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1940 SS Knucklehead: People's Champ 5 Build"

118K views 327 replies 63 participants last post by  Rigidspeedtwin 
#1 · (Edited)
OK, I know a lot of you have seen my girder fork thread, so a bit of this is rehash, but I wanted to get some of this stuff on here chronologically. If you read the fork thread, you can probably read the beginning of post 1 and then jump to post 4. I posted this over on another (the other) forum that prefers angle grinders to machine tools (but I still love them). It's going to seem like a huge blast right off the bat, sorry about that. I'll update it as I go from now on. Maybe print it out in full color on your company's printer and go read it in the shitter, IDK.

So, a bit of backstory, everyone who knows me knows I talk about this thing all the time. I was trying to keep it on the DL online because I was trying to get invited to a "cool" event like born free or Brooklyn. I've since decided that I'm just a nobody and don't really deserve to be invited anywhere. Maybe sometime in the future. Also I am simply just not good at selling myself on social media, so here's where I'm at and I'll update this as I go.

Basically the whole project started like this, a titled basket 1940 EL motor.



By now I've accumulated basically all OEM (not year correct, though) external parts. I'm going to use S&S/Jims/Andrews internals. The motor will be mostly stock. I don't plan on making it anything other than clean, I want to leave all the "wear" marks in the parts that have accumulated over the last 75 years. Sort of like how I shined up this cam cover:



For the sake of the story, not much has happened with the motor, I've been too busy with other things to really dick with that. Also, for the sake of the story this is going to be a little out of order, but no one's probably reading any of this anyway.
I wanted to build a fork for this build, so here's the story of that:
Drew it in cad.







Got castings made from 3d printed wax off cad models. Material is 316L. This is not inexpensive, but I don't spend much money on things besides motorcycles, so it was within budget. All said and done I have into this what a nice condition early springer would cost.



Had to machine the castings. Fixturing these was often difficult and quite a learning experience for me.























 
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#198 ·
Nope. Never seen it. But I wanted to do something like that on a slightly shorter bar with a slightly wider base.

Cool, though.
 
#199 ·
Why don't you bend two bars to go out and around the fender and tie them into the upper rails just above the tubes in the oil tank? The bar would be triangulated and strong as shit, the sight line your trying to achieve would be obvious, you could put an extra mounting bung into the sides of the fender off the tubes making it stronger. To me the seat mount tube idea looks odd . Probably because it is slanted down and forward and then just stops.if you aren't looking at the bike from just the right height the line between the tank and the mount will be lost and the seat mounts will be seen singularly and I'm afraid will seem like a " bridge to no where". I'm honestly not saying I'm sure I'm right, I think you would have to be there in person and look from different angles to know for sure. And honestly my idea may give the whole back end a heavy or busy look, I don't know. Just thought I would throw it out there for you to consider.
 
#200 ·
Thanks for actually thinking about this and replying!

I agree that unless you're looking at the bike dead square the link will be lost. I think the oil bag rod exists well on its own, so if the tie in to the rear is lost, that's OK.

Someone else on an instagram comment mentioned something like that as well.

Are you suggesting a straight line that goes around the fender? My concern in that case is that it will just be too bulky and detract from the narrowness of the frame, because it will have to go outboard of the widest part of the fender.

The other option would be to run the rod straight to the fender and then follow the contour of the fender to the seatstay tube on the opposite side from the oil tank rod.

It's worth exploring. I can still tie the rod to the seat with a little mounting plate, then just continue on down to the fender. Once I get the seat pan sort of roughed in I can think about it more.
 
#204 ·
1st it's hard to be sure , but it looks like the bars could exit the sissy then hit a slight bend out , extend far enough to get to the width of the upper frame rails and then extend straight down to the upper frame rails welding in just above the oil tank tubes. I don't think they would ever be wider than the existing frame rails. It looks like the bottom of the tubes would cross the radius of the fender wheel opening perfectly, like you had it all planned all along. I do like the longer tubes you had in the first pictures than the shorter ones you have to bolt to the seat.now I'm thinking extend the tubes down on a straight path and put bungs on the ends of them and mount it to the fender and stop there.it will still be light and narrow looking, but will give a physical extension of the line to help the observer see the line.
Which of course was your original idea anyway!!
 
#201 ·
I look at that and want to see the bars from the tail lights follow the curve of the fender and tie into the bar around the oil tank on each side, when viewed from the side. Since the oil tank and the fender are the same width, the bars should be no wider than the fender. Make the seat pan the same way you made the oil tank, with the indent for the bars. The lower edge of the seat pan would align exactly with the fender, just like the oil tank. There would be a misalignment between the seat and oil tank bars, but it would probably just look like a bend was hidden behind the frame rail.

Maybe you could even have the indent in the seat pan upholstered before the polished bars are attached? Use a larger tube to form it to compensate for the thickness of the fabric?

Same motif for the fuel tank?
 
#203 ·
"My original plan was to extend the bars right on down to the fender, but it seemed a little goofy. Sometimes the ideas in your head aren't as good in real life. I wanted to continue the line from the oil tank..."

To my eye, if you ran the ends of the bars down alongside the edge of the fender to the tank bar it would flow well visually. You could even join the bars to the fender and mount it that way, having some kind of totally badass connection to join the fender to the bars (by badass I mean something cool you cooked up, much like all the REST of the one-off fittings you've done).

I still think you can pull it off, and it would look more flowing if you did.

But I'll still drool allover it regardless of what you do with the sissy bar.

Alex
 
#205 ·
I keep looking at it and I thinking you had it right the first time with the long rods to the fender. I like the triangle it forms. It has a more sleek feel than the short tubes do. The short ones have a stubby feel for me, and I don't like how they just stop. I know the will tie into the seat eventually but the contrast of the shiny tube against the seat will always be there and look like it stops in mid air.
But in the end do what looks right to your eye, you're there and can see it from all angles, all I can see is what's in the pic.
 
#206 ·
Hey man, been following the build on IG and found this thread the other day, very impressive stuff.

What I thought you were going for with the bars would be what is refered to as the Southbay Swoop, a sissy style that was popularized in Southbay Los Angeles that is attributed to Dick Allen, if I recall correctly. I think that would be pretty cool to have a variation of if you become pressed for ideas.Anyway, amazing stuff, someone else said it before, but this thread reminds me of the Japanese Custom From Scratch one, which has probably been the highlight of my JJ experience until this one.



 
#207 · (Edited)
Thank you for the suggestions everyone, very appreciated. So I spent the past week doing some drawing and mocking up of various parts and bends and sweeps and decided to go with a very short arm, to give it the feel of a bolting tab, and not really a rod. The cool part is the seat supports the fender and is hidden, so there is no visible link between the fender and sissy bar, there isn't a huge air gap there, about 3/16 inch, but it is still noticeable. I'm happy with the way it came out. The actual bolting method for joining the seat/sissy/fender was proposed to me by Rene at Mercury Moto, and it was really pretty elegant. There is a threaded T bolted to the fender, the seat drops over it and has bungs that the bolts pass through.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I made some templates:





I brazed the seatpan together with Silicon Bronze, I am not a good brazer, but it is a fun material to work with.

Then I hand shaped these bolting brackets:



Then got everything all welded up. I'm happy with the look, wish I had taken a dead side shot because that's the view I was most concerned about and I think it looks good.





The reason it is sort of "kinked" like that is because there is less padding going on the top than backrest. It will be fully radiused smoothly. Here's a model of the seat after foaming:



 
#213 ·
Got the transmission all back together. Just need to make a fill plug (speedo hole is tapped now) some sort of bracket for the clutch linkage.

Nevermind all the finger prince.







I used a bareknuckle choppers OVERBEARING, which is a great idea. I did have to shave some of it off, though, because it was too long and hit my clutch. Also had to shave a bit off the clutch.

 
#214 ·
I know it's been a while since I updated, but I really do work on this every day.

Finished welding the seat pan:



Made some front mounting bungs



Then made a mounting bracket. I originally planned to use the bolt holes on the seat stay but they are just BARELY inaccessible when the oil tank is installed:



No sweat though, this works just fine (painted black to stop rust):





Then I got a throttle addiction narrow sporty shell. Always liked them…



Then I had to make some parts for my tubing roller. Made these dies for 1" pipe. One steel and two delrin…



What a mess:



Started rolling some 1" sch10



About 10 seconds after the previous picture, this happened, so I had to remake the wheels in aluminum.



But I was able to make it work:

 
#215 ·
Then I made this piece:



And cut it in half:



Tacked from the inside:



Cut:



Cut more:



Sanded:



Welded solid:



Ground everything smooth and made a little wood template for cutting the tunnel relief… Surprisingly, wood has factored in strongly to this build.

 
#216 ·
Slapped my motor parts together for a few photos with the tank.



Looking pretty fresh:



And narrow!



I thought I had some pictures from when I made the bottom, but I guess not, I'll take some later… I made some mounting tabs up. Only used a drill press a band saw and a sander to make these:



Then I made this fixture to hold the tabs in place:



My math worked out and everything was centered:



Welded them on. Used a bit too much heat on the bottom side.





The tank fits great. Next up will be a polished rod, petcock and bottom closeoff…..



 
#219 ·
Some tank updates…

Made some stainless closeoffs for the bottom of the tank to cover the mounts.



I'll leave the nitty gritty details to the imagination, but you can probably surmise what I did with these two pictures:





Added a petcock clearance hole. My original plan was to run a prism one, it's an awesome piece, but I decided that A) I needed reserve, and B) I needed a bottom 90 degree mount. The reserve ain't much but pushing choppers sucks. Also started sanding:



Still a few scratches and at this point, as well as some water spots:



Then I started making the ROD for groove in the tank. Hand bent this with a torch. It isn't welded on and can be removed for paint, unlike the one on the oil tank (going to have to mask that one)





Also, I rounded the sharp back edge of the tank just a little bit:



Then once that was all polished up I installed the parts to check it out. Happy with the results. Everything fits pretty good.





Next I hacked up some 1936-37 rocker arms. Really, I just removed some fixturing areas and polished them up. More on this coming later:



Then I shined up my knuckle rocker boxes a bit. I'll quote my instagram here: "After the rocker arm massacre early this week, I just can't bring myself to polish these 77 year old rocker boxes mirror smooth. There is just so much history in these pits and scrapes and scratches, so they stay, I just polished over them. My cam cover is the same way. A perfect knucklehead is probably an S&S knucklehead.":

 
#221 ·
VOTING IS OPEN.






There are three places to vote.

1) The best first place to vote is at http://www.lowbrowcustoms.com/show-class-peoples-champ-voting-2017 here you can see all the bikes and read a bit about them, then choose a name and vote for it! My name is Christian Newman, the picture they used of my bike is pretty old.

2) On instagram check out @show_class_mag and comment "vote" under the picture of my bike (my username is @ctnewman and the pic they used is old)

3) This online poll is hosted by the Show Class. https://www.poll-maker.com/poll1009690x35F8B500-42

Vote once in all three locations. It can be for me or for a competitor, I just appreciate any participation.
Thanks!
 
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