wheezy_e

It's been a while since I entertained or bored you with nuts and bolts. Here's an old picture of the thruxton:

I'm getting rid of the side covers. There was a royal shitload of wires and hoses and stuff to clean up underneath the covers, I took care of that last summer, although all the wiring is just stuffed up under the seat right now. I pulled out the battery box, (it was an aftermarket piece, I think the original was part of the molded airbox or something). I cut off all the mounts and re-bent a couple sections to make a little room to stuff wires into, then powdercoated it black. That all happened a while back.
I've been looking at the bike with the covers on and off for a while and decided they'll definitely stay off, so I went ahead and cut off the tabs that hold them. I also decided to ditch the rear fender and lights and set up something more minimalist. Eventually I will make or buy some sort of lightweight solo seat. I kinda screwed up the original seat messing around with ideas. So I took the seat pan and had it re-upholstered to resemble the early bonneville seats. I like it ok, so I've not been pushing the solo seat idea yet. Not too sure that this seat works (looks-wise) with no rear fender, but it doesn't seem that weird to me when looking at it. Plenty good for now. I also decided to cut off the big old headstock lock. It uses it's own separate key and is a royal pain to operate anyhow.
Here's the bike sans side covers and fender:


The big idea right now is exhaust. Eventually I'd really like to weld up a dual under seat exhaust, but that would be tricky as hell, I have no idea where the battery would go. I could see a 2 into one underseat working by turning the battery sideways, 2 into one is probably better from performance standpoint, but a little less stylish. At any rate, for an underseat I should really make the seat I want first. Right now I had an idea to cure my boredom and it's something I'd even consider leaving if it works out well. I love the looks of bonneville TT special pipes despite the fact that so many old style bobbers and choppers are sporting similar nowadays. here's the og triumph tts:

Basically I'm going to cut the pipes at the kink right before the muffler. That will be loud, which is fine with me but maybe not with my neighbors or the bored local authorities. Plus the huge reduction in length will probably really cut the low rpm grunt. So I'm going to try to make some minimal glasspack inserts to shove in there.

Ok, time to get to work. First thing I did was to pull the stock cans off the shelf and cut them open to see if anything inside might be useful:

I was surprised how thin the layer of glass matting is. I know the baffles do most of the quieting on the stock ones, but I was a little re-assured to see the matting that thin, because it won't be any thicker on what I'm making, I don't want to choke off the flow much. I decided to re-use the perforated steel instead of running around and finding new stuff. There's some holes where I had to cut around the baffle welds, but they're not too huge, hopefully the glass won't come out there. I found a piece of pipe just the right diameter, not too big or small. I laid the perf plate across the pipe & put a couple tack welds on either end, then began bending & hammering & squeezing the perf steel into shape around the pipe. Once it was close I cut off the excess and tightened it up with hose clamps:

Then I welded the perf together between the clamps being careful not to weld it to the pipe as well, removed the clamps & finished the welds. What I ended up with are tubes with an approximate inside diameter of 1 1/8".

Next I presented the tubes to Norvin for inspection. He said the welds could be nicer, but gave a passing grade so far. He also said not to get cocky because there's a long way to go and can I have a treat now please.