The new steel tank and small cafe fairing arrived via FedEx today. I did a quick mock up to see how the lines flowed. I kind of like the slimmer tank but it doesn't fit perfectly in the rear as it more narrow than the frame- I can live with it though. A big problem is the location of the petcock bung. It falls exactly in line with the daggum frame rail. I've got several ideas on how to get around that issue. One entails relocating the bung to the rear of the tank . The other is to modify that frame rail inward in that spot since I'll be putting in a removable kit anyway. Last resort is to go old school and just cut the rails out completely. Definitely not my preference for a dragbike.
The cheap little café fairing had some brackets included so I drilled holes in the headlight ears just to see how it might fit. I didn't like the forward position so I'll probably trim the lower part of the fairing so I can move it back towards the handle bars about 3-4 ". Unfortunately trimming that much away will remove the lower area where the fairing bracket bolts up. No harm there really because i can always drill new holes, cut the provided bracket in half and find a new spot to bolt it onto the headlight ears. I'll fabricate a lexan plate and mold it into the headlight opening then get a headlight decal from Summit Racing and stick it onto the lexan to mimic a sealed beam light.
One of my dilemmas will be the fork length. As you can see, the tube i about 5-6"above the triple tree now. I had to slide them up to get my preferred ride height. Even by internally lowering the forks, I likely won't be able to achieve a minus 6" length difference without loosing all travel. Rigid is not good. The last build i did on the mono shock bike required a short fork tube as well. Kenny at Cyclex accommodated me by custom making a set of fork tubes to my specs. Hopefully I can lean on him to help me out again. I won't be using this front end or wheel anyway. I'm on the hunt for a complete replacement set up with lowers, tube and triple trees with an axle and possibly spacers. I want to put a single disc spoke wheel on the bike with an aluminum ban. To get my body positioned correctly, the handle bars will need to be in front of the forks. I'm going to weld up a set myself for now and then get a chassis builder to use it as an example for a professionally built set. I'm not a trained welder but can do just enough to get myself in lots of trouble. Lol.
This weekend coming I may move forward with the fiberglass work for the tail piece. I ordered the release agents but need to get some fresh resin and hardener along with fiberglass matting or mesh.
I'm going to slowly move this project forward.
