Sometimes life doesn’t help you much. This project has been that way. Just as things start to move along the boom drops. The boom was me loosing my job, again. Is this a fucking movie or something, because I swear I’ve seen it before?

I’m still waiting on some parts I need to build or have made. But that isn’t stopping me from finishing the wiring part of the electronics mockup. I haven’t got any blinkers yet, but I can still set up the wires for them and wire the blinker module in. For that matter I could even mount it.

So that’s where we travel today. I’m going to show you where I’ve gotten with it all and where I still need some time. I’m also going to go over some of the "hidden details" in this project.

For instance the rear axle. I’ve been calling it a 1-inch axle but in reality it’s metric, 25mm to be exact. After getting all the spacers and shit ready, I was able to finally measure the exact lengths of both the axle itself and the amount that needed to be threaded. You don’t want too much of it threaded for two reasons. First, the threaded part is weaker than the solid part. Might not matter but I pick nits. Second, I don’t want the swing arm and adjusters riding on threads if I don’t need them to. That should make sense without an explanation. If not, no raisin pie for you.

So where do we find a 14 inch or so long 25mm axle? You make one!

I started out by picking up a piece of 1 ½ inch hex steel stock. From there Joel went to work turning the hex into a 25mm rod with a bolt head on it.

You can see from the picture there was a lot of material to remove. But it does leave you with a nice 1-½ inch bolt head. Joel popped the stock into his lathe and carved away. At this point it’s still longer than needed.

From there I took the "axle" home and popped it into the project bike. This is so I can mark the length we need as well as the point where the axle comes out of the swingarm. We thread to there.

Once it was sized properly, Joel cut the rod to length on a band saw. Then he’ll take it back over to the lathe and finish the threads.

I really needed that part finished because I haven’t had the rear end all installed yet due to the stock M2 axle being so short. There is still some doubt as to whether the rim is properly centered. It’s pretty close but I guess I’ll see soon.

Now, back to the electronics. I showed you the wires lying all over the frame last time. Now it was time to start putting some ends on and cutting wires closer to length. You’ll notice I said closer. It’s still not time to cut the wires to their finished lengths. Hell I move shit around as I go. If I see a better way to put things together than I had planned I simply change the plan.

Here is where I was just before I started cutting wires and crimping on connector ends.

Notice I said connector ends. For God sake people DO NOT used crimp slices to put your wiring harness together! Those fuckers are for fixing things in the field, not for something you built in your garage where it can be done right. Here is what a wire slice is supposed to look like!

It’s called a Western Union slice, and yes it was named for the telegraph company. When the workers were laying out the wires they of course needed to make slices. What they did was lay the wire ends side by side facing the direction of travel. At about the halfway point where the two wires overlap you bend the wire ends 90 degrees towards the other wire and start wrapping them around each other. This makes the strongest possible slice, as the wire must be sheared to break the connection. With modern wonders like heat shrink tubing you can make them water-resistant. If you think you need more they even have heat shrink with an adhesive lining that makes them water proof. I use a little RTV gooped on the actual slice and when I shrink the tubing I just wipe off the excess as it comes out the ends. Now it might just as well have been one continuous piece of wire. Try it.

In this next image I started putting the wire through the frame. Partly just so I could see how it was going to look and partly to start placing things. In the following pictures you can see where I put the circuit breaker for the charging system, the fuse block (more on that later) and the coil. Pretty cool huh? I used the stock clip for the circuit breaker. I drilled and tapped a hole then bolted it on.

Getting back to the fuse block, I figured I only need two fuses. I could have gotten a small block and used the glass fuses most of you are used to seeing. The problem is they can break, and they do like to rust up and stop working. So I took one of the stock fuse blocks for the Buell and cut it up. Actually this was part of the blinker section of the M2 wiring. It had some diodes to "steer" the current but we don’t really need to talk about that. The important parts are the thing takes those new style plastic fuses and after I cut off what I needed it is small.

As you can see I cut the stock wires with enough length for me to solder the new wiring to it. The unterminated wire will go to the ignition and blinker modules. Neither is installed yet. But with this much wired I could play with the headlight and even click the starter solenoid. That’s wire too.

Since I don’t have the switch mounting plate yet, I’m using a cardboard model. I hope to finish that part today by the way. Depends on if I get done typing and still feel motivated. It’s fucking cold and raining around here so I might just sit on the couch and watch the Sci-Fi channel. Yeah right. Even though it’s not the finished part it lets me hold the switches in place and wire to them. You can see I even got that hole under the top motor mount drilled so the wires follow the correct route.

Here’s where they come out of the front of the frame. I drilled this a while ago and de-burred it. But it and the other two holes still need to be smoother. Remember plastic insulation always looses to burrs!

Once the switch plate is made it will be welded to the highly modified stock top motor mount. The switch plate, axle and front triple trees are all parts that need to be fabricated to make this bike work. There are other people I’ve read about doing a bike similar to mine. Mostly rigids so I guess they don’t ride as much as I like to. I’ve seen them using the stock triple trees also, but that looks like shit and forces you to use rigid mounted small diameter handle bars. And you get to have them in the stock location only. No thanks.

From the beginning this was planned as a low buck ride. I used as many parts from the Buell as possible without making the bike look donkey. You decide where you draw the line. I don’t plan on having over $12,000 total in the bike but there are some parts you just gotta have.

Where do I go from here? It’s pretty much down to exhaust and paint really. I did put the ignition module in the cone and static timed it. The chopped up stock pipes can be seen in some of the pictures but they won’t be used. With the location of the foot controls on this bike and the motor placement it seems there are a couple off the shelf systems I could use. I’d prefer to build something leading to a 2 into 1 collector and a tunable muff.

Stay tuned.

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