62 Chopped FL Rebuild

[budoka]

i like to mount the caliper on the back side of the forks. that way, if worse comes to worst and the caliper should somehow come loose, it'll hit the back of the forks before it has much time to build up momentum.

least that's what the voices in my head keep telling me, anyway.

-dan

[2Loose]

Dan, That sounds pretty reasonable.

The wife and I took the 55 Chevy gasser (blown Olds 425, stick shift, ladder bars)
over to a friends house yesterday to watch the super bowl, on the way home last
nite it kept making clunking noises in the rear end. It is a coil spring setup
with a panhard bar. Got home and crawled under for a look, the panhard bar
was about to fall off. As that locates the rear end side to side, that coulda
made for a really exciting evening. Today it's all gonna get lots of red locktite !!!

Meaning, lots of red locktite on that disk brake setup also....
Willy

[Artie]

I agree, you also get the bleed screw at its highest position, Ive built bikes where I had the bleed screw in 'second best' spot and its been a pain in the arse to get air out. Meaning, unbolting caliper, bleeding with a spacer tween the pads and then remounting...... best to do it right the first time......

[2Loose]

Been really busy, but found a little time today to cut some cardboard....


It fits in there really well, and I have the caliper's frame located where I can drill and tap for a bolt from the fork slider's brake lug directly into the frame:


Now to make this bracket out of 1/4" steel. Wish I had some stainless to do this with.
Willy

[2Loose]

The first step is to get the frame for the caliper correctly located,
and drill and tap a hole in it for the anchor bolt on the fork slider.


Decided I needed to be able to more accurately align the pads with the rotor, so I
pulled off the caliper but left the pads loaded in the frame, transfer punched the center of
the fork slider hole to the caliper frame after the pads were accurately lined up...


The hole in the fork slider for the brake is 7/16". So I used a 7/16" transfer
punch to mark the center of the fork slider brake lug on the caliper frame,
Then drilled and tapped it for a 7/16" fine thread, and bolted it up with a 1/4"
thick washer as a spacer, as the final caliper support down to the axle will be 1/4".
The two original holes in the caliper frame were 10mm fine, drilled them and
retapped them also to 7/16" fine.

I'm looking for some ss 7/16" fine thread allen head bolts to use on this, the cap screws are ok for now though...

Pulled a piece of 1/4" thick channel out of the scrap pile to cut the final piece.


There is a bit of a problem here though, as the fork slider brake anchor tab
is not in alignment with where the part that fits on the axle, so they will be two
separate pieces that will be aligned and welded back together.


It's gettin' there....
Aloha,
Willy

[2Loose]

Rough cut these two pieces for the brake caliper support
from some 1/4" scrap steel I had on the junk pile....
Left plenty of room around the edges to reshape as necessary....


The bottom piece overlaps behind the top piece, as the fit on
the axle is offset 1/4" from the fit at the original brake lug on the fork slider.



Fitted the upper piece to the caliper....


And transfer punched the three holes to get the centers...


Drilled with an 1/8" bit first to center the holes, then with a 7/16" bit....
It bolted up perfectly....


Another view....
The long center bolt will anchor it to the lug on the fork slider....

The chalk mark shows where I have to trim it a bit to get a better fit against the fork slider.
I'll do that a little at a time until I get the fit I want.


Now to cut the hole in the other piece to fit the axle,
fit the two pieces together, and weld them....

Aloha,
Willy

LINK to other pages on my site for the '62

[2Loose]

Had to keep trimming the bottom of that upper piece until I got a good fit
against the side of the fork slider and the brake lug....


This piece now fits snugly against the side of the fork slider when bolted up solidly....
And there is good alignment with the brake disk....


Looks good from the other side as well....


And the front wheel will still drop out with the caliper in place, a good thing....


Cut the 1-1/4" hole in the lower piece, put it on and aligned the two pieces, overlapping them....
And welded em' up....


Checked em' against my templates, this is working out well....


The other side, this is the side that faces the wheel....


Bolted everything up, and flipped the forks over to the correct side up, and it all looks great !
I still need to do some more grinding and polishing, then some paint, and that bracket is done....



I'm looking for a master cylinder, kinda old style looking, for the handlebars....

Aloha,
Willy

[2Loose]

I have the vin of the Suzuki my front disk brake setup came off of,
went online and found it was a 1985 Madura GV700 V4, found
a caliper rebuild kit for it online and ordered it.

A 700 cc V4? Man, with 175 cc cylinders, with 4 valves per, that
motor must have been a screamer....

Now looking for a master cylinder for the front.
Something simple and the older looking the better.

[2Loose]

Bought a quart of PPG, JAU Direct Gloss Acrylic Urethane in Torch Red.
Got my gun out and blew some red on the tank and rear fender.
Now we're gettin' back to the old color, I had originally sprayed this color in lacquer,
don't remember how many coats, but there were a bunch, each hand rubbed....


Ya don't wanna breath this stuff, so I did it in my carport, a very light breeze was flowing through
which made it perfect!
Later in the afternoon a little sunlight peeked in through the trees outside and lit up that red paint,
This pic just doesn't do this paint justice !!


The frame is not ready to paint just yet, but I had a little paint left in the gun, so I blew
that last bit on some of the frame tubes just for a look-see....
Yup, that's the color I remember....

I want to smooth out some of those welds before I paint the frame.

Aloha,
Willy

Home Page

[Indian Mark]

Finally got a chance to read thru this project. Nice work, keep going on it.

[2Loose]

These nice handlebar controls for the Suzuki disk brake I put on the front wheel showed up today.
Found this pair of early Honda cb750 controls, 5/8" piston bore, perfect for a single caliper disk setup....

I like the round style brake fluid reservoir better than the rectangular ones seen around lately,
and this set included the matching clutch lever....



The only problem is that these are for a 7/8" handlebar, I can modify the handlebars to have a short section
of 7/8" plug on each side where these will be mounted, or looking at them it looks like there is
enough meat in the side of the clamp next to the levers to do an offset bore, so that most of the
1/8" of metal removed would be against the side where the levers are.
It doesn't look like it would weaken it at all....




I might not be able to do that on the master cylinder though, it depends on how close an 1/8"
cut might get to the internal fluid channels. Need to check that out. There's a lot of "meat' here
though, maybe just take a 1/16" all around.



I'll fit it to a piece of 7/8" bar first to see how the gap at the screws looks...

Aloha,
Willy

[2Loose]

Found some time to work on this bike a little, have a different clutch control I like better than the first one I had, and it's for a 1" bar:


It's got an electrical switch built in, not sure what that's supposed to be for....


Got a 1" unibit, so I still need to bore out the Honda master cylinder bar mount, but there's a lot of "meat" there, it will be no problem....

Am also thinking of changing out the handle on the Honda master cylinder using this one, if I can get it to fit....


Meanwhile I still have not gotten the frame ready to paint. Weather's been horrible here, high winds and lots of rain, and my paint booth needs good weather, as it is partially open to the weather....

Not a very good pic, but this pressure actuated switch fits into the hydraulic fitting on the master cylinder to activate the brake light...


Aloha,
Willy

More Pix Here

[railroad bob]

super job on the front brake, loving it.

[budoka]

wow, that red is truly lovely. just really pops. keep on keeping' on!

-dan

[railroad bob]

wow, that red is truly lovely. just really pops. keep on keeping' on!

-dan

agreed, if you drive past several dealerships with red pickups, the chevys just pop, compared to the others.