Hello everyone! I have come to my biggest headache right now, my side covers. Unfortunately I got over zealous in my initial cutting off needless tabs and removed the side cover tabs. I was never a fan of them anyway, but it would make my life so much easier now if I just went back to using them. I have gone back and forth on how to fab some up.
First option: fabricate some metal side covers out of aluminum, steel (and paint black, or use the blue or white from the tank), copper, brass, stainless steel ( too expensive) and attach them with either brass or stainless machine screws to the frame hopfully with hex heads.
Attached is a cardboard template I fabricated to give you an idea of what I was thinking. The top, bottom and back piece of the cover follow the frame and can be attached with chrome, brass, stainless, etc. machine screws. My only thought with those was to maybe shorten the width at the front to give the pods more room.
Another thought was to make it one piece that would continue around and cover the other side.
Second option would be to fabricate and weld up some brackets to hold some oval racing number plates for each side. I already have them but not sure they would fit with a café racer build.
Final option I have in mind is to remove the current large stock battery, fabricate a nice looking box to cover and fill in all the visible holes, use a smaller battery, such as an Antigravity or Ballistic and stuff all of the exposed wires and plugs into the existing battery box. Since I am not using a café racer seat hump I still need a place to stash all of the existing plugs/wires. I do not want to weld onto the newly painted flame but feel I can remove the existing battery box and do all the mods bench top.
I do not want to run kick only so will a small Ballistic Antigravity battery suffice or will it leave me stranded? It could be a good size, just at least half the size of the stock battery.
Attached are few picks of the individual side covers I had in mind cut out of poster board. I have toyed with putting some large holes in it for ventilation or using a mesh insert.
What do you all think? I am open to any and all suggestions. (Trimming, extending, etc.)
Thank all of you in advance for any guidance you my give me, and would love to see pics of how else it could me done.
Thanks,
Mike
(Docwits, and yes I fix teeth for a living, but please don't hold that against me!)