Battery Box.
Removal of the airbox on Tweety was prompted by the problems that it caused when trying to remove the carbs.
They were so wedged between the manifold rubbers and the airbox rubbers that I had to literally pry the rubbers out of the airbox in order to get the clearance needed to slide the carbs back and out.
There were several problems that needed to be resolved when removing the airbox the most significant being that the airbox doubles as the battery box.
Removal necessitated the manufacture of a box for the battery. There are several commercial kits available to do that but at about $275-$300 I was a little reluctant to go that route.
I began with a piece of scrap sheet steel.
Which I then folded like this.
Next came the sides.
Which I welded into place.
Then treated with Ospho and shot with low gloss.
There are several other things that the airbox does and these also had to be addressed. On the right it provides a place to mount the fuse box and rear master cylinder reservoir.
And on the left it mounts various relays.
These things I mounted like this.
One additional function of the airbox is to act as part of the rear fender. With out it all the track debris will end up being thrown up onto the engine.
A piece of aluminum sheet fixed that.
And one last problem to solve. The crank case breather originally vented into the air box so a solution needed to be found for that.
When I ordered pod filters for the carbs I also ordered a crank case filter. The problem was that the nipple on it was 5/8" but the vent hose was some millimeter, too small to force onto the filter. A few minutes on the lathe solved that.
And then the filter was tucked up underneath the new rear fender like so.
And now it all looks like this.
I have just received my new Lithium Iron battery but have not installed it yet. Once that is done I'll be ready for my first Track Day in October.
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October's Track Day was a bust, solid rain. Next possible day is in December, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
An update on the battery. The manufacture is a company called Shorai
It is incredibly light and notably smaller than the battery it replaces. It seems to crank the bike crisply and I have high hopes for good service from it. If it lasts a reasonable length of time and holds it's charge while in storage with out having to keep a maintenance charge on it, I believe it will have been a good investment.
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April, 2012
The LIFE battery continues to start the bike crisply. I have not made any attempt to charge it, it only gets charged by the charging system when I use the bike for a track day. However, I have a friend who has a Street Triple with a LIFE battery. The Triple is a computer bike and he has found that he must keep the battery on charge when not being regularly ridden or the battery will become so discharged that it will not start. This could be remedied by disconnecting the battery during times of non-use but then that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of this kind of battery. Given the cost of these batteries I would not recommend purchasing one for a bike with sufficient electronics to drain the battery.