Re: The Great Space Coaster 6/15 Update

[Peatbog]

You got cool frames, a pile of parts, a Big Beam light, and a black and white cat. This has to turn out good.

[whoinphx]

So I haven't done much in the last week or so....
Kids had a Bowling Tournament down in Tucson last weekend so I was gone, and the past week was crazy for a number of reasons....
Really I had a lose of Gumption... ( Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, My Favorite book of all time ) I was as stuck as those pedals on the chrome Spaceliner....
Yesterday I decided it was time to get back on the horse...
So against the advice of others I took an idea from yoothgeye and ground down a set of 9/16 s and decided to give that a try..... It Worked !!! Then it didn't.... The left side was NOT coming off so I finally decided to take my angle grinder and CUT it off.... I had reservations about cutting perfectly good crank arms, but then I thought what the heck I'm cutting a perfectly good chrome frame for this Build Off....



Once that was done I finished tearing down both frames to bare minimum, and took pictures to try and figure where all would meet in the end...





This morning,with the kids off to school, I decided it was time to move on....

First hurdle was joining the ladies frame to the rusty mens frame... a couple of weeks back I was at a Bike Estate Sale and picked this up... I think it is a conversion bottom bracket and I thought it would fit....




After finding the correct tiny little hex to unscrew and finagling it fit perfectly in the bottom bracket... I slightly widened the dropouts on the mens frame and screwed it all together....
I was on a roll and decided to put the font forks and some wheels on it and do a mock-up....




I want a LONG banana seat and have thought about combining a little girls bike banana seat with the Fat Manta Ray ( New Version... see my Fresh Finds ) banana seat I have.... mock-up...




Some other issues I'll have to figure out... combining the two chainguards....



And finally a close up of that bottom bracket attachment...




Now I'm going to have to decide where to cut the headtube from the chrome frame and how to attach it... I have ideas of where I want it cut and how I'm going to attach it to the front frame, but I might have chain clearance issues....
I guess I'll figure it out as I go, but I'm back to working and that's where I need to be....
Thanks for looking guys.... any comments would be appreciated....
And I'm Digging a Bunch of other builds out there.... Keep it up guys, and gals ( I think there are a couple this year already... )

[Xcruiser]

looking like a really wild concept!

[dragnusa]

maybe cut the bottom tube completely off the girls bike and bend the 2 top tubes down and weld them between where your top 2 tubes of the boys bike meet the seat tube.

[kingfish254]

I am TOTALLY following this build!!!

Spaceliners!
Homemade Longtail!
Wicked Southeast Asia Hindu Love God hood ornament!
Banana seats!

More More!!!!

[raggedjim]

Oh, I like this one! Great use of zipties

Good luck, Rg

[whoinphx]

Thanks for all the kind words and support....
raggedjim....
The zipties aren't permanent, but they are great for mocking up.....
dragnusa.....
Yeah I was kind of thinking the same thing, but I'd like to incorporate the head tube somehow and the bottom tube would add structural integrity but would take away from the lines....
I'm stepping back before I cut anything....
kingfish254....
I'm happy you saw this one, I've liked how you interact with everyone around here, and I've loved your builds as well...
I'm not sure if my Hindu goddess will make it on the bike, but she might.....

Now to share my thought on the Banana Seat...
I realized I had a full size Vista banana seat that needed recovering... I got it for free so I thought it'd be better to use, the longer the better....




Then I thought Even Cooler a back rest... I have an OCC seat I'd taken apart and was switching over to a regular post, I wasn't using the back portion, so I might incorporate that as well....


Blacked out...



I think it won't be too hard... Someone last year shortened a banana seat, cutting it and riveting.... I figure I'll do the same, but cut and rivet more than one together to make it longer....
Thanks again....

[kingfish254]

One of my favorite builds from last year was Scooby Snack.
Smoop made one of the most INCREDIBLE banana seats ever!!!
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=40611&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=snack&start=165

I like your thinking WHO!!!!

[yoothgeye]

My friend Nelson shortened his banana seat last year and did an awesome job working with very little in his kitchen:

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=40053&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=penny&start=105#p416324

[whoinphx]

Yes that was the one I was talking about from last year...
Thanks yoothgeye... I really liked that build last year....

[whoinphx]

One of my favorite builds from last year was Scooby Snack.
Smoop made one of the most INCREDIBLE banana seats ever!!!
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=40611&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=snack&start=165

I like your thinking WHO!!!!

Thanks.... I couldn't dream to do the seat he did.... I mean bow down and all hail Smoop....
I confess I was so bummed out I missed last years deadline for the Build Off i missed voting as well....
( Derelict of Civil Duty... ) but Scooby Snack would have had one of my votes....

[kingfish254]

I like the way the lines of this are going to flow. It is kinda like a Spaceliner version of one of the old Huffy tandems (see my pic below).


I agree that maybe you should cut the ladies downtube out as well as the ladies headtube, then curve those ladies twin to tubes to flow into the men's top seatstays near the seat.
Whichever way you figure out this one, I know it is going to be killer.

There are about 20 pages of homebuilt longtails here thay might give you some ideas. (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.ph ... -xtracycle)

[whoinphx]

Well this past week was crazy as far as my schedule.... working different hours than normal and overtime...
Plus wanting to spend time with my boys... ( Older one is in the middle of Finals Week and making up assignments he'd not completed ).... Went and took them to see Avengers yesterday, Great Movie , We loved it...
Anyhow did get Some work done....
Stripped down the Persons, Vista banana seat to bare metal and soaked it in vinegar for a couple of days.... it had some surface rust in between the metal layers but not too bad.....
I'm not feeling ready to cut the frame just yet, so I figured I'd work on the seat... It needs to be done sometime, Right.?.?.?
A little cutting here... a little banging there... some drilling and such........









The last picture is an ides as how I might set the seat on the bike....
I'd been working on making an OCC seat fit on a regular seat post....
I cut off the massive seatpost attached, and disassembled a regular old springed seat and attached that to the meal bottom of the OCC seat.... Yeah hope that makes sense....





What I'm thinking is setting the OCC post in the back part, ( or Ladies Chrome Spaceliner frame ), and the front of the Banana Seat into the front ( or Rusty Mens Frame )....
Sissy bars at this point would be optional, and I've ideas on that.... or I might ditch the metal OCC seat part and go traditional banana seat set at the front and Sissy bar on the back....

I am planning on rivets holding all the seat parts together, as well as the leather I'm using to recover it... maybe.... And last but not least .... the part of the Persons, Vista banana seat won't go to waste... I plan on adding it to the small girls bike banana seat I was recovering in black leather....





Anyway.... I'm watching alot of the Builds out there... and having a great time doing it, some neat stuff for sure....

Also brewing some extra ideas for this build, one in particular that I wanted to do for last years Build-Off but was unable to... with 24" ers on this I think I can pull it off but, that will come later, once I've actually combined the two frames and made a rider.....

Thanks for checking out my Build, and Thank You for any and all comments you choose to leave.... they are appreciated...

[kingfish254]

That MONSTER Nanner is a thrill ride in itself!!!
Looking sharp!!

[mitchelangelo]

Man, that should be one heck of crazy-cool stretch bike! Rock It!!!