Not too monstrous, but good enough to keep your feet on. Sorta mid, sorta forward, and kinda high. Figured I should probably take a breath and figure out the mounting before getting into metal on the board itself. Funny how things find a way to not fit if you don’t start at the beginning. So… needed a plate for the shifter, kickstand and board mounting to the frame. Broke out the trusty plasma cutter and flap discs and went to town. Buddy Josh had a good idea to cut a relief for the generator to show through and to eliminate some of the bulk.

After getting the curves sorted and mounting it up for test, it was time to get the bushing / pivot sleeve done for the shifter. Took 2 days and twice as many trips all over creation to find a handful of bronze bushings, since mine were hiding someplace around here. Then it took about 30 minutes to get this done up. Using an old shift lever I had lying around and just altering the angle of it to fit.

Weld that sleeve into the plate and off we go. Closer to figuring out how the board will mount.

Figured out the angle the board would be comfortable at with Josh holding the cardboard cutout and me sitting on the bike making odd noises. Figured the best method to mount would also be the toughest. Bend some 3/4 stock into a crazy compound-angle frame and have it all come off as one piece. Fun. I let my smarter brain cells kick in and actually tapped the ends of the bar stock prior to bending, since trying to do it after with a nutty shape like this should be is a hassle for sure. How’d I know how long to make the bar prior to bending you ask?? Well, I just bent a small piece of 3/4 and measured the growth after the bend and then multiplied that by how many bends I was going to have and chanced it. I got lucky this time!

Taps done at both ends – 7/16 up top and 3/8 at the frame end. Now time to add some heat.

After a bunch of heat, hammering and eyeballing, I wound up with this. My last bend as shown was a little too far out, so had to rebend and wound up scoring it a bit from the heat. No biggie, I’ll just fill with weld when done. Just one more bend to go. Wound up being about 3/8″ too long after everything, so cut it down and was lucky that I tapped around 1 1/2″ deep at that end. Still plenty of grab.

And, final bend done and mounted to the plate / frame.

Now I’ve got a firm base to work with and can get the board on there. Flatted the top of the stock and cleaned up my “oops” on the middle bend too. Gonna wind up welding the board directly to the frame so it’s all one component. Easy on, easy off. That’d wait for tomorrow, since it was time to go have elk and bison burgers and watch the neighbors sort out their new pigs…

Got back at it and cleaned up the cut out board and got the angles / fit right. Put a nice little kick at the back to keep your foot on too.

Fits pretty snug up against the lines of the primary, which is what I wanted. Keeps it in tighter than a stock board, but leaves plenty of foot room.

Still need to add a lip to the board to stiffen it up a bit, but got excited and went straight to mocking up pipes, since it was all coming together nicely. I’m dragging the front pipe along the left side of the bike on this build, so I figured it’d be good to make sure it all fit with the new shift / board setup anyhow. After some more heating, cutting, and pray-I’m-close angle finding, I had this.

Was able to get the pipe in nice and tight. Makes that oil bag a bit of a bitch to build, but hey! What’s a build without the challenge part? Yeah, yeah, I’ll clean up the welds later. Maybe. I’m pretty happy with the way this one’s coming along. Some neat form along with a lot of function so far. I’ll keep you posted with progress as I figure more out. Thanks for stopping in!

Got enough done to get it up and viewable for now. Still have a lot to do, including adding all the products around here, getting some more artwork up, and taking a ton more photos for updates. Hope you like where it’s heading. Shoot me comments. I probably won’t do anything with them, but it’ll make me feel like somebody’s paying attention!

For now, the store is a hit-or-miss, so if you know of something you’re looking for, and don’t see it on here, either keep checking in from time to time, or hit me up on email at sales@eternalcombustion.com and I’ll get you handled there.

Onward and upward!