How I made a motorcycle from an old Black and White photo // Paul Brodie's Shop

hi i'm paul brodie we're in my shop here i'm  sitting on excelsior mitch behind the camera   we're going to do something on excelsior i'm going  to tell you a little bit of a story about how i   got involved in this crazy project in a way in the  early 2000s i was working on other customers bikes   antique motorcycles and i noticed that often often  they would buy a motor for five thousand dollars   they get me to build a frame for handlebars  exhaust whatever and maybe i'd charge them   maybe ten thousand dollars for that back  in those days and then suddenly they had   a bike worth forty thousand dollars and i'm  thinking well if i had a motor maybe i could   make a bit more money like that as well so in 2005  i was coming back from the davenport swap meet in   iowa and i was with a customer we were talking  back and forth and i came up with the idea of   building a board tracker because the board tracker  was worth more than a regular antique motorcycle   and at first we talked about a cyclone but there  are about maybe nine cyclones in existence and so   i'd be stepping on some toes but when it came  to the excelsior there basically are no models   which we know of in existence so i really like the  look of the motor it was huge looked powerful so i   decided that i was going to build excelsior board  trackers so that was early 2005 and at that point   in my life i was being sued by an ex and i needed  to get some money the house uh the property values   i'm in the vancouver area more or less a  little bit outside and the property values   have started to rise quite significantly  so i went to the bank and i found out that   if i got a mortgage on my property i could  get a pretty substantial line of credit   so that's what i did and so in may of 2005 i did  what i call a bit of a financial recklessness   i turned away all my regular customers  i started living off my line of credit   and all i did six days a week monday to saturday  was to work on excelsiors from morning till night   on sunday i went trials riding so that became  my life and there was kind of a freedom in that   because i was doing exactly what i wanted and  if the excelsior project needed something a   tool parts cars things i just spent the money  it was a good time i like that so we're gonna   do a couple slide shows now on a motorcycle when  you build a motorcycle there's a lot of different   things to think about the frame the gas  tank the handlebars the wheels suspension   but for these slide shows we're just going  to focus on the motor so we're going to   do slideshow today and then we'll finish  up the following episode on the motor so   with that all said let's get going i had five old  photos that i found and this was probably the best   photo the other ones there was three of them that  weren't so good at all but this is joe walters he   was part of the excelsior racing team and i like  this shot so in april of 2005 i did a full-scale   drawing i knew how large the wheels and the tires  were so i based it on those sizes they did a   full-scale drawing and this is the full-scale  drawing of the motor i had no idea what went   inside the cases or how that would work out i just  i'm just going for the outside shape right now i   managed to find through a friend a set of old  excelsior cases this is off the street version   and you can see the inside it looks like  it's been underwater a little bit there   this is the outside so on the overhead cam motor  it didn't have any of this and this part here was   all different as well on the bottom of the  cases it it definitely looked like it had been   sitting in the ground or something there was  a lot of corrosion so this area had to get re   rebuilt but that was fine because this motor would  never ever run it was just for show and the sizes   here's the start this is what i did i i set up  the cases on my mill i got an end mill right here   and i started to remove some metal you can see how  it's coming off i'm about halfway down here making   a few chips and then what i did is i cut out a  quarter inch plate that was the size i thought   of the beveled chest this is what holds all the  gears which drives the cam and the magneto and   i glued it on so i have started making a mock-up  motor i wanted some cylinders to put on it so i   i grabbed some 6061 this is solid this is  just for mock-up you can see how i've got   a little bit of a bore but that only goes  down maybe half inch or so so i cut the fins   and this is the end mill now and i i squared off  off the base this is on the mill in in the rotary   table that's the rotary table that is the chuck  a little bit later on this was my my desk in the   shop and i spent four months sitting in front of  the computer this is a 486 computer i did buy a   new flat screen for it and on the computer  i had autocad version number number 12. so   old software but that's where i figured out what  the motor looked like inside i spent four months   in that chair looking at manuals metallurgy  books seals bearing manuals on that computer   i've started to draw what the cylinders look like  you can see here i've got the included valve angle   and this is the magneto here and this is the  drive for the magneto so you can see how the drive   comes off a little bit above the crank not exactly  on the crank because the gears have to drive   he needs space there this is a more detailed  shot and the angle is 47.5 i discovered   so these gears here these three gears have to be  custom made because you can't buy any gears that   are that that ankle at all this is the bevel  drive i came up with and i just talked about   the gears 47.5 so i made some mock-up gears  out of aluminum solid because i wanted to see   what the clearance was in between the gears i  wanted to see if my calculations were correct   and they seem to be correct so i went with  those numbers this is the bevel case a little   bit later on and you can see how it it's  built up from the one-quarter inch plate   a plate and i have a hole for the bearing  i have a hole so that it can it can breathe   and it's starting to take shape this is  the is the bevel drive module which is   held into that case now so there's four allen  screws holding it down this is is going to drive   the magneto this is the front cylinder this is  the rear cylinder and you can see how the gear   is raised up a little bit above the center line  of the crank this is the outside case of the   of the bevel drive and what i did is the is to  weld on some on some mesh and then i covered   it with bondo and i worked on the shape because  having the shape was a crucial part of having the   bike look right so here's the bottom part of the  bevel drive i've got the cylinders on now you can   see the four bolts on each one there's the magneto  and this is the drive for the magneto so it's   it's coming together this is the upper bevel  drive and i it took a while to figure this out   so what i've got here is i got some shapes made  out of aluminum i have i've taken glue and i i   have glued them together and i'm working on the  shape i've filled in the spaces with some bondo   you can see that and ultimately i made i made  four different shapes before i was happy with this   these ones were were too short this area from here  to here i decided was too short so i changed that   that's what it looks like when i put more bondo  on and i've i've sanded it down so you can you   can see the final shape that's coming together  i haven't started working on the heads yet or   the cam towers or anything but this is the bevel  drive this is the lower part these are the tubes   that holes hold the bevel shafts inside it's not  push rods and this is the upper bevel drive here   that's the magneto drive finally this is what  i got from the from the foundry this is this   was the final shape and i was quite happy with  it and it needed a little bit of machining so   i made up a lot of fixtures for all different  parts when you're working with a casting you can't   just hold it in a chuck you always got to make it  seem some kind of a fixture so here is a fixture   i've got a counterweight right here and what i've  done here is i've faced it and now i have to bore   it for the bearing because there's a couple  bearings in each of these upper bevel drives   and that's what it looks like that's that's the  finished product when it's all sanded and polished   and i think they look quite smart i spent quite  a bit of time working on what the left side of   the motor would look like because i didn't have  any photos of the left side of the motor and   i i talked to someone on the phone and he had  an older excelsior motor not an overhead cam   and he told me that he would never take this  thing to shows anymore because he didn't want   anyone taking photographs of it and i thought  well that's kind of crazy but it seems like some   owners of this old antique antique machinery they  don't want to share anything and so i asked him if   he'd send me a photo and he he wouldn't send me a  photo because he said i know what you're doing and   i don't think it's a good idea to make a replica  of something even if even if they don't exist so   i came up with this heavy duty webbing here  basically on my own and i like the looks of   it because i think it kind of matched the rest  of the bike of the motor i spent quite a bit of   money at the pattern makers i did my i did my cnc  drawings and this is some of the patterns which i   got this is so that i could take it to  the foundry and have the castings made   and having the patterns made this was back  in 2006. i spent 45 thousand dollars getting   patterns made and you can see here this is for the  left side is here's those webs i was talking about   and this is what goes inside of of this so  that you end up with the right size and and   thickness of the walls i used about a a 3 8 wall  for this i wanted it to be strong so this is the   patterns more patterns unfortunately what happened  with the patterns is i got the castings made and   that was at a foundry in in burnaby and i should  have gone there and picked up the patterns but   i was busy it was kind of on my mind but not in  the forefront and then the foundry had a fire   that i heard about a year or two later and  when i went there there was nothing left and   my patterns were gone so all that money i spent  i do not have the patterns this is a pretty happy   day i got back from the foundry this is a whole  bunch of engine engine parts i think i ordered   i got well i got 17 enough to  build 17 motors you can see all the   all the crank cases here and these are all that  there's there's bevel drives these are cam towers   and that these are the pieces so you got the  the right side case left side this is the bevel   drive that fits on there these are the cam towers  all the cam towers get made off the same casting   and this is the these are for the for the magneto  drive i needed to make an oil pump so i went on my   autocad and i i designed an oil pump and it got  made by southern cross leon he does nice work he   he also did the crank cases and i thought that the  oil pumps worked out really well but what i didn't   realize until we started up the motor much later  that the oil pump was actually running backwards   so i had designed it wrong i thought the oil went  in between the gears but it goes around the gears   so there went five grand those became paper  weights and i gave them away to friends this is   what the oil pump looks like inside you can see  how it's pretty simple well this is the old one   those are the gears so it's  actually three piece there's the   there's the inlet and there's the return and  the middle plate that goes in between those two   and this is what the newer the new the  version two oil pump looks like it it's   different this comes around a lot more because  everything had to connect so that the pump   went the other way that was a big learning  experience for me that's where the oil pump   sits it sits at the bottom of the beveled  chest i call this this is the beveled chest   and the oil pump sits at the bottom it's held in  with a couple allen screws old piston that's 1919   approximately and this is the new piston i  got it's uh a je piston made in california   you can see the difference this one is  made out of cast iron this is aluminum   look at the thickness of the rings these  are much much narrower and thinner rings   so engine design a lot has happened in  100 years for sure these are the flywheels   this is an excelsior flywheel from back in the day  it's you can see it's larger this is the flywheels   i got it's truett and osborne they're aftermarket  holley company down in the us and they made up   up custom custom flywheels for me because they  had a shorter stroke than stock usually usually   this hole is up here more but i got a bunch  made that were custom this is excelsior rods   these are carillo rods these are not cheap but  they're beautifully made it's called a knife   and fork you see how this is the knife it goes  inside the fork you know some of the v twins like   a vincent the rods go side by side but not these  ones these ones are in line with each other this   is a set a a couple sets of flywheels that i've  used on excelsiors and you can see the holes which   we use the balance here we're going to do a video  in the next little while and i'm going to show you   how to how to balance a flywheel that's what the  flywheels look like with the carrillo rods in it   it's a nice looking flywheel i i had to  get the shafts all custom made as well   the sprocket shaft and the pinion shaft because  i couldn't find anything stock that would work   and here's the motor i've been working on the  crank cases the bevel drive upper belt drive   the cam tires but you notice that i've got  spaces where the heads go and that's because   the heads took a lot longer than anything else  that's a whole other story and so we're gonna   i'm gonna tell you that story next episode  that'll be part two of this little series we   hope you have enjoyed learning a little bit about  excelsior motors and how i made these motors here   so thank you for watching mitch and i like coffees  if you buy us some coffees much appreciated   if you like the video please give us a thumbs up  subscribe take care see you next episode stay safe

Channel: paul brodie

Views: 266,294

Keywords: headtube, jig, fixture, alignment, frame building, framebuilding, steel, tig welding, tig, welding, lathe, metal work, metalwork, mill, filing, bicycle, custom, sunnen hone, honing, oxyacetylne, oxy-acetylene, surface table, brazing, rod, nickle silver, band saw, intake, manifold, inlet, aluminum, turning, grinder, grinding, belt sander, shop, motorcycle, triumph, tiger cub, vintage, excelsior

Id: m0JZvNiTFys

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022