Sunday 15 April 2012

Single Sided Pipes

Yesterday's big job was the much anticipated high level pipes, looking forward to cracking on with them, but a little nervous about getting them right.

Spent a bit of time trying out the 2 different size u bends, and decided on the larger of the 2 bends to be used.

Probably the best decision I made that day was to take the time to fab some collars for the ends to sit in the engine. I initially thought I could do with out them, but they turned out to be essential. I just cut up a piece of scaffold pipe, turned them clean and even, and to the fit size - 12mm width. 



The collars weren't a perfect fit over the pipe ends, so I used some weld rod to evenly space the collar over the pipes.



At this point Tombo came down, just at the point where I needed a hand. Top man, cheers for coming down mate!

Once the ends were on we could mount the pipes into the engine and see where we were at...



We figured it best to sort the left hand pipe out first, so used a 35 degree bend as a mock up to try and work my lines out...



The bend was trimmed shorter to get it to fit right, I forgot my dad had bought me an old belt linisher a while back, worked a treat to sort out the ends of the pipes once cut with an anglegrinder. 

We then decided to weld the straight section on the back to see the line of the pipes back to the megas...







We spent a time sorting the megas out, and lining them up how I wanted them. I was playing for a staggered pipe look, the top further back and tighter to the bike than the back.



The back pipe wasn't as easy to make, not make photos of the stages, but basically we had to cut the u bend in half, then twist the joint and tack in place. As my welder was the other end of the garden, we were having to put lines on the pipe to align the pipes to when tacking then take the pipes down the garden to tack, then back up to try on the bike. I think it took 4 or 5 attempts to get it between the frame properly.

Once that was sorted we decided to work from the top mega back toward the front, so we could get them to join.



I think it's a 35 degree bend to kick back round the engine.

To connect the front and back of the pipes I then used one of the tight U bends cut down to fit. It was absolutely made to be. Plenty of marking, cutting and flattening with the linisher, and we tacked the pipes together just before the light failed!

I think we were both more than pleased with our efforts for the day. I'm one happy boy, and just goes to show any old idiot can make some sweet looking pipes....









1 comment:

  1. those pipes look very cool. should sound sweet too.

    ReplyDelete