Old Glory

[LukeTheJoker]

Looks good!

Luke.

 

[Lowlife Lucas]

That's a nice touch!

 

[mastronaut]

A perfect time machine! 8)

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Thanks ya'll!

Here's a before picture that I had forgotten about from a few weeks ago.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Same here CeeBee, it was fun meeting you and the others. For some reason, no one looks like their avatars!

I'm glad to hear you say that the paint fooled you! That was my goal to make it as convincing as possible. I'm not necessarily trying to trick anyone, I just like the nostalgic feeling of an antique that has the look of a survivor. Most of it was already there, I just pushed it in the direction that I thought would make it a little more interesting to me and maybe others.

Thanks for the conformation!

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

You HAVE to post a pic of how the chainguard looks now, it's great.

It was great to meet you and talk Pink Floyd with your son, congrats again to him on his Poker Run winnings.

Cheers,
Dr. T

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Thanks Rob. I did post some pics of the chain guard (they're on the previous page). When I can, I'll try to shoot a better one and put it up here.

Matthew was very excited about winning $50! He had recently been doing some yard work to earn enough money for an upgrade to his computer flight simulator (he's planning to get his pilots license when he gets old enough). On the drive home he added up his earnings and the prize money and told me that he was glad that CCR's wife (Megan) had won the $100 first prize because the $50 that he had won was just enough to order the software after tithes and offering! He called it manna.

Here's the top two poker players at Git-A-Grip 2013!

 

[CCR]

It's okay, Megan didn't buy me dinner either :lol: Sounds like your kid has a good head on his shoulders too !!!

Good pic

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Yep, I'm very proud of both of my kids!

I asked him why he was glad that Megan had won the bigger prize and this was his response:
"Well, I got what I needed and maybe she needed more than me."

I guess kids can teach their parents a few things from time to time.

Here's a video of his first time flying!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlfLvHsWyBg

 

[Mr. Kool]

Wow!!!! Except the fact that i'm jealous because i need a tank like this one, i love it!!!!!
Maybe too much white on the upper part of the tank?? Just my two cents. ;-)

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Wow!!!! Except the fact that i'm jealous because i need a tank like this one, i love it!!!!!
Maybe too much white on the upper part of the tank?? Just my two cents. ;-)

I'm guessing that the old cruiser parts are not easy to find in Switzerland? I debated on the white for the tank, and ultimately decided to go with it to offset the lack of white elsewhere on the bike. It tends to look a little brighter in pictures than it actually is. Thanks for your comment! 8)

You HAVE to post a pic of how the chainguard looks now, it's great.

Cheers,
Dr. T

Took this one today for you sir.

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

That's what I'm talking about! That font is perfect, the siren was pretty cool too.

Cheers dude.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

UPDATE 12/28/15!


It was exactly three years ago today that I bought this bike. Shortly after bringing it home, I started this build thread.

Although it wasn't my first tank bike rat-storation, it was the first build as a rookie here on RRB. It doesn't get any riding time these days, so I decided to knock the dust off of it and add a recently acquired Tas Spitz (aka 'Bike Bug') motor to it just for the fun of it.

Here's the motor that I'll be using...

It will be fun mounting this thing to a springer fork. I'm sure someone has done it, but I haven't seen one.
BTW, the motor is not running yet, but I'm going ahead with mounting it anyway until I can get it running.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

One final driveway shot before I start changing things.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Mounting the motor on the CWC springer is going to require some fabrication work. Here's the first piece made from an old Schwinn fork with the steer tube cut off.

More to come!

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Got it mounted for a mock-up.

The reason for moving it forward was because the motor wouldn't clear the springs if it were mounted on the actual fork blades. After mounting it, I'm thinking that it may be too far forward.

 

[Fv2]

I don't know how that would work, it looks like it just wants to slide off the front. I guess there's no way of actually knowing what would happen until you get it running.

Cool rookie build by the way, just read the whole post. Having an eye for design helps with patina, knowing computers is probably good too. I haven't owned a computer for years, so I imagine a lot has changed since my quark express days.

Any way, well done. Makes me want to re-do my AMC.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

I don't know how that would work, it looks like it just wants to slide off the front.

I'm not concerned with it moving, it's very snug. What I am concerned with is the balance. By moving it forward, it changes the center of gravity out in front of the wheel. Even the smallest changes can have a compounding effect. On a normal fork it looks to be more closely centered above the axle. I pedaled it around and it did feel a little weird with the weight out front. I'm going to mount it back on the Columbia and test ride it to see how much different it is.

Although I like the look of the springer, I may have to scrap the idea, I don't want to build an accident waiting to happen.

Here's a comparison:

 

[us56456712]

I toured Europe on a motorcycle in 1965. Bicycles with front wheel mounted motors were pretty standard in Northern Europe, especially Holland: everyone seemed to have one. When the traffic light changed in Amsterdam there was a loud buzzing and a cloud of 2 stroke smoke as everyone did a drag start. I always wanted one. In Italy small motor scooters were the standard and in Germany and Austria I saw more mopeds. In my opinion you have quite a find there.

 

[Fv2]

I can see why it would feel off balance, maybe some sort of steering assist system. But at the same time I wouldn't want to take a chance of wrecking it. If you're like me and don't wear a helmet, 15-20 mph can cause some serious damage when hitting asphalt.