Weeks before this occurred, I had mentioned numerous times about how well the pipes had held up and how you could pick the damn bike up by the pipes - that's how sturdy they were... Way to stick my foot in my mouth.
Here's pictures and details from the repair...
I found a piece of pipe with the needed bend to match the original set up and figured out where to to chop the cracked pipe...
With the original pipe cut, as well as finding a additional piece to replace the cracked section, they were ready to be cleaned
Cleaning tools - for the inside and outside of the pipe
I cleaned all ends of the pieces being welded together, inside and out, to keep impurities from affecting the weld- about an inch and a half back from the ends to be welded...
Sleeves were also cut to fit inside of the weld creases. I cut them at about an inch and a half and cleaned them so that 3/4 of an inch would sit on each side of the weld crease, supporting the pipe on the inside of both pieces being welded together
Pipe clamps were used at the creases to line the pipes up correctly and hold the pieces together before/during welding
Lined the pieces up on the bike as needed, clamped them in place so they wouldn't move, and tack-welded them together
After tack-welding them together, the pipe came off and the finish-welds were made
Ground the mig welds down closer to the pipe surface
Finished smoothing off the welds to make the pipe appear as one piece and welded on a new mounting tab for the existing mount near the rear axle
Sprayed some high heat black paint on it and...
Done.
With all of this said, Irish Rich is the man to thank for all of this. Without him, I wouldn't have the shop, tools, or know-how to perform this as well as I did. Dude is as humble as can be, and if you don't know him or follow his stuff - you should.
No comments:
Post a Comment