It's Going Slowly

There hasn't been much in the way of forward progression on the bike this week, I've decided if a Harley is called a Hog then mine will be called Bacon from this point forward.  I had big plans to get down to work last weekend in hopes that I could at least have the wheels and handlebars on the bike so I would then focus on getting the engine on when it came in.

Last Friday I forwarded my offices phones to my cell and got out of here about an hour early in order to get some work done.  I had all the parts ready to go.  They were labeled, unwrapped, and I'm sure they were as eager to do their job as I was for them to do it.

Of course this is where I commonly run into trouble.  When I begin to attach the forks to the frame of the bike I notice that the nut that holds it into place won't go past halfway down the stem.  I look closely and find that the stem has been stripped flat on one side for about an inch.  I was stuck.

Did I mention that my frame and fork set are 44 years old and were only made for 1 year before the design was changed?  That was going to make things hard.  Bacon is a 1968 Honda Mini Trail K0.  There are some of these bikes out there still in mint condition with all the original parts that sell for close to $10,000.  Finding the correct fork by itself was going to be hard.

In 1969 Honda began producing the K1 which is identical in almost every way with the exception that they added a battery and a light.  The forks had brackets welded onto it to hold that headlight, and the frame had a place for the battery and the wiring.  Mine of course had none of that.  This design wasn't changed for almost 10 years, so a fork from one of these bikes would be much easier to find.
Luckily for me I had a place I could turn, The World Famous Wheelie-ing Elvi.  I sent out an SOS e-mail to the group and was flooded with ideas.  Most of them, while helpful were difficult and expensive ideas, but on Sunday I received an e-mail from Elvi David Mo.  He had 2 extra K1 forks lying around that we would part with cheep that I could use until I was able to locate an original K0 fork.  I told David I would be right over.

I headed up to Denton to David's house and he took me back to his "workshop."  Now I say "workshop" with caution because I don't know if that word really does David's set-up justice.  This is a 2 story air conditioned space where David has an amazing area for working on his bikes.  That's right bikes.  Plural.  David has no less that 10 running bikes and numerous others in various states of repair.  He also has the ability to sandblast, powder coat, and weld.  It was mini-bike Mecca.  To top it all off David was an extremely nice guy (as are all the Elvi I've spoken to thus far) who was willing to show me his collection and give me all the advice I could absorb.

On Monday I headed right back to Top Koat in Kennedale and Joe got right to work getting that baby sandblasted and powder coated for me.

So here I sit ready to put it all together.  I think I have all the parts, if only I had the know-how...