The sound of silence.

If you've ever heard a big bore Husky at full chat you know it's loud. Proper loud. Little children screaming, car alarms going off at 50 yards - loud. Then imagine that you have an 84-decibel limit to adhere to. That's exactly what I was up against today when I did the mandatory noise test for my street tracker.
I always thought that passing the noise test would be the hardest part of the whole M.O.T-process and I knew from the start that there was no way in h**l that I could get my bike under 84 dB at full throttle – not unless the test was done in deep space. So first on my list was finding a way of making it impossible to give the bike the full beans. After some head scratching I found a nice little hole on the underside of the plastic carburettor lid. I put a 50 mm long screw in there, which made it impossible to lift the throttle more than about 40 % of the way. That went some way towards getting the noise down. Next up was filling the SuperTrapp silencer with sound deadening fibre glass "wool" and taking out 11 of the 12 discs at the end of the silencer.

At this point I was kind of happy with the results but the induction sound from the carb was still too loud to my ears (I was guessing at this point since I didn't have a dB-meter). So yesterday night I started panicking a bit and began botching together a sort of external air box over the exposed KN filter. And when I say botch, I really mean botch. Or how does cutting out plastic pieces from IKEA boxes, filling it with cell foam and gaffer taping it all up sound? Botch Engineering Ltd.

After a few hours sleep I brought the bike up from the garage to do a test start before I was to load it and go to Malmö (some 65 clicks away). It absolutely refused to start! No matter how many times I kicked the thing – nothing. Obviously it didn't get enough air and I had to modify my "air box" one more time, with one hour to go to the test. I finally got it started and it sure was quiet:-) I also ran like Chitti Chitti Bang Bang with a bad cold. Ah, to hell with it I thought and loaded up.

After waiting in line for an hour or so, watching all sorts of machinery go through the sound trap, I handed my bike over to the guy who was going to do the test ride past a dB-meter and watched him "speed off" with the engine coughing and farting on "full gas" (40% throttle). On his return pass I could see the frown on his face and he gave me the bike back stating that it "just wasn't working". I felt the panic rise since I knew that there wasn't going to be a new test for some weeks. I told him I was going to do some mods and could he please give it one more go? At this point the other bikes and cars had passed their tests and it had started raining. So I started tearing frantically at my "air box" to try to give the bike some more air. Guess what? The bike refused to start. I kicked and kicked. I checked the plug, the fuel and everything else I could come up with. Nothing. After some 15 minutes of this I was drenched in sweat. Seconds from giving up, the last remaining biker told me to throw away that stupid air box since "I was screwed anyway". I did and the bike fired up and I handed it over to the tester, expecting disaster.

But do you know what? IT PASSED! I was actually one dB under the limit even without the stupid airbox. I haven't felt so relieved in years. On Monday I'm going back to get the final clearance on the frame and then the final M.O.T will be a mere formality. Wish me luck!

It's a wrap. Or is it?

I spent a few good hours yesterday wrapping my exhaust. A pretty fiddly job, even with the coolers off. The headers turn and twist and the clearance is marginal at best. Now, I know that exhaust wrap isn't strictly in keeping with the flat tracker-style, but the Husky exhaust isn't the prettiest in the world and I like the way a wrapped exhaust looks. So sue me.

It looks like a piece of cake, but it is actually pretty difficult to get the wrap to fit perfectly. After having finished with the light coloured wrap (picture #1) I took a step back to admire my handiwork. And quickly realised that it looked too retro. And that the light wrap clashed with the colour theme of the rest of the bike. Damn!

30 minutes later I had purchased a new wrap (another 50 Euros) and started over again. This time, with the darker wrap (picture #2), I think I got the look I was after.

A word to the wise: use a long sleeved sweater and maybe even latex gloves when you wrap your own exhaust. Those little fibre glass strands itch like a son of a *****. I washed my arms three times and still couldn't stop the itching. In the end I had to resort to using my wife's body lotion. Yuk.

BTW: the new Öhlins spring is now in place (after having been powder coated black). It's 60 Nm instead of the 110 Nm standard spring. Hopefully this will smoothen out the super stiff ride.

Under cover.

The traditional flat track frame (and trust me: I've studied quite a few) uses a turned up metal loop as a connection point for the rear bodywork. Or in the case of a Woods frame, the rear frame loops around the bodywork. The loop makes the rear frame stiff and light.

I knew however that I needed an easy way to fix the rear light, reg plate and indicators on my street tracker, so I opted for a slightly different rear frame with a small "shelf" at the back. Not quite as light but it makes for a convenient place to put some of the electric gubbins that are not needed on a race tracker. None of these components are visible once the rear bodywork is fixed in place and the "shelf" protects them from rear wheel spray. As you can see from the image, the horn was relocated backwards as well.

Vive la resistance!

First of all: I'm no electrician. Despite having read many books on the subject, I still can't differentiate between my watts and my amperes. So when I couldn't get my indicators to work properly I had to consult a friend (thanks Erik).

The problem was that when I had replaced my standard indicators, which used a 23 W light bulb, with my new mini indicators, which contain LEDs instead of bulbs, the current would "creep" (lay mans term) around the system and make all four indicators light up at once. A bit confusing for the people behind my bike. I had changed the indicator relay for one suited for LED indicators, so the blink frequency was correct, but the "Christmas tree" effect persisted.

It turns out that LED indicators use as little as 1 W and thus the current would go through them almost without noticing the LEDs (again: lay mans terms). So to make it work we had to install a couple of resistors to "fool" the system that the 23 w bulbs where still there. Two resistors from "Biltema" did the trick once they were installed together with the rear indicators. Just remember to install them "in parallel" with the indicators. Now everything works and its time to shrink hose the whole loom to make it reasonably waterproof. Not that I'm ever going to ride in rain, but still.

Blinker, part 2.

And this is what it looks like in place. Once painted black, I hope it will look even less conspicuous. But that will have to wait until after the MOT (the triple trees will get anodized as well).

Took it for a longer spin today, and managed to summon up the courage to let go of the bars at speed. It tracked straight and true. Phew.

Blinker.

Is "blinker" American English BTW? Anyway: I've been unable to find a solution for where I should place the front indicators on my bike. At one point I thought about integrating them into the top triple tree, but changed my mind at the last moment. I've also looked into the idea of having them on the ends of the handlebars, but since the flat track bars are quite wide, I dismissed that idea as well. In the end it became apparent that I needed some sort of custom made bracket to put them on the forks. The Swedish rules state that the indicator lenses need to be at least 240 mm apart and cannot sit together with the headlight.

Anyhow, I made a drawing, brought one of my mini indicators with me and payed a visit to "Kent" the aluminium wizard who lives about 20 klicks from me. Three days later I picked up the bracket in the picture. It looks huge, but it is only as wide as the forks and it will sit – turned upside down – underneath the lower triple tree and only about 25% of it will be visible. The bracket will be painted black in order not to stand out against the black fork tubes and only the curved parts at the ends will protude out and to the sides when the bike is watched from the front (and, no there isn't room to mount the indicators behind the fork tubes - the radiators are in the way.). Now I just need to get the airfilter and the rear light (it refuses to work as advertised) sorted. Then I can book an appointment with the M.O.T inspector.

It's aaaalive!

Believe it or not, but after having gone through the usual start procedure (choke out, five kicks with the decompression handle held in, choke in) the trusty big bore Husky engine fired up as if it was just yesterday, never mind two years since it last barked into life!

To say I was elated is an understatement. I didn't quite trust my ability to get the new wiring loom right and I guess I've had some subconscious doubt that it would actually work. I've had the flu pretty bad for two days but that was soon forgotten as I very gingerly let the clutch out and did a few really slow laps up and down the street applauded by my oldest son (he's eight and thinks I'm Pierre Terblance and John Britten rolled into one).

First findings? Well the rear spring is way too stiff. No surprise there and I'll just order a new one. It also felt stupidly light! I don't know if that is to do with the fact that the bike is lower now than it was in super moto guise, but it feels as if I could pick it up like a bicycle. I'll weigh it later, but I'm guessing around 130 kg. More soon!