Ladies and gentleman....Johnny Cash

Cash puts his own imprimatur on Soundgarden's Rusty Cage, and brings in Marty Stewart to administer the knockout punch. Thank God for video tape.......

Patina Turner knocks one out of the park.........

Nice, Brandon, nice.......

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Thinking about you, Dave.......

Heal up fast, buddy!

A little more progress today........

I got a late start on this this afternoon. It seemed the phone wouldn't stop ringing, and I'm battling with a wiring job on a Sporty that needs to be finished. Plus, Kyle ( you've seen his green Sporty that I worked over and hardtailed here previously) is back from his tour in Afganistan, and he brought his buddy Lumpy and his CFL roller over for me to start Lumpy's build. And, Part-timer Steve had a photoshoot with a model for a feature article on his bike up in the mountains, and he wasn't around today, so I was pretty busy.

I skipped taking photos of bending the backbone, and making the slugs for the neck and seatpost, but they're done the same as I've shown on here before.

The shape of the backbone is similar to what H-D does on their Softail frames. The backbone doesn't follow the line of the rear head, because it needs to be a little higher, then dip down so I can mate the top legs of the hardtail with it later on, and still allow clearance under the top legs for the engine to slide in and out. The top legs will hit the backbone approx. where the white line is on the photo. Next, I marked the seatpost for the angle of the cope, so it will butt up to the backbone.........

.....then into the tubing notcher for a 10 degree cope with a 1 1/2" hole saw. I can't remember who made this notcher (I know it's USA made, but there's no name on it), but I've had it for 10 years, and it's still dead accurate, and it's been used a LOT.

Backbone and seatpost aligned and final fitted.

Closup of the coped top of the seatpost, and how it fits. Here's a bonus tip: If you ever do something similar to this, before you weld the post and the backbone together, trace the post on the backbone. Take the backbone, and drill a 1/2" hole centered inside your tracing, then weld the two together. That way, you can run your headlight wires, coil wires, etc. up your seatpost, and up through the backbone.

I cut the backbone to length, ending it in a "doefoot". I'll cap it to finish it off.Here's where I dropped off this evening. I still have to clean the neck area to weld the backbone there, trim the old neck gusset, and drill my plug weld holes for the backbone and seatpost slugs. Then jig it up, weld it together, and then fit up the lower tank brace tube. From here I'll have a good foundation when I do the hardtail. I'll post up the frame when it's completed.

"Good morning, Mr. Phelps.....your assignment, if you choose to accept it...."

OK, what do you do when you have a titled 4 speed frame with an extremely grenaded Shovel engine, a low mileage Baker 6 in a 4 transmission, a good BDL 3" primary belt drive, and a brand-new S&S stroker Evo?

Well, you do like Deb did - you call me up and you say "Can you make all this stuff work together, and make it a rigid, so I can run The Horse's Stampede with it next Summer?"

Why yes, Deb, we sure can! And, I'm thinkin' if I know Deb, that Charley The Nomad will have her right on his ass, if she decides to run the Stampede with this. Deb's a pretty competitive gal in everything she does, and I'd like to have a bike I've done that runs The Stampede, to show exactly how durable something I modify can be under those conditions.

Here's where we start. Somebody has previously made replacement downtubes 2" longer than stock, and given the legs a rigid frame "dogleg" shape where they meet the lower engine mount. We're not going to change this area, and it'll look more like an original rigid when the hardtail is finished.
Structurally, this backbone is OK, but it just needs to be executed a little cleaner. We have to mod and raise the backbone anyways to fit the Evo, so why not make a nice, new 1 piece backbone? We're going to give it a Softail-style configuration over the back rocker area.
Here's the Baker 6 in a 4 in place on the trans mounting plate. When the Baker 6 in a 4 is pushed forward all the way, the clearance between the trans top and the post is minimal, but the trans will move back some after the primary belt is adjusted, so we won't be notching the new post for clearance in this area. The trans will go in and out of the finished frame no problem. Who says that stroker Evos don't fit in 4 speed swingarm frames? This one seems to fit just fine. OK, we did do a little "trimming" on the backbone..... Here Part-timer Steve is holding a section of 1 1/2" OD tubing to approximate the final post shape we need. The seatpost was cut down close to the white line you see, and a piece of tubing was rough cut to length....... .....and into the hydraulic bender it goes, for a 10 degree bend, with the bend winding up right below the rear exhaust port, like we wanted it to. Here's where we stopped for the day. The post angle leaves plenty of room to get the engine in and out of the frame, and the clearance on the trans top to the post didn't change. We'll leave the seatpost long until we get the backbone in place, then we'll cope the top of the post to mate the bottom of the new backbone. There won't be any need to notch the seatpost for the rear pipe to clear, either. Perfect. More to come.....