I'm quite short at 170cm, so I need all the help I can get to get my feet flat on the ground. And believe, when I rode MX I had to do some odd things when stopping. To help, I narrowed the seatpan by around 50mm, that of course meant new side panels. I'd done this job before on a Triumph, so it was nothing new, although where the Triumph panels were parallel top and bottom the Yamaha ones needed to be twisted severely to look right.
Now I'm slowing down I get a chance to look at my work and some of the failures.. The first lot of side panels I made were full length as I had intended on running the carbs without filters. These were quite difficult to make due to stuffed hands and elbows. I did try the wife as hammerman (woman) but that didn't work too well, I think she hit me more often than the panel. So I ended up taking a packet of Ibuprofen and doing the hammer work myself. As the panels were quite long, I had to strengthen them by forming a rolled edge around the periphery. Then the panels had to be bent and severely twisted to follow the lines of the two frame tubes as they follow different paths. Pic two shows how much they had to be twisted. Last pic is of the Triumph panels. They turned out very nice in the end, so I polished them.
But, as with all things, I changed my mind and decided to use pods. Of course the side panels wouldn't allow for pods, so I needed a way to get around that. First idea was to scallop the side panels and weld in a section mirroring the shape of the pods, but thought that wouldn't give me the look I was after, so I decided to shorten the panels so they ended at the front of the battery carrier, giving plenty of room for pods. Being shorter, they didn't require rolled edges, so I just made them without. The panels still had to be bent and twisted to follow the top and bottom frame tubes. They're not as smooth flowing as the first lot, due to the slight bend at the top rear I put in the new ones, but I decided I could live with that, besides, my elbows and hands were objecting strenuously.
Polished up, they don't look too bad, although the bend at the top rear does distract a little, but they allowed enough room for the carbs, even when I moved them back 40mm.
As I said, I'm slowing down a lot now, working on this bike has not been kind to my body, the right elbow has a few lumps and bumps and is quite misshapen now, the left not too far behind and walking out of sight on a dark night is just a pipe dream now. Most of the hard slog on the bike has been done now, so hopefully I'll be able to finish it before my time is up, if not, then the wife, or I, can make a few bucks selling it off for scrap.
Now I'm slowing down I get a chance to look at my work and some of the failures.. The first lot of side panels I made were full length as I had intended on running the carbs without filters. These were quite difficult to make due to stuffed hands and elbows. I did try the wife as hammerman (woman) but that didn't work too well, I think she hit me more often than the panel. So I ended up taking a packet of Ibuprofen and doing the hammer work myself. As the panels were quite long, I had to strengthen them by forming a rolled edge around the periphery. Then the panels had to be bent and severely twisted to follow the lines of the two frame tubes as they follow different paths. Pic two shows how much they had to be twisted. Last pic is of the Triumph panels. They turned out very nice in the end, so I polished them.
But, as with all things, I changed my mind and decided to use pods. Of course the side panels wouldn't allow for pods, so I needed a way to get around that. First idea was to scallop the side panels and weld in a section mirroring the shape of the pods, but thought that wouldn't give me the look I was after, so I decided to shorten the panels so they ended at the front of the battery carrier, giving plenty of room for pods. Being shorter, they didn't require rolled edges, so I just made them without. The panels still had to be bent and twisted to follow the top and bottom frame tubes. They're not as smooth flowing as the first lot, due to the slight bend at the top rear I put in the new ones, but I decided I could live with that, besides, my elbows and hands were objecting strenuously.
Polished up, they don't look too bad, although the bend at the top rear does distract a little, but they allowed enough room for the carbs, even when I moved them back 40mm.
As I said, I'm slowing down a lot now, working on this bike has not been kind to my body, the right elbow has a few lumps and bumps and is quite misshapen now, the left not too far behind and walking out of sight on a dark night is just a pipe dream now. Most of the hard slog on the bike has been done now, so hopefully I'll be able to finish it before my time is up, if not, then the wife, or I, can make a few bucks selling it off for scrap.
