The Trip Out

The Trip Out seemed a fitting destination for my Chop. 3 1/2 years after I had the stupid idea to "build a bike" I rolled in to the field - soaked through, but absoutely stoked!

Was a bit sketchy at first with the rain, but it picked up nicely once it all dried out. I think some of that was my confidence on the bike building also. Was awesome to ride in with Tombo - knowing what we had both put into our respective machines. 

Here are a couple of picks that I got on friday morning, and one that was sent to me in the field....







I've got oil pissing out the breather pipe, and the muddy needs sorting out as its rubbed on the tyre a bit, but all in all - a top weekend, and i'm chuffed as punch with the bike...

High pipes v2

Chris drove up from Milton Keynes with his xs in the boot today so we could make his stainless pipes. He had a good idea what he wanted. The engine is super clean, and the frame a nice silver colour after powder coat.

Armed with an array of stainless mandrel bends we scratched our heads as to what the plan was!!!

Plenty of head scratching later and we had an awesome set of pipes!!!!

It's gonna be one sweet ride mate, hope your as happy as me!

Pipe Dreams!

Amazing what you can do in a couple of hours....

Knocked off work early, and got stuck into the pipes. Had exactly what I wanted in my head, so it was just a case of attempting to execute a plan!

So I cut my tailpipes of the headers to start, then extended the back with the spare stainless I had from the scrambler



Et voila- low and long pipes!!!



Haha- as you guessed, nothing is ever that easy with me!

YEH!!!!!!!!!!! Big ass upsweeps or whatever the hell you call them... Rain catchers!!!



Knicked the pipes that arrived the other day for Chris ( don't worry mate, replacements are already ordered) and they were just what I wanted!

Now I would imagine the best way to do this is to tack it up on the bike.... Hmm.. My bike is about 50 yards from the welder, with about 10 foot vertical difference... Shit!

Mocked the bits up that I could and worked out the angles. You can see the bit of the U bend that I cut up on the floor...



My saving grace- I got a pair of baffles for them the other day, I like a loud bike, but not too loud, so I wanted to put these in the pipes. As it happens they were perfect as they were a really tight fit, and allowed me to put them into the main header, and control the angle of twist...



I also used a bit of angle iron to try and keep it all straight when welding..



On the bike...



OH HELL YEH!!!!!!!!!

Did the same on the other side







I think my sissy bar is slightly lop sided, and the pipes aren't the same length yet, so I'll have to sort that out, but it looks just how I wanted.

Finally I made a quick no frills headlight mount!



I love my project once more!!!

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....