Enter, stage left, one Kamta Prasad.  When Kevin first took over as Chief Engineer at Fiji's Rewa Dairy Company, he found that, thanks to previous uncaring and lackadaisical management, Kamta (and other employees) were aimlessly drifting, without direction, pushed from one menial task to another with never a chance to add to the sum of human knowledge, nor yet afforded any insight into The Meaning of Life.  Kevin laid a hand on Kamta’s shoulder and declared "Henceforth you will be a welder, and you will weld Tim's chopper frame".  For the next four years, Kamta welded.  Little things held with tweezers, big things lifted by cranes.  Arc, gas, MIG, TIG, you name it.  He ate, drank and slept welding.   Given real work to do, and shown properly how to do it, Kamta thrived.  The machine-shop became a happy place full of purposeful people, and songbirds carolled overhead.  Then Kevin spoke again - "Kamta, the time is right.  You are ready to weld Tim's chopper frame."

Which was just as well, because Kevin chose that moment to piss off back to New Zealand again.

Only problem was, my jig had been constructed quite far from the nearest electrical socket (like, upstairs, thirty feet away).  Long extension leads are not a good idea as their resistance causes a fair bit of power drop.  At Kamta's place, he runs his welder straight out of the switchboard.  So I had to take everything over to his house.  So the plan got amended.  I myself tacked one out of four of the holes drilled on either side of each joint, using my arc welder.  I then carefully carried this tacked frame over to Kamta's place, driving around every pothole in the road to lessen any shocks.  Kamta did his TIG thing on all the butt joints and the remaining three out of four holes on either side of them.  We used wet rags as heat sinks on any brazed lugs if they were closer than 4 in. to a weld.

This last point warrants further explanation, and is something I touched upon earlier in Part Five of this column.  Since my own experience of such matters is zero, I shall again defer to the wisdom of Bruce Palmer III.

Frame welding.

Be careful when welding onto frames that have many brazed connections.  It can be harmful to these frames to apply excessive heat near the brazed connections.  Excessive heat can cause the brass in the braze to chemically react changing the steel alloy in both the tubing and the forging making both brittle.  If this occurs, the forging and the tube are likely to crack.  The forging will also be no longer repairable.  A good frame man will avoid heat as far as possible.  If he has to resort to heat, he will be sure not to use excessive heat and only the amount needed to perform the task.

Consider how brazed frames (and springer forks) are made and heat treated.  The frames consist of forgings and tubes.  Each tube is shaped to specifications, the ends knurled and pressed into machined recesses in the forging.  Each joint is brazed.  The frame is placed in a special oven, heated to 1535 +/-5 degrees F, quenched in water, reheated to 775 +/-25 degrees F for two hours, allowed to cool and trued.  The frame becomes tough but not brittle and behaves much like spring steel.  For the above reason, and because the frame members could lose their hardness, the frame should not be greatly heated.

I can make two comments about this advice.  Firstly its language is atrociously gender un-neutral, since it ignores the possibility of there being any such thing as "frame women".  Secondly, it's advice of which thousands of chopper builders over the last five decades have been blissfully unaware, yet by-and-large they've gotten away with it.   Still, I think it's good advice, and my fondness for living outweighs any macho bravado I might have when it comes to the frame of a motorcycle that I myself will be riding.  On the other hand, Kevin always says to me “If only I had a dollar for every time you’ve said “But in the book it says …””!

If any of you more knowledgeable types out there think I've screwed up in any life-threatening manner with the frame-welding method I've described in this month's column, or conversely you think I’m worrying for nothing, then WRITE and let me know.  Any comments, advice or suggestions are welcome, and the column can be updated if there's anything you think the motorcycling public should be made aware of.

Welding finished (for now), I then drove back home, put the welded frame back on my jig, and checked everything again.  Close enough for jazz, as they say!

A quick check to see if the engine still fits (Pics. 8 and 16).  Yay! It does!  With any luck, I may be able to solve one of the Eternal Indian Mysteries, namely howdaf**k d'ya get a torque wrench onto the middle rear cylinder head bolt of a Chief motor?

Well, that's as far as I'd got by May 19 2000, which was the day when Fiji's civil society got thrown into the fan blades and splattered over a wide acreage.  Next step is to bend some steam tube to make the engine front down tubes of the frame.  A roughly 8" diameter of bend seems aesthetically pleasing (see Pic. 16) as I discovered by bending a sample of reinforcing steel around a BSA 8" front brake hub that I had lying under the bench.

Next time I'll describe how the rest of the frame welding worked out, and also tell you what I've found out about "stress-relieving" of welded frames after putting an enquiry onto the VI list the other day.

That's if there is a next time, as I might take a break from this column if one or two other people I've approached can come up trumps with their own literary works on the subject of Indian choppers.   My own contributions to this column could become fairly irregular from here on in.  But that's okay, you might all welcome a break from the sound of my own voice.  And don't worry, I'll be back each time I have some VP (visual progress) to report about my Frankenstein Chief project.

Meanwhile, keep it shiny side up!

DISCLAIMER: The motorcycle frame described in this column is being built by me using methods I've worked out for myself (after consulting widely), and the resulting motorcycle will be ridden only by me.  I do not hold myself out as an expert on motorcycle frame construction (far from it!).  If you use any information from this column for your own project, then you will need to keep your Bullshit Detector set on "full alert".  If you break your neck after following any of my methods, then I'll feel sorry but I won't feel responsible.  After all you're a grown adult now, with the ability to think for yourself.

Pic. 10.  The frame, after Kamta has finished the TIG welds.  Just have to bend up some engine tubes now.

Pic. 11.  A closer look at the TIG welds on the frame top tube, which have married Ariel together with Kawasaki.  East is east, and west is west, and in this case the twain have met perfectly.

Pic. 12.  The rear frame top-tubes.  Because of the triangulation of these tubes with the gearbox bottom tubes and the seat post, it was not possible to slide a matching-diameter sleeve over the slugs.  They had to be drawn up inside the tubes until the other slugs were on, then slid back down into place for welding.  Finally, each slug was covered by two-piece sleeve made from a matching tube sawn in half lengthways. 

Pic. 13.  The two blacker sections of pipe are the sleeves over the slugs used to stretch the gearbox frame tubes.  The amount of stretch here was 3”, and the sizes of all other frame-tube gaps were dictated by this one. 

Pic. 14.  The seat post also had to be extended, as a consequence of stretching the rear frame while preserving the same tube angles.

Pic. 15.  End-on view of the stretched rear frame section, showing the welds that unite the two-piece sleeves over the slugs.

Pic. 16.  The next job is to take some steam pipe and bend it to this shape, then fish-mouth the ends to neatly abut the steering head.  This was as far as I got before rebellion and insurrection broke out here in the Fiji Islands.  To be continued …