Tanshanomi’s Bikes

Well, with the pegs and foot controls sorted, and the tank mounted, I went looking for another excuse to NOT begin rebuilding the engine. So I’m now on to the front brake. … Front brake designRead more

I got the fuel tank mounted. In British fashion, the BSA OIF Export tank is designed to be secured by a central mounting bolt. Rather than permanently weld a stud or bracket … Tank mount fabricationRead more

I can officially scratch rearsets off my punch list. Words cannot express what relief and satisfaction I am feeling right now. I would call these the “beauty shots,” but associating the word … Rearsets finished!Read more

After letting this shift shaft cause me bunch of unnecessary headaches — playing around with all sorts of solutions such as split bushings, pinned joints, and the like — I finally decided … Welded cross-shaftRead more

This morning before work, I made up the clevis for the right-side shift linkage out of 6061-T6511 alloy 3/4″ square bar stock. The upper end is attached to the Bultaco shift lever … Shift clevis fabricationRead more

My crossover shifter dilemma is not unique. Back in 1975, when new Federal regs required left-side shifting, a lot of small foreign manufacturers had to scramble to adapt their existing bikes to … Other crossover gearshiftsRead more

It turns out my bolted-up cross-shaft design was fundamentally flawed. My father-in-law was a research chemist, and one of his favorite aphorisms was, “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. … Cross-shaft goes kaputRead more

I used an old, scrap brake rod to mock-up the linkage between the lower arm and the stub of an original Bultaco shifter. This is just a quickie proof-of-concept. The real component … Shift linkage progressRead more

Playing around with the shift linkage some more, I’ve decided to go back to how I had configured it originally—with the bearing mounted to the inside surface of the plate and the … Foot pedal tweaksRead more

For my crossover linkage, I needed to create a rotating shaft with splined ends. This is not as easy as it seems, because cutting splines is obviously beyond my abilities. I’d purchased … Gearshift cross-shaft fabricationRead more