I mounted the lower chain guard this morning. I bought one from a ’75 DT175, so it should just bolt up to my DT swingarm, right? Of course not—this is Bultakenstein, after all. Because my chain runs closer to the centerline, I needed to shift the guard over 11mm with a couple of custom spacers.
I would love to tidy this up, such as trimming the rear spacer block to match the contour of the swingarm and getting matching hardware (combining hex head and socket head bolts is so gauche!), but I’ve already devoted about 90 minutes to this one simple task, and when I look at this bike, I see a thousand little tasks like that. Stuff like that can wait for the obligatory final teardown after it can move under its own power. So for now, it’s on to other bigger concerns.
I have two more items on the swingarm: fabricating an upper chain guard (I promised myself I wouldn’t knowingly build a death-trap), and welding, bolting, or possibly MIG brazing the rear swingarm spacers in place. (The left one can be seen hanging limply behind the chain adjuster at the upper right of the last photo.)
