So, in general agreement with the adage that one can never have enough projects, this is my, new to me, front fender for my FLH. The keen eyed will notice the non-factory included dimple in the upper curve about where the bottom triple would come into contact with a fender should the previous owner have bottomed out the front suspension trying to stop because some brainless gorm committed stupid on a grand scale.
The new alloy front rim for my HD project. I have it sitting on a piece of 1/4 plywood by way of protecting the rim edges from getting dinged. It awaits a new tire.
Just another picture of my Mark II Mod 2 wheel bearing endplay setting tool. In the background is my lathe for when I need to do some whitttling.
Detail shot of the spindle on the setting tool. It's a good place to store some spacers of various lengths. The bearings are just there pro tem. They are used and need to be clean out and checked under a magnifying glass for any signs of scuffing or scarring.
Finally, a couple of shots of Plan B for creating a long enough brass drift that can be used to extract axles. Plan A was locate a 2 foot length of 3/4 round brass bar stock and use that. Uh-Uh, none to be had in this miserable excuse for a bastion of humanity.
So plan B was to snip a short piece, no more than an inch, off an existing drift punch and use that as the head for a custom length punch. After machining it down to undersize for unsurance against getting jammed, I gun drilled it blind to 5/16ths and then tapped the hole for 3/8ths NC threads. The second shot in the pair shows the section of 3/8ths thread rod that was then screwed into the brass tip until I bottomed out. The best candidate for a body would have been a section of 3/4 aluminum bar stock but that is about as rare as the brass. Thought about using steel tubing but that would not hold up to being smucked repeatedly with a hammer or other appropriate tool of not so gentle persuasion.
Finally paid a visit to E-Bay and actually found a vendor that had what I wanted in the length that I needed and was willing to sell it at a semi-civilized price. So plan A is back on the table.
This is all by way of filler; projects that can take up time and energy while I wait for the climate to warm up to an unreasonable facsimile of normal. The local weather-heads seem obsessed with the word S**w and can't appear to offer a forecast without including the possibility; to the point where the long range prognostication for the month is so totally depressing, being nothing more promising or positive than an ongoing mixture of wet, cold, and windy, lather rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.
You've seen the back wheel already. it is now back on the bench and getting a course of micro-fine sanding in preparation for being introduced to the buffing wheel. Aluminum can be given a fairly high sheen with some work; the problem is that it is porous to some degree and the only way to get that absolute level of shine perfection is if you start with an unused component, right out of the box or off the shelf.
Any amount of use, particularly for a rim or wheel, exposes it to the road scunge that comes off the asphalt and glues itself to the surface. In aluminum it can actually embed itself in the pores of the metal and will "bleed" out and contaminate the finish during the buff out. And then, of course, there is always the fun of wrestling with a 20 or so pound lump of aluminum while trying to introduce it to a rapidly spinning circle of cotton liberally saturated with buffing compound. My grinder motor hates me at this point. I should be using a 1/2 horse motor and it is only a 1/3. Priced them out and decided for what I was doing and how often, that the motor could just have to tought it out.
Nick
