Cooked goose

[kingfish254]

That is one unusual headtube extension. You are a crazy man.
Have fun with your minion of dozer.

 

[léocwc]

Well, my build just went from frozen turkey to fiery phoenix in a hurry. I was helping my buddy load up a bunch of scrap last night when I came across a riding lawnmower front axle his grandpa ran over with a tractor. Something about it caught my eye, so I grabbed it and a vision flashed in my head. I totally forgot to take pics of the before and most of the during, but I measured the thickness of the axle and it was 1.5 inches, the same as my bikes head tube, but it was about 3/4” shorter than the tube, and after I knocked the bronze bushings from the steer tube I found that 1" bearing cups could fit with a little coercion PERFECT! The plan is to create a bolt on head tube rake and a slight extension. I found a similar axle pic on the internet, so I drew on it where I cut it out
.View attachment 157384View attachment 157386
To be completely honest, I did reinforce a few welds on it, but nothing that wasn't already there. Next, I used a carbide grinding bit to open up the mouth so that 1" bearing cups would fit
View attachment 157385
Test fit. Got some trimming to do.View attachment 157388View attachment 157389
And voila! Still got lots of fitting and testing to do, but it's looking pretty darn good!View attachment 157391View attachment 157392
Now I've got to find a new fork to put on it. The ones I've been using are 1 1/8” steerer tube, now it's a 1" tube.

how to weld this piece of iron on the aluminum frame?

 

[LeMad Hatter]

how to weld this piece of iron on the aluminum frame?

I'm not going to. It's going to bolt together. I might have to use some JB weld, but I'm going to try to keep it 100% bolt together

 

[LeMad Hatter]

That is one unusual headtube extension. You are a crazy man.
Have fun with your minion of dozer.

Dozer the Dozerian? You could say I'm as mad as a hatter, Lol. I get random ideas like this all the time, but too many of them vanish like a thief in the night.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Lol I keep a notepad beside the bed. It is FULL of the funniest scribbles, most of which I can not interpret.

 

[kingfish254]

Dozer the Dozerian? You could say I'm as mad as a hatter, Lol. I get random ideas like this all the time, but too many of them vanish like a thief in the night.

Yeah, a lot of my ideas are like Andy from Shawshank.

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Had some time to think on how I could secure the new head tube to the frame and simplicity won. I decided to cut some 1/4” steel with a hole saw to fit inside the old tube and run a bolt through the whole mess.

This way it can't slop around in the frame, and it's still very secure.
Oh, and I decided to ditch the pre war wheels on favor of something a little more flashy. Who knew that early 50s JC Higgins beehive springer forks could fit a 65mm rim and still have clearance for the fenders? I didn't, but now I do.

 

[billy bob customs]

I like the overall look and stance. Definitely an interesting idea on the head tube extension

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Well, now I know why I got such a great deal on the beehive springer forks. They're pretty badly bent to the left. I should be able to straighten them though

 

[kingfish254]

Those blade forks shouldn't be hard to tweek back into alignment.

 

[LeMad Hatter]

@kingfish254 the forks from your buddy's build are on my other bike, Colorblind Hipster. These bent ones are from a ladies Color Flow I was given late this winter. Your buddy's forks were pretty loose, but for the most part straight and true

 

[kingfish254]

Yeah, I realized I was confused and you actually had two different beehives.

 

[tanksalot]

I like the name .

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Alright, finally straightened the fork so I can continue building.

Also removed the shorty pedal arms and fugly sprocket because the tooth pattern is different than the chain I want to run.

 

[LeMad Hatter]

I went for a short ride on it and it was just too cramped. I guess I've gotten too used to stretched out builds lately. Doesn't help that I'm 6' 1", trying to ride a bike designed for normal sized folks. So I think I'll try a different variation of my bolt on stretch modification from last year's build off bike Full Monty

The biggest difference between last year and what I'm trying now it's that I now have to relocate the bottom bracket, because I'm going to lower the frame to just about 2" of ground clearance. Additionally, the aluminum frame has a European BB shell, and I want to run an American single piece skip tooth crank. That's right, I'm going full madhouse and building a stretched and lowered skip tooth. That is, assuming I can pull this off. This is one reason I chose an alloy frame, so there would be no contestation about me welding and extensively modifying the frame.

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Up on the chopping block, chop, chop, chop...

Ground clearance set, seat position pretty well set. Pedal location is currently in flux

 

[kingfish254]

Howzdagooose?

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Howzdagooose?

On the back burner at the moment. I did get a new seat for it. It's getting recovered with some custom leather work

 

[Captain Awesome]

Any fresh updates? Looking forward to more of your work

 

[LeMad Hatter]

Trying to get it finished this weekend, if possible