Thursday, October 17, 2019

Project Warthog - front forks

The last time we were here, had mounted both new tires ands new longer rear shocks. Now the rear end sits higher than the front. In order to level out the bike, the front needs to be raised. There are several options for doing that, the least expensive will be to install extensions on top of the front forks.

Discovered the Rocket 3 underwent a few changes mid-2011 model year. Mine is a later 2011 model. All of the aftermarket fork manufacturers have built for the early model Rockets, none for the later. So far no one has been able to tell me what changed with the front forks. Might be something important, or might be just a color change. Who knows?

Looks like a custom machine shop is needed. 


Today we removed the front wheel, fender, fork guards, brake calipers in order to remove the two front forks. Just to remove the two fork tube caps so a machine shop can make a two inch extensions. 



Kent and John from Texas Sidecars came over to see if they wanted to tackle the project of building a subframe for the Rocket. There are not many Rocket based sidecars out there to copy from, so one has to reinvent the 'wheel". After inspecting the Rocket, the side camper and the GSA/EZS rig, much discussion ensued. Finally they agreed to take on this project. 

They do all the welding and fabricating, I'll do the powder coating, wiring and plumbing. 

Texas Sidecar is based in Houston now, which is really nice. So between the three of us, we'll figure out how to make everything come together. 


Later,

CCjon

4 comments:

  1. Custom work, sounds expensive. Then again, once you put that beast together....holy crap!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have to contract out the welding and fabricating. Trying to keep the cost down by doing the wiring, plumbing and assembly myself. While waiting for shop work to be done, am shopping the internet for best prices on parts and add-ons.

      Might need heavy duty velcro gloves to hang on to the beast when twisting the throttle.

      Delete
  2. !!!!Good project CCJon!!! La Bestia de fuego "American Titan"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gracias Nestor, Le Bestia se cresió. Ahora no es 1000cc, sino 2300 cc. Lo llamo el Javali Feo

      Delete

please comment here: