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The
story of the Superpan
Part
3
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In the picture on the left you can see how RB connected the two
halves of the 6 Gallon Fatbob tank, leaving a large opening for
the carbs. The homemede stainless handlebars contain internal
throttle and brake cable on the right side..By twisting
the left grip RB operates the internal ignition switch and light
switch.
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The brake lever is homemade using tiny little sprockets
(!) inside the handlebars to transfer the movement of the lever
to the cable.
Both handlebar parts are mounted in a single aluminum
"riser" that contains the speedo, rev-counter and 3
warning lights for oil pressure, high-beam and generator. The
single riser design also makes it possible for the internal wires
and cables to leave the handlebars without making any sharp bends.
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A few interesting details in the picture on the left: instead
of moving the gearbox back and forward to adjust the BDL primary
belt, RB has built a primary belt tensioner. Between the pullys
of the primary belt he has hidden the oilfilter and the reservoir
for the rear brake. Instead of the rattling panhead clutch he has
mounted an Evo-style clutch by BDL that does its work quietly and
efficiently. |
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Finally, the moment of truth: after two and a half
years of building RB was going to try to start his Superpan for
the first time. Anyone that has ever built or even rebuilt his
or her bike knows that this is always a time that gives you butterflys
in your stomach. Will it work? Did he screw up anything? Add to
this the fact that he had built more of his parts than he had
bought,
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I can't imagine he slept much the night before... No matter how
much thought he had put into this design, he was still very pleasantly
surprised when this bike started on its second kick! Now thats the
sort of thing that can put a smile on your face that won't come
off in a long time! There is no way that a person can get
that kind of a kick from anything he buys or has someone
else build. |
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After checking that everything worked correctly
it was time to take apart the bare metal bike for painting, polishing
and all that stuff. All the black parts were powdercoated, the
shiny bits are all polished aluminum or stainless steel. The red
paint RB did not do himself, the leather seat and saddlebag were
done by his friend Eric.
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In the electric department ignition is by a Dyna single-fire
unit with Dyna coils. Headlight is an imitation Hydraglide unit,
taillight is a cateye modified to take LED's instead of a lightbulb,
because of there much longer life.
When I asked RB what part of the bike gave him the most problems
he answered straight away: the generator!
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This was a somewhat surprising answer from a guy
that makes his own cylinder heads, but I will tell you what happened.
Because this bike has electronic ignition and an electric fuelpump
the original generator turned out to be to weak for the job. After
breaking 3 of these, RB decided something stronger was needed
and he bought a generator from a VW Beetle.
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It had 3 times as much output for a tenth of the price and was
roughly the same size too. The downside was, it also needed more
power to drive it, so RB had to replace the sprockets, beef up
the idler sprocket shaft mount in the crankcase, make a harder
generatorshaft with a support bearing and relocate the centerline
of the generator because apparently the Delcron cases were not
drilled correctly.
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Anyway, this is how the Superpan looked two years
ago when it came rolling out of Ronnie's workshop. Since then
RB has taken it for lots of rides, amongst others to Corsica and
back!
Next week: a photo session I did a few weeks ago
of how the Superpan looks now, after that we will put the pan
on a dyno and see howmany horses it really has!
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