Project Flat tracker

While I have been sitting around on my bum with my right arm in plaster to my shoulder (its a long story) for the last four weeks, and at least another four to go, I have been reading all the bike mags and have been following two blokes building American style flat trackers. I like the looks and simiplicity of those bikes, and started thinking of the bits I have lying around here.
A couple of months ago I bought and resurrected a late 1980s Suzuki TS185 for my son in law to ride with his son and it came with some spare bits that I can use with this project. So far I have collected a Suzuki GN frame bits (some bits cut out for other projects), Yamaha XT tank, Suzuki TSX250 rear wheel, Suzuki DR front hub I can modify and spoke to 18" rim, TS forks and engine and sundry bits, Honda seat, unknown chamber, etc.

The engine is missing the magneto and flywheel and CDI box.

But I wonder what I will find when I open the cases to fix this?

Going to be a while before I can do anything other than look and plan.

 

Getting frustrated at not being able to get on with this, so decided to start on something small, the front hub.

I cut away the brake drum with angle grinder (my plasma has chucked in the towel) and turned down in the lathe to fit inside of a piece of thick walled 60mm alloy tube. then took a slice from a 100mm alloy bar and turned it to make a spoke flange.

Using a boring bar I made the internal hole a neat press fit to the hub and drilled for spoke mounting holes.

I will have to wait now for another two weeks ( I hope) before I get the plaster off so I can weld together and do final finishing.
When finished should look like this.

Not bad for an old bloke with only one working hand and a 60yr old worn out lathe.

 

Arm out of plaster now (but still weak and in a velcro brace) so able to get the TIG humming on the hub.


Back in the lathe to trim off the weld and true spoke flange, then spoked into a 2.15x18 rim using 3.5mm (9 gauge) spokes and trued up.

 

Got the engine split and all gears inside are good, so it must have been a thrown chain that bent the gear change shaft and cracked the case ( and why there was no sidecover with engine). Put shaft in vice and straightened.
Before.
I ground down a jigsaw blade and cut out the crack to remove all the epoxy that had been pushed into it.


This also gave a bit more room to get better penetration of the weld. I jammed a piece of 22mm mild steel bar into the shaft seal recess to keep the shape and stop any melted alloy from encroaching into the recess while welding.

Clamped in place and TIGed the crack.

Welded inside as much as I could too.

Cleaned up the shaft bearing with a reamer, a good clean up, new seals/gaskets and back together.