More VL frame work........

I had some slack time, so I was able to do a little more work to the VL frame. I wanted to get the front mount straightened out next, because it was bugging me. Plus, I'm trying to work from the front to the back, taking care of all the fuckups and butchers as I go.

You can see in this picture, that whoever did this the first time was a moron. They ground the back side of the mount for clearance (?????WHY?????), so when they went to drill the R/H hole for the case ear bolt, they broke thru the edge of the pad. Plus, the hole isn't even in the right place, either. They must have had a set of cases that had the ear repaired on it, and they didn't get the ear back in the right place again.

So.....in go a set of mock-up cases, to see exactly how much repair it's going to take to get a solid mounting surface. I dropped in the rear mounting bolts, and torqued them to 35 lb/ft, then checked out the front mounts.

Once the cases were bolted in, you could tell they also cut off (???) the R/H side of the frame mount. You can see where the white arrow points, that the R/H case ear hangs over the mount unsupported by a good 5/16" We'll have to build that up, too. Actually, the L/H mounting hole almost lined up enough to drop a bolt thru it.

Adding a 1/4" x 5/16" piece to the back of the mount. I haven't added the repair piece to the side of the mount yet, or welded up the right pad hole yet.

.......and here's the finished front mount, material added, re-drilled correctly, and all draw filed smooth. Usually on these frames, you'll have to add a spacer to the front mounting pad between 1/16-1/8" thick. But every one of these frames I've done have never been the same. This one is only going to need a .020" shim under the front case ears.

From the right, the pad goes all the way under and gives full support to the right case ear now.

Here's a little teaser. I got one of my NOS Wassell tanks out of my stash, dropped the tunnel, and relocated the filler. These tanks are cool, but this tank is 42 years old, and people don't realize that when they were new, they were made out of God knows what kind of crap steel, and they vary in thickness from 18-22ga. They SUCK to weld on.

I was too pissed-off to take pictures while I did the tank surgery - it was a lot of frustrating work. The original tunnel was welded in off-center, and the tunnel was 2 1/2" wide - my backbone is an 1 1/4" in dia. I had to add strips to the bottom of the tank to narrow and center the tunnel space, in addition to the filler plates in the front and rear of the tank, before I could weld in the new shallow tunnel.

Part-timer Steve was watching me weld all this in, and he said it looked like I was welding it with a Bernz-O-Matic torch and a coathanger. You'd be going along OK, and then fffzzziiitt, it would spark out, and melt away. You'd look at the tungsten, and it was all fucked up. I finally got it finished by switching from a thoriated tungsten to a ceriated tungsten, that seemed to do the trick.

It was worth the hassles on the tank though, I think it looks pretty good up there, and it'll fit in with the build.