SALT TORPEDO CHAPTER 14--The ever fluctuating Mission — Bikernet Blog

It’s been a wild couple of weeks. The goal this year was to slow down, but that isn’t happening. We are scrambling to reconfigure all of the Bikernet web sites, trying to get someone to make a movie around one of my crappy books, not go broke and build the first streamlined trike in the shop.

We jammed over to Harbor Freight a couple of times. Kevin calls it “Chinatown” because most of the Harbor Freight shit is made in China. We bought this tubing roller. It comes with three mandrel sizes, none of which are spot on. We started rolling our thick wall tubing. Ya see, Kevin’s tubing bender doesn’t have the mandrels to bend tubing basically in a circle. We needed something more and a cheap version was available through Chinatown.

The roller worked and didn’t work. It twisted the tubing, snake like. But first I had to make a mounting bracket or bench mount. Again, something that has been laying around the shop for a decade worked out perfectly. I drilled a couple of holes in it, and presto, we had a vice mount. Then we started hunting for shims to tighten up the rolling machine and ultimately it started to roll evenly. You can see the results.

Our team expanded significantly, and lots changed and progressed in the last week or so. Micah McCloskey, a bike builder and shop owner for 40 years, came over. I needed to interview him for a Cycle Source Magazine feature. He immediately fell in love with the Salt Torpedo and became an active team member.

Since our frame builder and TIG welder, Kevin Kahl, of the Hot Rod Underground, has a minor health issue we work every other day for about six hours. In between, I scramble to keep the lights on, purchase materials, hunt for parts and search for resources. That’s my job and I’m sticking with it.

In addition, Charles Cabong, the owner of Strictly Hawgs, has become a major help and this week drove to Bassani’s to pick up a bare pipe to work with.

Kevin has a connection with Viking Shocks, an automotive and performance car shock builder. I spoke to the Prince the other day and he immediately pointed me at Yelvington shocks. We were thinking a mono-shock approach to fit inside the body.

Last week, with the help of Charles and Mitch, our fiberglass experts, we connected the front portion to the chassis to the Paughco frame. Kevin was dying to cut more portions of the Paughco frame away. I could tell he had that “Make it all mine,” gleam in his eyes. We obliged and cut the rest of the backbone away, spread the remaining front legs and attached them to front section to the frame.

We kept a mantra in mind throughout this process. We wanted to be able to take the engine in and out readily and make lots of triangles in the chassis for strength. Our first notion was to make the top backbone of the frame removable.

We stayed true to that concept and made progress this week. We needed to stay absolutely flexible, since this puppy is the first of its kind and hell, we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing most of the time. Here’s an example: A mono-shock sounded like a terrific notion until we spoke to the engineer from Yelvington Shocks.

Here’s what Mike said, “Regarding the work I have done with Bonneville racers, I noticed you will experience an oscillation side-to-side with a mono shock. If you can package two shocks, it will stabilize the rear end. Turbulence is created as the air moves across the two front wheels.” Actually, he wasn’t working with a configuration such as ours, but we took his words as a sign from above and decided to implement the notion.

Micah has taken on the duties of following up on the driveline needs with JIMS and others. I spoke to Scott at BDL about the primary drive and clutch. Charles brought a sprocket and seal spacer, and I ordered a nut and locking ring from Bartels.

I ordered an intake manifold from S&S and it promptly arrived. We installed a top motor mount to our carefully hand-built backbone. The design was perfect to allow as much room as possible to give us access to the engine. We also installed the Custom Cycle Engineering rubber-mounted, top motor mount system. It’s cumbersome but amazing.

Micah also suggested a removable panel on the lower left side in conjunction with the primary drive. That way, we can take the engine out to the right. We’re still clamoring for more notions.

We are working with Paughco on a Shovelhead swingarm. We will shorten it for the front. We are still looking forward to some suspension in the front and I spoke to Yelvington about it today. They think my plan will work. Charles is checking trike axle widths against Can Ams and any other trikes we can find at a Power Sports Mega-Store.

The Metalsport rear 180-wheel started to get in the way from a couple of standpoints. The spacing for the sprocket could be an issue. The spacing for the dual caliper large rotor could be an issue. The width could be an issue with the body. We climbed on top of the Bikernet Clean Room for an alternative and found an early sized spoke wheel, although, I’m going to try to exchange the aerodynamic, Chip Foose-designed Metalsport Wheel with a smaller size.

We are also constantly reconfiguring the shop. When our master frame builder throws challenges at us, we try to make whatever happen, quick. We were trying to use my old Chinese milling machine for notching the tubing and Kevin complained about the vice. “I need a class vice, like a Kirk,” Kevin said.

Later that day as I worked on the vice from the drill press on another shop bench, Kevin came over to complain and leaned on the vice bolted to the corner of the steel bench. “What the hell,” Kevin spat. “This is exactly what I needed.” We removed it and the mill is working like a champ. I put the shitty little vice on the bench.