But truth be told, Ive not been doing much of interest... Just going to work and doing the hum-drum 9-5 thing that most of us get by with for the better part of our lives :)
And its been too dark, cold and rainy when I get home after work to be able to do any work on the bike project... I cant even work on the painting of body pannels (too cold outside and too many toxic fumes to work inside).
But, I did manage to hunt around and find an exhaust system solution that I liked...
First off, I found a couple of cylindrical carbon-fibre mufflers at a motorbike wreckers that I really liked the look of.
They were too long but I figured with some cutting, I could get them to fit up under the tail section of the bike... So, I bought them and then got them "cut down" to a size I liked (who knows what they will sound like now?).
The next (and more challenging) problem is the exhaust pipe routing to connect them to the engine!
This was going to take two different sizes of stainles steel pipe and all sorts of precission cuts/bends/welds...
So, first off I decided that I should "model" the pipe I needed in plastic before trying to get it made in steel.
So I bought some cheap plastic plumbing pipe and some bends. I then spent an afternoon on a weekend cutting up the plastic and fitting it in under the bike and taping the mufflers and pipes into position. I got it pretty close... To the point where I was sure it would all work :)
Next problem was to get the steel pipe to use for the real version.
It turns out that thin-wall stainles steel pipe is very hard to find... In fact there is basically none of it available in Vancouver (a city of more than three million people)... I did find some pipe at a couple of auto-exhaust places but it was very thick-walled and heavy... Not what I wanted to use.
After lots more seeking and not finding, I had to resort to mail ordering some sections and then waiting for it to arrive.
It eventually did arive, and so I then called my mechanic/machinist friend Mark and the bike and the bits were collected and taken out to his workshop where hes gonna cut and fit and weld it all together for me.
It is however holiday season here, and it'll take a while before its all done... which is just fine with me since I cant do anything without a workshop in this weather anyway ... Its an over-winter project and Im happy for it to progress at its own rate :)
And thats where things stand at present.
Here are a couple of pictures of how the new exhaust is going and I think its gonna look really good when its done...
Cant wait till Spring :))
Side view of the proposed exhaust location...
And after more than a month of other activities, I have the bike back and the exhaust system is installed as expected. Mark did a great job of mounting the exhausts, pollishing the header pipes and also making a nice number plate mount with light for beneath the mufflers :))
And after more than a month of other activities, I have the bike back and the exhaust system is installed as expected. Mark did a great job of mounting the exhausts, pollishing the header pipes and also making a nice number plate mount with light for beneath the mufflers :))
