[help] Modifying bike parts

 

As usual, for several current projects I need to modify
some materials (rarely does anything I have, buy or scrounge
ever bolt right on without some futzing and tweaking):

(1) I have a wraps-back-around-behind-the-signal-lights windshield
which I need to drill holes in and trim the bottom extensions
(which collide with the Magna's radiator). However I've found
windshield material to be very brittle when trying to cut it --
what's the best way to drill and saw through it? (And smooth
it afterwards, such as with a file etc?)

(2) I needed some hard-to-find headlight supports for the Thruxton
and finally found a pair of chromed muffler support brackets which
(almost) work. They're basically a long metal bar bent into an open
ring at one end which (with a slightly larger diameter) would fit
around my over-the-fork sleeves. An already existing hole
at the other end fits the headlight's mounting screws.
Near the ring there's another bend but at too large an angle.
So I need to expand the ring part and reduce the bend angle.
How do I go about this whilst leaving the chrome intact?
I may also have to drill holes through the straight parts.
Is this possible without causing the chrome to peel away?

(3) The Thruxton's gas tank has a dent as if the Jolly Green Giant
punched it. However the dent's contours are all smooth; ie no creases
or sharp bends. Some Google research found a clever gadget called
a Ding King designed to fix dents by pulling them out with a glued
suction cup. Has anyone here ever used one and is it worth trying
or am I likely to do more harm than good and would I be better
off taking it to a pro?

TIA for any clues,
SQ

 



I had to construct a salt bath immersion test tank out of plexiglass
sheet once.
When drilling the plexi for screw holes the technique was to keep the
drill cool with isopropyl alcohol...

Keep looking. It's not that hard to find *cheap* aftermarket headlight
brackets that were designed for the purpose.


Forget that idea. You'd be laughed at if you showed up in public with
your headlight brackets made from a muffler clamp.

AAMOF, I'm ROFLMAO right now, at the very suggestion that you'd do
something like that!

 > (3) The Thruxton's gas tank has a dent as if the Jolly Green Giant

The promotor of this imaginative device has neglected to inform you
that
metal cannot be dented *without stretching and thinning the metal in
the area of the dent*.

Even if you pull the metal back towards its original shape, it now
occupies too much area, so it has to bulge out. When the unstretched
edges of the ding limit the bulge, the material ripples or looks
lumpy.

Professional bodywork experts who insist on working with metal only
would open up the gas tank at the welded seams and go inside with a
hammer and pound the
dent flat against a heavy metal block called a "dolly."

But the same problem occurs when the metal is pounded back to its
orignal position. It bulges and ripples.

The expert sheetmetal men know how to heat the metal and cool it with
water and get it to shrink back to its original space. But shrinking
metal is a job for the experts.

The easiest fix for your dented gas tank is to fill it with a hard
fiberglass loaded body repair material like Bondo (but *not* the soft
gray stuff), and repaint it.

 




Or even that other useful coolant, water.

Sensible enough.

A REAL expert metal basher would use a shrinking hammer actually.

Wow, you really know how to shift position don't you?

--
Beav

 


If you don't shift positions occasionally, your butt will go to sleep
and you won't be able to think at all...

 

? wrote:


The only people laughing would be those more interested in bikes as butt
jewelery than for actually riding.