Mating season.......

If you went over to Part-timer Steve's blog from the previous post, you'll see he makes mention of the frames stacking up in the background of one of his photos, waiting to be hardtailed. That's a sure sign that the "mating season" is in full swing. Looking at the photo below, can a 4 speed hardtail section canoodle with a '05 Twin cam Softail front section, and be happy? Yes, it can.....

This belongs to Wade, from Flagstaff. Wade wants to run a 150/80-16 on the back, with chain final drive. While we're at it, we'll mount a 7 Metal West ribbed English-style aluminum ducktail fender, bend him a nice sissy bar, and we're also going to convert his TC B FI motor over to a carb, and put in an Altmann P-3 ignition, along with a complete rewire. When it leaves here, Wade will have himself a pretty nice minimalist roller to continue on with when he gets it home.

The TC B counterbalanced-motored Softail doesn't have a seatpost, because of the "unit" engine and transmission. Well, it sorta has a seatpost, but it's just a C channel that bolts in with a couple of 5/16" bolts to the tranny case and backbone. It's mainly for looks, and it mounts the coil and the front of the oil tank. And, the rear mount for the transmission case is set up almost like the rubbermount case is - the pivot shaft for the "swingarm" section goes through the rear frame upright, through the swingarm, through the back of the trans case, and out the other side.

So, we're going to have to come up with a rear crossmember/trans mount that'll allow the transmission to mount solid, and still allow the trans to be removed without pulling the motor if necessary. Plus, we'll need to get the strength back into the mid section (no seatpost, remember?), to prevent flexing. Stress bars (ala Paughco's rubbermount rigids) would work, but I want to leave the lines of the hardtail section uninterrupted. We got it all figured out, and you'll see the finished frame, complete with engine and transmission mounted when we're finished. Should be interesting.....