My friend Topher had an old 1981 400cc Hondamatic stashed at his uncles house here in Vegas. It had been a few years since it was running and he was nice enough to just give it to me (...free dental work in the future). After cleaning out the carbs and replacing a few gaskets and diaphragms it was running good as new, but then on one of the first rides I noticed gas leaking out the sides of the tank. My mig welder would just blast holes in the tank so I asked a friend about using his tig welder but he thought it would be a waste of time because once you have one spot rusted through, it probably means you have 20 other rusted spots that are paper thin. Thinking outside the box I decided to use the angle grinder and laid into the gas tank with a heavy wire brush wheel, the end result being that all the fragile areas dimpled in. I punched in all the dimples and another friend let me use his oxyacetylene torch to help me braze all the holes until all the holes were filled, then I lined the inside with epoxy and haven't had any troubles since.
Interim gas tank...
I love riding but always thought that it would just be a matter of time before I hurt myself if I ever owned a bike. The other issue was that we never got the title for it, so after a couple months of putting around the neighborhood it was time for the bike to come apart.
The plan was to mate the engine into the buggy. I ended up completely redoing the buggy frame, brakes, electrical, and seat mounts to make it fit. The part that ended up taking the most time was gearing it down. To save money I decided to use the old back wheel hub as a jack shaft so I could use its sprocket and bearings.
removing the hub from the tire
letting the hub free spin while cutting off the outer drum brake housing for a lathe-like cut
A friend was nice enough to let me use his lathe to machine the inner diameter of a sprocket for a perfect fit.
The new gear reduction gives it a more trail appropriate top speed and enough torque to get those back tires spinning.
The end result is the Frankenbuggy. Each bit of unpainted metal is a proud mark of its evolution. Since Mark gave it to me a couple years ago its esthetic value has been diminished one modification at a time. It may be a face that only its creator can love but with the new engine I have yet to find hill or dune that it won't tackle.
Here is some video of the buggy finally stretching its legs out at apex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1qtP3rKWlM
