Hello from Tunbridge wells

[Involute]

So after spending what seemed like an age doing all the cad models for the bike, I ordered some aluminium plate for the major components.

Flat pack motorcycle




machining one of the chassis/engine plates, no pain no gain.




not enough Y axis travel to do the whole thing in one setup, so had to move the head out and re clock to do the last 100mm


one side outer more or less finished, after dry build the inner was also machined.

[Involute]

Incidentally to create the cad file for the above the Aprilia engine major component and key mounting points where scanned using the CNC mill and a touch probe, to create a XYZ point cloud.


my original probe, I designed for use with Mach3 CNC software controller, and the subsequent probe I made to scan the engine.



this is the early stage chassi, the tubular section is Inconl, WHY because I had a load of tubing left over from a job, so it was free, it’s a nightmare to work with on a structure like this because it moves all over the place during welding.


This engine is a spare Gen1 engine, ultimately I used a Gen2 one but with gen 1 ecu etc.

In the first photograph here of the chassis anyone recognise the crankcase just visible on the right???
clue it’s not motorcycle!

[Stableblock]

This is fascinating work. Way beyond anything I could aspire to.
Peter

[Involute]

A motorcycle usually has a swing arm at the rear and forks at the front, in this case we need a swinger at both ends…..


this first image is the matching of the tooling to bend T45 oval tubing, this was very problematic I did it cold, filling the tube with sand and making a rocking arm fixture that stretched the tube in small increments.




after several attempts I got these.


Front axle boxes

weld in the ends

embryonic swinging arm


Front and rear swingarms, after powder coating, I can’t find more pics of the fabrication.

[Involute]

I came across a few more pics of the swingarms.



here they are test fitted to the chassis



this image has the gen2 engine, and tail side plates, nominal wall thickness here is 2.5mm

[Involute]

The above post has the yoke fitted, centre hub don’t have forks, but it needs steering, I decided to keep this as normal as I could, so top yoke, but using a tapered splines on a hollow shaft, as a steering stem to transmit the torque from the handle bars to the drag link at the bottom, these splines are designed so I could machine both the internal and external on the CNC mill, loosely based on a torques fastener, or “Hexalobular”

First images is the 3d model.

Splines also on the drop down stumps that hold the bars


Top yoke


Nuts


Splines


yoke before fitting, bearings are angular contact.

[Tbone1209]

Beautiful craftsmanship!