Topic: The 740 cc"Nazgul "cafe , its awakening

[Emokid]

OHH MAN, thats going in the 550!!!!! I can't wait. What kind of time period are you looking at to get the engine running again?

WIll  have the bike ready by mid april , for next riding season 

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

Uh Oh..he said "hope". THAT is the kiss of death for a project. EMOKID...you WILL have this bike done by mid April. Stop messing around doing posts and get back to work. (I joke) What did you do today? How is the weather? Do you have alot of blondes in Norway?......get back to work.

[Emokid]

Sorry sorry . Misstake corrected .  It will be done by mid april .
I ll post a picture of all the blondes i have to wade through to get to my bike , its always a hassle , those pesky blondes ....

[Emokid]

So , if you first don't succeed ...
decided to start over on the tank after measuring a bit  , and findig everything a bit out of line 
I took some inspiration from Ringos lemans special build , and cut the bottom out of the old tank and use as a template for the bottom of the new one .
But i thought it was to flat in the bottom so i cut that away also , to get i lower in the front and higher in the middle over the valvecover .
Then i cut a template for the shape of the new bottom in cardboard and traced that over to a piece of Styrofoam and formed the new bottom from that .
covered the styro in clear tape , and clingfilm , witch i hope will let the epoxy separate from the Styrofoam .
Keeping the lightweight theme i had to cut some speedholes ,right 

[Emokid]

Then for the first try with epoxy ........
Bought all the stuff i needed today , epoxy, fiberglass weave , cups , brushes ...........
So the tank went back to the styro mold , on witch i also made a extension in the front and back , so i can adjust the final length when i sculpt the top of the tank later .
I taped up the speedholes from the back to keep the fiberglass from sagging into the holes , and mixed the first cup of epoxy 
Not at all hard to work with, did to layers in roughly 90 minutes , and I'm quite pleased with the result 

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

Are you going to run a crossover tube for the tank in the low areas? I always wonder about that stuff so you can get every drop of the precious out of the tank. Looks like you could have some orders coming in and put the Benji guy out to pasture. He just puts Bondo over old POS tanks and calls them custom...you on the otherhand actually know what you are doing. I am curious what your backround is because if you say that this stuff is just something you do in your spare time I will tell you to quit your dayjob and follow your passion.

I would stop where you are, smear that glass with some butchers wax, or other release, and bang out about 3 or 4 more channel tubes. Use what you have already created as the tooling. Or not.


Great work. I will come by this weekend for a beer. You cover my airfair?

[Emokid]

Are you going to run a crossover tube for the tank in the low areas? I always wonder about that stuff so you can get every drop of the precious out of the tank. Looks like you could have some orders coming in and put the Benji guy out to pasture. He just puts Bondo over old POS tanks and calls them custom...you on the otherhand actually know what you are doing. I am curious what your backround is because if you say that this stuff is just something you do in your spare time I will tell you to quit your dayjob and follow your passion.

I would stop where you are, smear that glass with some butchers wax, or other release, and bang out about 3 or 4 more channel tubes. Use what you have already created as the tooling. Or not.


Great work. I will come by this weekend for a beer. You cover my airfair?

 :)Thank you for those kind words 
No this is not my dayjob at all , i do realestate development and some import , but it might help that i used to work with making furniture ( damn i miss that big cnc mill ) .
Dont know about mass production  actually it was a benji tank that pushed me over the edge about making my own , i saw one member here that bought a steel tank and sanded of all the bondo , and i just thought " well i cant do much worse than that so why not try "
Cross tubes ? ok why not
Would love that beer , i know I'm having one , not so hot on the airfare bit , but maybe you could make it up to me by saving me some transport cost on all the items i need from over there, by putting them in the checked in 

[fastbroshi]

I'm curious as to why you cut the "speedholes" into the tank bottom.  Obviously it wasn't to cut weight.  Maybe to help with separation after the resin has dried?

[Emokid]

Fastbroshi, it is actually to save weight , the bottom of the old tank is staying as part of the new one , to let me reuse the fastening points and save me the work of fabing the frame tunnel and space for the coils .
I will cut the shape of the tank out of this bottom and then add styrofoam on top of it to shape the top of the tank , then fiberglass all around it and melt the styro out with acetone

[Emokid]

Time to update on recent events .
First thing was to shape the bottom of the tank to the shape i wanted , i wanted a much narrower tank than the stock one , so i shaved off a few centimeters on each side , then  put the tank to be on the frame to determine the since of the inndents for my knees .
A laser level is a very handy tool if you want to get stuff straight and level 

[Emokid]

A little trick i figured out to get the tank even on both sides , was to use a piece of clear tape .
first i cut one side , then put a strip of tape along the centerline, draw the shape i just cut on the tape .
After that just flip the tape upside down and tape it on the other side of the center line ....... easy . i guess this is called learning by failing 

[Emokid]

skipping further description of the shaping of the tank , i have arrived at this point now , its technically a fiberglass tank now i guess, even if its full of styrofoam 
the whole thing is now covered with two layers of epoxy and fiberglass strips , and this is what it looks like :

[Emokid]

In other news , the frontend is going , it will be replaced by 06 yamaha R6 forks and calipers, and a custom triple tree with 550 stem , mfd by Durgam over at DTT     its the same style as the upper triple ringo has on his fantastic lemans special .
The yamaha frontend i got on ebay and it should be delivered in Michigan tomorrow , cant wait to see how this turns out

[Grnrngr]

Very nice! Seat looks great and I'm watching the tank build as well. At least with the Hondas there are some after market options, but for my Virago, the only way to get close to what I want is either heavily modify some other tank, or build my own. Thanks for sharing..

[fastbroshi]

Have you thought about clearance for the forks?  The offset is less on the R6 forks, so it maybe something to think about before you lay down any more glass.  I like the shape of your take so far.

[coma13]

So cool! I love the tank build.

I'm also a HUGE Tolkien nerd and the Nazgul reference hooked me. It's looking fast, I'd have no problem blasting through Cirith Gorgor and doing wheelies on the bridge to Minas Morgul on that beast!

[hapakev]

Subscribed!  Great build so far.

[Emokid]

Have you thought about clearance for the forks?  The offset is less on the R6 forks, so it maybe something to think about before you lay down any more glass.  I like the shape of your take so far.

I'm having  the trees custom made , so the offset is likely to be the same as the original 550 , but that's not really decided yet , if needed i will make some indents , right now i have almost the clearance i need , might also add to the stops to solve the problem if it arises

[Emokid]

It seemed like the time to get the styrofoam out of the tank , so i drilled out the hole for the fillerneck , and pried it off the styro .
Then according to my plan it should be just to poor in the acetone And let it do its work right ?  WRONG !!!!
The acetone eats into the styro pretty quick , but not into all of it , and it doesn't dissolve it completely , it turns it into the stickiest goooooooo you can imagine , if you do a picture search on google for goo, you should get right to a pic of styrofoam dissolved in acetone 
So any thought of just washing the tank out with acetone vanished after a few minutes , maybe it could be done if you had a bath big en ought to submerge the tank fully in acetone , but really i dont think so .

Anglegrinder-  cut the top of and spoon the goo out , what a mess , but after an hour of dirty work , most of it is out , the rest starts to dry and can be sanded of, and all in all it dint look bad 
Now i will put a couple of layers of fiberglass on the inside while i have the chance , actually that will help strengthening the bottom corners that i was a bit concerned about being to thin , and also let me get a smooth surface on the innside .

NOTE TO SELF ( and advise to anyone doing the same ) : next time cover the Styrofoam with plastic film or clear plastic tape that will make it possible to cut the tank open and pick the foam out without it sticking to the fiberglass, forget acetone .

[Emokid]

cleaned and ready to put togheter again

[Tews19]

Hey how old are you? I always read Norway has a great educational system and allows kids to take paths in their career choice at an early age. You have some serious skills.

[Emokid]

Hey how old are you? I always read Norway has a great educational system and allows kids to take paths in their career choice at an early age. You have some serious skills.

 Thanks , but im to old for that anyway 

[wedoo2]

Well, I'm in watching this build.  Anytime blonde and boring out is used in the same thread, I notice.

[lordmember1969]

Hey how old are you? I always read Norway has a great educational system and allows kids to take paths in their career choice at an early age. You have some serious skills.

 Thanks , but im to old for that anyway 

Hi:) Looks great, fun to se another Norwegian on here. . Where are you located in Norway? 

[Emokid]

Hey how old are you? I always read Norway has a great educational system and allows kids to take paths in their career choice at an early age. You have some serious skills.

 Thanks , but I'm to old for that anyway 

Hi:) Looks great, fun to See another Norwegian on here. . Where are you located in Norway? 

Thanks     I'm from Lillehammer , what about you ?