Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
beeze455 said:
Yes. I'm going to weld the tunnel and front frame today then I'll start on the turbo kit.
2012 AK sled build
- Thread starter Nikolai
- Start date
Yes. I'm going to weld the tunnel and front frame today then I'll start on the turbo kit.
Sportsterdanne
TY 4 Stroke Guru
Any updates ?
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
I've been getting my TIG on the last three days. By the time I finish the tunnel and subframe today I'll have about 15 hours of welding and three 125 Argon tanks into it. I'm headed into town to swap two of my three tanks so I'm set for the weekend. Once the welding is all done I have to do some more work to the tunnel skin and I'll post pics.
Sportsterdanne
TY 4 Stroke Guru
Keep it up !
It should be obvious to most that a project like this is a LOT of work ... not to mention all of the time it takes to update this thread.
Just wanna say my hat's off to ya, Caleb. One hell of build you got going. Thanks for sharing.
Just wanna say my hat's off to ya, Caleb. One hell of build you got going. Thanks for sharing.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
Thanks. Everything about it has been incredibly time consuming but the end product will be worth it.
LEE337
VIP Member
OVR4D said:It should be obvious to most that a project like this is a LOT of work ... not to mention all of the time it takes to update this thread.
Just wanna say my hat's off to ya, Caleb. One hell of build you got going. Thanks for sharing.
X2!
I always enjoy checking you Alaska guy's updates.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
I bought a set of Arctic Cat HCR titanium front springs off snowest for $160 shipped. Wasn't planning on going Ti. but the price was too good to pass up. My Ohlins steel springs are 150 lb rate and the HCR springs are 145 lb so it works out perfect. Should have them the end of next week and I'll post the weight differences.
I finished welding the tunnel 100% tonight and knocked a few to do items off my list. I'm betting I have an honest 10 hours(at least) of welding into just the tunnel frame and another 5+ in the subframe. I wanted to keep warping to a minimum as best I could so I left the tunnel skin clecod in and the tunnel/bulkhead/subframe all bolted together as long as possible. I was able to do about 95% of the subframe before having to remove it, and I did well over half the tunnel before removing the skin, welded some more and the finally removed it from the bulkhead for the last couple welds. When I went to fit everything back up tonight all my rivet holes line up and everything bolts together easy so it worked out pretty well. My TIG welding is no where near as pretty as Rick but I'm quite a bit better than I was three days ago haha. Half the battle is just trying to get in a position where I can see what's going on.
When I made the sleeves for my suspension mounts, I ground them smooth after fusing them which turned out to be a terrible idea. After compressing the sleeves a few times(with the all thread I was using to help keep the tunnel rigid while welding) the edges of some of the sleeves started appearing, I had ground a few of them down to far. This set me back a couple hours as I decided to fuse a 3/8" washer on the front and back side of every hole, totaling 16 washers all together. It was PIA setback but the piece of mind is worth it.
Bad Idea...
The two hour fix...
Rounded off the back edge of the 1x1/2 as much as I could and fused a piece of .040 on. It's not as pretty as I'd like but it is what it is at this point.
Capped the other side of my gas tank bracket.
No chassis is complete without a couple flared holes. I had been waiting to do these until the battery tray was fully welded.
And here's the tunnel frame mostly done. Only things I have left to do are clean a few of the welds up, weld on a turbo hanger and rear seat bracket, and add the traction screws. It's not as light as I was hoping for, but it's extremely rigid and going to be very strong which I did want. All the tubing used was .035 wall so there's really not much weight I could have lost aside from going to smaller tubes in a couple places but the weight savings would have been about half a pound so not really worth it. Being as the battery bracket, gas tank mounts, seat frame, front running board supports, and side panel supports are all part of it, I guess it's not too bad.
As pictured it weighs 16 lbs 13 ounces.
I also picked up the parts to do the running board traction. 8-32 aluminum rivnuts, 8-32 aluminum jam nuts, and 8-32 steel set screws. There's 60 total (will be 30 per side) and the weight for everything was only 4 ounces. I'll post pics of it installed tomorrow.
That's it for now, time for a few
I finished welding the tunnel 100% tonight and knocked a few to do items off my list. I'm betting I have an honest 10 hours(at least) of welding into just the tunnel frame and another 5+ in the subframe. I wanted to keep warping to a minimum as best I could so I left the tunnel skin clecod in and the tunnel/bulkhead/subframe all bolted together as long as possible. I was able to do about 95% of the subframe before having to remove it, and I did well over half the tunnel before removing the skin, welded some more and the finally removed it from the bulkhead for the last couple welds. When I went to fit everything back up tonight all my rivet holes line up and everything bolts together easy so it worked out pretty well. My TIG welding is no where near as pretty as Rick but I'm quite a bit better than I was three days ago haha. Half the battle is just trying to get in a position where I can see what's going on.
When I made the sleeves for my suspension mounts, I ground them smooth after fusing them which turned out to be a terrible idea. After compressing the sleeves a few times(with the all thread I was using to help keep the tunnel rigid while welding) the edges of some of the sleeves started appearing, I had ground a few of them down to far. This set me back a couple hours as I decided to fuse a 3/8" washer on the front and back side of every hole, totaling 16 washers all together. It was PIA setback but the piece of mind is worth it.
Bad Idea...
The two hour fix...
Rounded off the back edge of the 1x1/2 as much as I could and fused a piece of .040 on. It's not as pretty as I'd like but it is what it is at this point.
Capped the other side of my gas tank bracket.
No chassis is complete without a couple flared holes. I had been waiting to do these until the battery tray was fully welded.
And here's the tunnel frame mostly done. Only things I have left to do are clean a few of the welds up, weld on a turbo hanger and rear seat bracket, and add the traction screws. It's not as light as I was hoping for, but it's extremely rigid and going to be very strong which I did want. All the tubing used was .035 wall so there's really not much weight I could have lost aside from going to smaller tubes in a couple places but the weight savings would have been about half a pound so not really worth it. Being as the battery bracket, gas tank mounts, seat frame, front running board supports, and side panel supports are all part of it, I guess it's not too bad.
As pictured it weighs 16 lbs 13 ounces.
I also picked up the parts to do the running board traction. 8-32 aluminum rivnuts, 8-32 aluminum jam nuts, and 8-32 steel set screws. There's 60 total (will be 30 per side) and the weight for everything was only 4 ounces. I'll post pics of it installed tomorrow.
That's it for now, time for a few
Sportsterdanne
TY 4 Stroke Guru
What is the weight of the tunnelskin ? i think you could go all out carbon fiber tunnel without any problem now, most of the forces is going in the tubes you have made.
Will it be powdercoated ?
And of course excellent work.
Will it be powdercoated ?
And of course excellent work.
Modedmach1
Newbie
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You sir have some skilz... The tunnel looks sharp!!! 
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
Sportsterdanne said:
The skin is 10 lbs. Carbon would save a lot of weight but I have too much time and money in the 7075 to switch now. The tunnel frame will get powder coated but the skin will not.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
Slow day today. Cleaned up a few of the welds on the tunnel frame and worked on the tunnel skin the rest of the day.
I cut out the front.
Had to open up the skin around where I fused the front suspension mount washers.
Tomorrow I'll probably finish welding the subframe (only have a couple welds left) and remove my old front cooler from last years chassis and get it installed in the new bulkhead.
I cut out the front.
Had to open up the skin around where I fused the front suspension mount washers.
Tomorrow I'll probably finish welding the subframe (only have a couple welds left) and remove my old front cooler from last years chassis and get it installed in the new bulkhead.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
Spent today getting the bulkhead prepped for installation. I used my old cooler which was modified for more clearance and since that write up is in my old build thread I'll post the how to here. It doesn't gain enough room to run a 3" track, but it does open it up quite a bit, as much as possible without moving the lower plate above the jackshaft.
Factory front cooler position
The coolant tube that goes through the diecast has to be cut off and plugged(I did this 2 years ago and did an ugly job). The upper most holes need to get slotted in order to move the cooler up towards the jackshaft.
A couple of the engine mount protrusions (not sure on the proper terminology) need to get notched to allow clearance for the rubber coolant hose and hose clamp.
Because of the diecast ridges, trying to find spaces large enough to put rivets or screws through can be a pain. Some of the holes were wore out which is why the 10-32 screws are there.
And here you can see the clearance gained.
In these two you can see the cooler was trimmed to clear the engine mounts and match the edge of the bulkhead.
Jackshaft clearance
Bulkhead ready to install complete with new jackshaft bearings. If you have your bulkhead sides apart, it'd be relatively easy to put everything back together out of square. I clecod everything first with the bulkhead on a flat surface and slightly rocked the sides back and forth to get them both flat. I put one screw in at a time while rocking and did this with the bulkhead in 3 different positions. After I was confident the bulkhead sides were square and all the screws/bolts were tight, I drove the rivets last.
Factory front cooler position
The coolant tube that goes through the diecast has to be cut off and plugged(I did this 2 years ago and did an ugly job). The upper most holes need to get slotted in order to move the cooler up towards the jackshaft.
A couple of the engine mount protrusions (not sure on the proper terminology) need to get notched to allow clearance for the rubber coolant hose and hose clamp.
Because of the diecast ridges, trying to find spaces large enough to put rivets or screws through can be a pain. Some of the holes were wore out which is why the 10-32 screws are there.
And here you can see the clearance gained.
In these two you can see the cooler was trimmed to clear the engine mounts and match the edge of the bulkhead.
Jackshaft clearance
Bulkhead ready to install complete with new jackshaft bearings. If you have your bulkhead sides apart, it'd be relatively easy to put everything back together out of square. I clecod everything first with the bulkhead on a flat surface and slightly rocked the sides back and forth to get them both flat. I put one screw in at a time while rocking and did this with the bulkhead in 3 different positions. After I was confident the bulkhead sides were square and all the screws/bolts were tight, I drove the rivets last.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
I havent been around a computer in a couple days so heres a few quick updates from iPhone.
Traction screws are done. Lucky for me, Drew and Rick both rode first and determined a row of screws at an angle on the outer tube are needed. Traction shouldn't be an issue now.
Charge tube is mostly done. We had to make it as tight as possible so the first throttle body ended up halfway in the 90. I also cut down the silicone couplings as short as possible. It's extremely lightweight. It will stick out of my hood a little but that's wont be a big deal.
Header mount is a piece of 3/4 square .035 with some fused nutserts. I'll take a pic of it when it gets removed to paint. The turbo was a snug fit to clear the battery and my 1/2" tubes but it came out very clean.
I'm working on the header mount now which will be 1/4" .035 4130 tubes. Exhaust is just going to be a 3" stainless 45 dumped in the tunnel. I'm very happy with how clean and simple everything is turning out. The entire turbo kit should only be around 20 lbs.
Traction screws are done. Lucky for me, Drew and Rick both rode first and determined a row of screws at an angle on the outer tube are needed. Traction shouldn't be an issue now.
Charge tube is mostly done. We had to make it as tight as possible so the first throttle body ended up halfway in the 90. I also cut down the silicone couplings as short as possible. It's extremely lightweight. It will stick out of my hood a little but that's wont be a big deal.
Header mount is a piece of 3/4 square .035 with some fused nutserts. I'll take a pic of it when it gets removed to paint. The turbo was a snug fit to clear the battery and my 1/2" tubes but it came out very clean.
I'm working on the header mount now which will be 1/4" .035 4130 tubes. Exhaust is just going to be a 3" stainless 45 dumped in the tunnel. I'm very happy with how clean and simple everything is turning out. The entire turbo kit should only be around 20 lbs.
Nikolai
TY 4 Stroke God
And here's a couple with the motor were using for mock up. Lots of room to get at everything.
