that I have ever seen, too bad the chrome is so BAD on them, otherwise they are a real nice addition to my 53 FL.

belmont

[chuckthebeatertruck]

There are several different types of thermoforming vs thermosetting plastics. They are likely using a modified PVC base and those do have shrinkrage rates in the 5-7% range.

The old ABS used by Royalite is a true amorphous plastic. This means it has a shrink rate of less than 1%.

I would not use an oven for this. You're only trying to take out the dent -- sorta like using a soaked rag and a hot iron to remove divots in wood. Try to only heat the area that needs to be reformed if you can.

I can't advise on temperature. I used a 1500W heat gun on its 750W setting and very, very gently nudged the surface as it became "soft." I basically used metal bumping techniques to bring it up and then filled it the rest of the way.

This may be a time where you are the guinea pig :-)

[chuckthebeatertruck]

And, sorry, I think I caused confusion by using "shrink" in the metal bumping way. When I work on rippled fenders, etc I use a shrinking hammer or a slap file so that I can over stretch and then return the metal. That's not possible on plastics as you can't really control shrink the same way. Again, sorry if my terminology caused any trouble.

[chuckthebeatertruck]

It seems to be a large area to reheat and push back into shape. The picture will show the extent of this project.

belmont

Belmont:

I got to thinking about this more yesterday evening and that my "method" of using foam like a dolly and a heat gun can't be the best way. In doing a little bit of searching for what others have done to reform parts, I ran across this method of using boiling water:
https://thefrugalprofessor.wordpress...plastic-parts/

It makes total sense -- my biggest hassle was enough, but not too much heat. This method sorta takes the guess work out and it may work with your mold idea.

If anything -- it's an additional idea to consider.

[belmont]

Excellent article Chuck. This method seems much more rookie user friendly. The last thing I want to do is trash this lid trying to reshape it.

I can easily do this with the turkey cooker and a couple of our old giant pots from Jew Town. I do miss those days just wandering through the streets full of treasures, bargains galore.

I will start working on the mold and give this a try in the coming weeks. Now that the snow is gone and the lake is open there are so many yard things to get done before it greens up. The "yes dear" project list has come out and my mindset has to change to home tasks.

I will post some photos of it all if it works out. What do you think, a new post or continue on this one?

belmont

[chuckthebeatertruck]

Well, we have bad news and good and bad news. The bad news is that our digital camera died the good death. The good news is that we got a new camera. The double bad news is that it doesn't focus for crap. So, this week's photos are all fuzzy. Sorry about the quality. We've got a new one on the way.

Anyways, we are deep into case repairs. The easiest way to put it is that Mrs. Chuck's bike lived an interesting life and was repaired several times with varying degrees of hackery. both case halves need attention. I'm not going to highlight every repair; but I will share one big one in a moment.

While we were between repairs; I mounted up the rear fender, bubble bag mounts, and various other bits to check how they fit and look. I'm digging the solo speed cup.

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With that done; I got back to case repairs.

The biggest headache I had to sort is the generator area. At some point in the past, the generator nose was sheared off the case and rewelded. It was done fairly, but not well

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notice the dowel pin is missing? Well, that goes along with the replacement timing cover and the plain bolts for the generator. Everything was hacked up to work around the weldment being done mostly, but not totally correct. This is not terribly uncommon.

Here's the back side:

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[chuckthebeatertruck]

So, in order to fully check the positioning there are two choices: 1) clamp to mill table; indicate master and plot all CL coordinates or 2) quick and dirty lash check to determine if 1 is totally needed.

We went with #2. To do this; I made up slip fit dowel pins at .307. With our replacement 1964 timing cover (notched and vented to work for a 1967) and no timing cover gasket; we had even fitment on the parting surfaces. This is the first yippee!


We then moved to installing all our cams and checking the fit with the cover. Then, repeating with the idler. At all times, everything must spin freely.
DSCF0013.JPG Notice in this picture the dowel pins are missing for the sprocket cover as well. We had to make those up . . .and surprisingly the cover fit correctly!

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With all that done, we installed the generator. Remember to use correct hardware to get correct placement.
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Then, if all is well, you move on to making press fit pins (.308) and repeat.

DSCF0018.JPG You can see the pin in this picture at 3 o clock.


In doing so; we discovered the generator mounting surface is NOT dead parallel to the timing cover parting surface. This is out by about 1.5 degrees; which is enough to create tight spots on the lash. With the generator square -- no issue. So, we'll be resurfacing the mount to correct the issue. Then, it will be time to grind, blend and hide the welds on the outside.


We also have extensive clean up on the left case, including replacing the primary chain tensioner hold downs; welding cracks from silicone being compressed in the bottom of bolt holes; cracks from primary chain slap (when the tensioner let loose) and repairs to all the drain plugs! It will be another 10-20 hours of work before we can scrub the cases and get ready to start building a bottom end.

This sort of work is not for the feint of heart. If you haven't done case repairs or aren't willing to pay for it . . .try to avoid bikes with as much need as Mrs. Chuck's.

[craig (DE)]

Great write-up and tutorial as usual Chuck!