Finishing touches on a 35 year old project

Augiedoggie

Well-Known Member
#1
I had hoped to finish my sons vintage Atlas custom mini bike to bring it to Oley this past spring but other projects and hobbies consumed too much time to complete. I did attend event, but walked around instead of riding proud. Bike has been unused for 5-7 years and shouldn't take much effort to get running, but I wanted to finish the build as I originally intended. Bike had a few items that were not finished to my satisfaction. Rear shocks were uneven and forks were a bit short and made steering a bit too fast. Will also need fuel system cleaned and old hardened fuel hoses replaced. The home brewed exhaust pipe need a few tweaks to secure it better than originally mounted and a new supertrapp open end cap has to be fabricated. Most of the parts were chromed when bike was originally built and welding would burn off the chrome so I have to be a bit more creative with fabrication now. When I built this bike many years ago I had only a torch and angle grinder and electric drill. I'm currently tooled up for much better work, but I still want the bike to reflect the period it was built. My son also insists the bike be kept as we planned and built it as one of our many
"Father/son" projects.
He also insists on keeping the vintage Hijacker decal on the engine fan shroud... 20240821_064108.jpg 20240821_064116.jpg
 

bruces

Active Member
#2
Years ago ,I loved watching American Chopper ,No interest in the choppers ,but I loved that those guys were building custom choppers with $60.00 Dewalt angle grinders and a mig welder .Of course they ended up with the latest and greatest ,but they were using virtually nothing when the show first started .Nothing wrong with your grinder and torch ,use what you have and build what you can .
 

Augiedoggie

Well-Known Member
#3
Recent covid vacation allowed a bit of shop time to piddle around on my sons mini bike project. Exhaust had issues due to poor engineering(me) and fell apart. Original configuration was used with supertrapp and quiet insert and resonator option. Very restrictive,but needed for our former residential riding area(vacant lot near our home)
He currently lives in rural area and has no noise concerns so an open end cap was fabricated from aluminum and internal quiet insert was replaced with oversize insert. Should sound a bit more rowdy now.
Removed swing arm and cut off shock mounts and fabricated new mounts and currently machining correctly sized spacers. I'm hoping to deliver bike to him before cold winter weather. Still have a fair amount of work to do. Never enough spare time available. 20241011_074144.jpg
 

Augiedoggie

Well-Known Member
#5
Supertrapp mounting was rickety and muffler fell off years ago when he was riding it in the woods at his previous residence. He was digging the open exhaust sound and didn't want the muffler installed with closed end cap. I haven't started it yet, but it should sound okay now. I don't like short open pipes. Don't want to risk a warped exhaust valve. Those motors would pop their valve seats when put away hot. Always crank motor to compression stroke when shutdown to allow exhaust valve to seat and transfer heat
 
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