Getting ready

Had a full day reserved for garage work yesterday so got properly cracking with this thing

The first thing was to finish welding the crash cage. I got the repaired pipe cleaned out pretty well, you can find where the weld is but you have to know where to look for it so I say that`s close enough.

That is one wide cage! Having seen that my own looks so narrow... Although it probly will not look so wide once fitted around fairings.

Now to the other project. I had been planning to do this same for my bike but as stated before the washers-on-tube-ends type fittings on the rear mount pipes will probably break off if this kind of weight would be lifted on them.

I needed some pipe so I visited this one salvage yard I had not been in before. I was very positively surprised about the service quality there and let them know about it as well. I mentioned that there is one other salvage yard which would be around 100meters from work for me but quite frankly have had so poor service there for several times I no longer want to go there, and the guy replied I`m not the first one to say that about the place. Definitely will be getting my scrap metal from this place henceforth, they have bought a full warehouse of both sheet and pipe from some company that went belly up so they have a very good selection of different sizes. They`re pretty rusty but it`s only skin deep and brushes right out with a drill and a flap wheel.

I started cutting pieces wondering what the heck is wrong cause no matter how well I try to follow the lines I always end up getting a corkscrew cut until I realized that the disc I`m using is cracked and warps. A brand new disc! Gotta be more careful when buying them from now on and bend them a little in the shop to see if they have cracks. Lucky it did not break, I`ve had a few faulty discs explode on my face which is why I ALWAYS use long gloves, full face mask and the rawhide apron when cutting, a flying half a dics can do some pretty serious damage, not to mention when the grinder bites in and jerks from your hands.

First bits cut, derusted and somewhat straightened

Ends slotted for extension nuts, threads drilled out from them and a bolt to align them somewhat straight.

Bolt fitted on the nut, and a piece of pipe fitted and plug welded on the bolt.

And the result: a swiveling "skewer".

Some more pipes and a little bit of chain later. So what is it then?

A service stand. First you fit it onto the rear mount tubes of the cage...

...stomp on the tube to lift the bike up and kick it through the leg to prevent it from tipping forward, and lock it down with the pin at the end of the chain. In the pictures the lever sits in a funny angle cause it is not the finished product, I ran out of tube so gotta go get one more piece to be able to make one long enough, this one is for illustration only cause it`s way too short. Although it does rock back and forth a little cause the leg and the lever are not exact fit to each other so there`s little play in between, but it seems to be very stable up there, and the front wheel can be lifted up with one hand so in case it needs service you can pick the front up, shove something under the bridge piece in the cage and take it apart.

The controls are still a little far but once he figured it moves back and forth like a rocking horse he had to be pried off from it :D

The finished product, minus the lever tube. That one will not be painted cause it`ll strip right off anyway so a light oiling will suffice for ease of sliding and rust proofing. I also left the bottoms unpainted cause frankly what`s the use, it`ll come right off from them too. The color choice because I happened to have an unused bottle in the shelf, I bought it for my truck but turned out the paint is nowhere near what the cap let me think so it got tossed to the side.

First basecoat on the cage. Professional quality paint my ass, the thing runs like Forrest Gump! Gotta wait until they dry and sand the runs off before spraying on the topcoat. Still haven`t bought the actual color, I was thinking of a very spesific hotrod cherry red but turned out it`s a metallic pearl color and the finishing shade is done by red candy clearcoat so the paint alone would cost nearly a hundred euros, so that is still somewhat out in the open. A matte neon green would also look kinda groovy ;D