post number 92

I just had an intense day of working on my sears struts. These are the bars that go from the rockers to the leaf spring on the fork. I don't feel like typing out explanations so The pics will have to do tonight. I have to wake up in six hours and go circuit train. wish me luck and have a great day.

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They still have to be welded, but you get the idea. Pretty neat stuff!

post number 91

Yesterday my daddy and I worked all day together on my sears. It was my birthday, and it was a perfect day. We kicked ass and put out a lot of fires and made progress! When we made our flywheels, we increased the stroke by .23 in order to have clearance for the crank pin nut and at the same time use the same length rod with different piston pin height. Consequently we had to relieve the cases a bit to make room for the connecting rods. Here is a pic of my daddy milling some relief in the cases.


Once we got the grooves notched out we had to mill out the baffle plates.



Here is what it looks like after some machining. There is at least .060 clearance betwen the bottom of the piston and the case.




Here is a pic that tim took of us checking it all out. What a fun project.





Check it out! A stroker sears!

post number 90

I got some parts from my friend Ron today. Here are the toolboxes. They have to be individually fit and soldered together, but this sure beats making them from scratch.


Here are some clutch parts. They turned out well. OG clutches are steel on steel, I am having the female plates lined with kevlar. The spring plate is a machined solid piece rather than two pieces brazed together. The clutch guide is very nice, I sent Tim into aberdeen to pick up some sickle rivets for it. I am making good progress on my fork and will have some more pics later on today!

post number 89

Well my rockers are coming along nicely. This whole process has been a real challenge but at the same time a lot of fun. Designing parts is a blast! In this picture Iam boring a 1.75 hole into the rocker for the axle block to fit into. I did both rockers in the same set up, although I had to offset the rocker spacing accordingly.


Here is the other side. This is an interrupted cut, so it was kind of a pain and slow going.



Here is the latest picture of them. My next step is to make some rocker studs and then figure out the necessary spacing for welding the axle blocks into place. Holy moly what a bunch of work.

post number 88

One of the first pieces that I made for my sears project was the top clamp for the handlebars. I matched it up to the original fork that I had and it turned out pretty well. The only problem with it is that I didn't notice that my og fork was bent. So consequently, the first top clamp that I made only fits on the bent fork that it was made for.. and not on newly made non bent fork! So I made a new one. Here are the five pieces that it takes to make a top clamp


Here they are all welded together and mostly ground down. I had to go back and fill in some low spots with filler rod, but it is coming along quite nicely. The next step is to cut the groove through the center then drill and tap the 3/8 24 holes for the pinch bolts. This is going a lot quicker than the first one and should hopefully be done tonight!

post number 87

Last week I got poison ivy and it pretty much knocked me out of commission. The doctor prescribed steroids, bleach baths and calamine lotion to fix me up. I am pretty much healed and back to 100 percent which is good. Taking steroids is the equivalent of drinking 15 pots of coffee and it is probably the worst feeling in the world. Yesterday I started 10 projects and didn't really finish one of them because I was so jittery, I am glad that I am back to normal and able to focus. Here is the knob for the clutch lever on my sears. It is one of the projects that I started yesterday. I will finish it up sometime this week.


Here are the bars that I just got in the mail from my friend Tom. They are custom one off bars that are made out of 1" dom tubing. The og bars are 15/16 tubing and have really long sleeves on them. This is a departure from stock, but is absolutely necessary so that I can run a front brake lever on the bar itself. It also provides the opportunity to run good internal cables which is a plus.



Here are my rockers for my fork, they are coming along well. I still have a lot of grinding to do to them, but they will end up nice. The bushings are the same as a springer front brake shackle, this will provide a lot of durability and last through the whole jaunt from coast to coast

Here is a neat photo that my friend Chad took of machining the front motor mount for the sears frame.

Here is a finished part!