The Calm Before the Storm

I am considering this to be the build of my life. I have built and modified other cars and motorcycles before, but never as a frame-up restoration. I purchased this bike back in 1986, so I've literally been carrying this bike around for the past 33 years in one shape or form. I've been buying parts like mad and have my engine builder totally on board for my specs, so we're really nearing the time to build.

With all that in mind, I thought that a little reorganizing of my garage spaces would be in order. I had all my RD parts in the big garage on the shelves with the Harley and Miata parts. But I'm pretty much going to dedicate the smaller garage to 2-wheel vehicles now- my Harley, the mountain bike and the Yamaha. So I moved all the boxes of RD parts to the small garage, renamed the Pit.

I did a little shuffling around with the work equipment- I have an old hospital cabinet dolly that I absconded with from one of my former places of work that I basically use to store BMW parts and other shit, which now acts as a platform for my portable parts washer. (I found this awesome plastic parts washer online that usually retails for $145, but I was lucky enough to bump into a website that was selling it for $90!! What a steal!!) I bought another inexpensive shelf from Costco to house the boxes of RD parts and shoved it in the corner. And I have a Black & Decker Workmate 425 that I positioned against the wall across from the main work bench.

I've been living in this house for over 3 years, and I'm finally getting around to putting up a pegboard to hang my tools! The old house used to have a small pegboard, installed by the previous owner, so I already had some hangers ready to go. I stopped by Home Depot on my way home from work a couple of days ago and bought some supplies, all of which cost me just a hair over $30! Then I spent yesterday afternoon cutting, hammering and screwing till the board was in place.

I'm still putting up the tools, finding out that some of the hangers aren't sufficient for some of the tools I want to hang. Looks like another trip to HD is in line.

I had a chance to check out the new parts washer and it's pretty awesome! (I filled it with a gallon of the purple Simple Green. After adding water to dilute, it came out to 4 gallons.)

Some time this week, I'll probably start working on the bike again. I would really like to get the frame cleaned up, so I can put the swingarm and triple tree on it- that way I can actually remove the fork caps!