Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Custom Corner 07 BA Control Bar Mod

After purchasing a Maverick Low Rider seat I soon realized I need to move the foot controls forward in front of the headers. So, (with guidance from several BA mems) I purchsed a spare control bar from Pinwall and have proceeded to cobble a modified control bar from the spare.
Dremel tools are great for this stuff!

Cut the mounting flanges from the bar, turned bar 180 deg for new flange placements.

Note the white marking on the control bar to aid in weldment location


Ready to weld flanges. Note I mounted the flanges @ the proper spacing (after much measuring/remeasuring) and at as close to the proper angle (shimmed to obtain the angle) to a chunk of plywood to ease the welding process & obtain the correct fit to the frame upon completion.

Preparing to cut the Control end weldments


Control end weldments cut. Still need to rotate the control ends 180 deg, and add about 1 & 1/2 inches of pipe to the control bar ends to achieve a 19-20 inch spread between the controls mounting faces.

I now need to mod the control ends (to remove the weldment mounting ends & radius from the casting) so they can be positioned correctly and refitting/welding them to the control bar

More pics to follow as work progresses.

nice man!

Thanks Jeremy. The easy stuff is done but modding the control ends has me a bit stuck at the moment. I have to cut about half of the control mounting end castings away to enable the ends to be re-positioned parallel to the bikes' CL, and add & weld 1.5 inches of pipe or solid rod stock on to make up for the lost material.

Pshh, easy stuff! Haha looks/sounds like u know what ur doing. Youll bang it out no prob.
I like to see that you have the balls to go at it like that... I think someone was asking about this not to long ago.

I'm pretty sure that was me asking about this mod. Friar qued me into an older thread on the forward controls mod done by wildmike down under. His was fabbed from new materials, straight pipe for the bar too. I didn't like the look of it (puts the bar just a tad close to the front tire), but it gave me the idee'er to try just fliping the stock control bar (actually I think Ryk suggested that). And...off we go in to the Mod, mod world of Triumph. A bud at work said I should patent the thing too.....Hmmmmm

If this works out you should make a few and post them in the vendors section. If I could weld I would have done this a while ago.

Ditto for what Z said... I'd buy one. The sum of my machine shop ability ends at riveting.

agreed!

Here's a picture of Ryk's twisted brass...he said this was a ****** to make:

thats awesome. I'm going to have to make one of those!

Well drat! I jobbed the control ends mounting fab out to a local weld shop 3 weeks ago as I've been way to busy in the shop to get er done myself. Now I can't seem to catch the job shop mgr @ the shop, & he hasn't returned my freakin calls so I can make arrangements to retrieve the components from him.

Jeez, if I had the time I coulda built a new forward controls bar (+6 to 10 more of em) from scratch materials in the time it's taking to get the prototype done.

Pictures of the piece weld up to end prototype will get posted here once I can get the components back from the jobber.

I'll let you all know if/when I decide to put a couple or so into production. (BTW - if I do get some into production the controls bars will probably be fabbed from solid rod stock instead of pipe & the mounting ends will be CNC milled steel instead of cast.)

this just moved up on my to do list

What part of his reply suggested he was going to go into production and sell them for a profit?

LOL oh no for me and only me I would never sell my stuff I dont trust it LOL

I kinda like the good Friar's red "x" icon.

It must be cached on Chrome. I can still see it.

I really dont think there are that kind of ppl here, I love your ideas, but I honelstly cant weld, my metal fab stops at simple Aircraft repairs and basic cuts and bends, and I dont have the time,,, but I think I could get interested in purchasing from the guy who put all the hard work into it. I think your pretty safe here is what im trying to say Cheers

Okay, after calling the job shop & the owners cell a gazillion times, I finally have made arrangements to get my parts back so the work on the prototype can move forward.

More to follow soon in the way of pics and step-by-step fabrication.

The moral of this is "don't trust yer parts to someone who says they can do the work...but doesn't, when ya coulda DIY all along".

Now with parts back in my possesion I have begun the next phases in modifying the control bar.

I rough cut the radius of each control end off to enable them to be milled parallel to the control mounting face of each end:

The RH control end needs to be milled down to 2 inches thick from the control mounting face to the welding faces, and the LH has to be milled down to 1 1/2 inches thick in similar manner:


Then I cut 2 lenghts of 3/4 inch round stock: here's the rough layout:


I will notch out the top 1/3rd of the pipe on the welded control bar/bracket assy to enable the two rods to nest on top of the pipes for welding. Once welded in place solid the section of the bars between the angled section of cross bar pipes will be removed and ground to a nice roundy elbow where they meet the pipes.


The overall welded control bar will have a width of 19.5 inches to allow for the brake reservoir to clear the RH header


Off to the shop tomorrow & more to follow as the work proceeds.

Geeze....I'm glad I've been busy in the shop since my last post on this project (it's a money thang ya know $$$). But I'm bummin cause I haven't got back to completing the final weld up of the proto type yet. I did manage to get the control ends milled to within .0035" of square and set up a jig to align them correctly in relation to the cross bars so they will weld up nicely. Now all I need is a day free from other business to weld them up.

i wish i had the skill set to modify stuff like this, instead i have to spend hundreds or more for similar mods! ARG!!

Any way I can get the pics for this again?

Here ya go ChuckyJ.....


The first thing was to locate a spare mustache bar and grind the frame mounts off the bar....


Then I marked the locations to re-weld the frame mounts back on so that the ends would face forward...






Then I had to grind off the control mounting ends so the could be rotated 180 deg. & re-welded back onto the mustache bar.....


Then I cut the control ends down so that the weld points for the upper & lower mustache bar were nearly flush/level....




Then measured out 2 lengths of 3/4 inch steel bar stock so that the finished span would clear the headers.... overall length was 19 3/4 inches (but an even 20 inch overall length would work just as well I figure)....the bar stock was cut @ 16 1/4 inches.....



And that is as far as I have gotten....to much work & stuff is keeping me from finishing this up. The end result should bolt right up to the frame mounts....& then some modifications to the shift rod & rear brake lines would need to be done to complete the whole project.