First Stem Finished!

It only took 2 years.

The impetus here was to finesse my welding abilities, learn to braze and make something useful. I think the welding is sound, I'm better now than I was two years ago. At the time, the only access I had to brazing material was pre-fluxed stick from HD and a mapp gas torch. Needless to say, the brazing is horrendous. I've since learned to use an oxy-acetylene setup. This particular stem is 1 1/8" and the dimensions match pretty darn well to the Deda Pista Newton stem that I based it off of, hence the track bars in the stem. The finishing here is terrible, I didn't want to final cut the tubes before brazing and welding for some dumb reason so I ended up cutting and slotting these with a die grinder and it shows.



Another point of vexation for me was that I'd anticipated being able to weld two steel threaded pieces I ordered from Nova Cycles to the steerer clamp tube. However, I soon discovered that there was some serious impurity in the steel and despite cleaning them thoroughly ahead of time, there was simply no way to achieve a clean weld.

Below are some photos of an orange Kelly stem and a Salsa stem that I based the construction of this stem off of. Sadly, I think my stem will be obsolete as I really favor removable face plates and when I started it, I had more than one track bike and it would have made sense to have two bikes with the Deda track drops on them. The 4th stem is a Salsa stem that I decided to repaint safety orange for no good reason.



If I were to take another swing, I'd take the time to have a jig made to hold the tubes while welding. For these, I ordered tubing that had a close inner diameter to what I needed and I incorrectly assumed that slotting them would open them up enough for a good fit. Next time, I'd ream the tubes to the exact ID before welding and slotting. I'd also fabricate the threaded pieces myself out of steel I knew to be suitable to welding.

More pics here.

1977 CB750K Front Brake Overhaul

I began overhauling my front brakes in November when I took the bike off the street. My plan was to order stainless steel lines, new banjo fittings, new hardline, new brake pads and a master cylinder overhaul kit. I ordered most everything from bikebandit.com, however, they shipped me an incorrect adapter fitting for the hardline 3 times in a row before finally just crediting my account and letting me keep the wrong parts for free. I was finally able to track down the correct adapter fitting for the stainless steel hose to the hardline at PegasusAutoRacing.com, who shipped quickly and knew exactly what I was talking about when I called.



The first thing I did was to pull the caliper off the fork, remove the brake pads and use the lever to push the caliper piston out. This took forever and once I'd succeeded I realized I needed to order a new caliper piston as mine was extremely pitted. This part has proven incredibly difficult to find and I am currently in the process of having a few made. If anybody else would like to obtain a 1977 CB750K brake caliper piston, please get in touch as I'm planning on having a few extras made since this part seems increasingly hard to find.



The master cylinder also proved difficult to work with as there is a deep seated snap ring in a long narrow bore. Its purpose is to hold in the rubber boot keeping the master cylinder piston clean. Regular snap ring pliers will not gain access to this snap ring. After several hours spread out over several days trying to coax the snap ring out with sharpened nails, vice grips and other assorted home made tools, I broke down and ordered some long reach right angle snap ring pliers of Ebay.

As of right now, I'm still waiting on the caliper piston and have to finish the master cylinder so I haven't begun reassembly and I haven't bothered to install the lines yet.

Its clear to me that the entire front brake system has likely not undergone any maintenance beyond an occasional bleed and possible pad replacement. The lines, piston, master cylinder components and fittings are all 30+ years old and have 40k on them. Its a testament to Honda that I was still getting function out of these brakes even if it wasn't optimal.

For those about to undergo this process for the first time, I recommend confirming with absolute certainty the availabilty of all parts in the brake sytem ahead of time. If you can't afford to keep your bike down or don't have more than a weekend to complete this task, you'd be best served ordering absolutely every part possible for this system as once you're into this process, you will undoubtedly discover additional parts that need replacement or overhaul.

I'll be posting more on this later and additional pictures can be found here.

February 2009

Thailand
Originally uploaded by B.Frank

The first half of this video is for people who appreciate haircuts and STD.

The second half is for people who are amused by the irony of hooking up a gas powered generator to re-charge a battery powered cart while operating the cart.

Relevance: for work I purchased the a Haulz-all powered drive, cut up an existing handcart and mounted batteries and powered drives to the front and rear of the cart.

Stems

I started these in Spring 2007. I need to clean them up, slot the two clamps, cut down excess material. A bit of work.

I probably should have made these with tube stock that had a much thinner wall thickness. At the time, I only had access to mapp gas and pre-fluxxed brazing rod from HD, hence, brass bird poo.

More photos here.

Old Project #2

Sometime in the fall of 08, a motorist struck my bike while it was parked curbside on Mass Ave. They didn't leave a note, but they did distort the alignment of my fork. So, I propped the bike up on 2x4s, removed the wheel, loosened the tree and aligned it by eye. I've been riding it since and haven't had any problems with the alignment.

More photos of the alignment: here

Currently listening to Diarabi by Issa Bagayogo. I found it here.

Old Project #1 cont'd

See below for details.

Old Project #1

The tandem in the back here was spotted in Hudson, NY in September 2003, I think. Bob and I retrieved it along with 3 other tandems and a motley assortment of children's bicycles. While in Hudson we stopped at a local sandwich shop. Bob ordered a steak and cheese and was sorely let down when a hamburger sliced in two on a sub roll was what he got. I wish we had a picture of that.

Seth and I scrubbed and overhauled the bike, painted it and christened it 'Angel'. We built a 'Devil' tandem to match and used them to terrorize unwitting friends on Halloween. Nothing says good times like putting a middle aged friend on the back of a tandem and slaloming MBTA buses in city traffic.

Punch it Cooter

Testing what this is.