freedom or death machine rebuild | post #4

STRIPPED NAKED: PART 1

we took the bike apart and eric made a little video to show how the steering dampener and kickstand were very poorly applied to the FREEDOM or DEATH MACHINE.



also, as mentioned in the comments on the FREEDOM OR DEATH MACHINE RE-BUILD page by an astute (and ironically anonymous) reader, the front brake torque arm is dangerous and should have been in tension position (before the brake), not compression (behind the brake).

here is a photo of the ForD's front drum brake taken on october 14, 2010:

i have never pretended to be a builder. i am a writer and designer and have learned more about the mechanics of custom metric motorcycles in the past year than i knew for the first 40 of my life. i trusted people who were paid to do the jobs i asked them to perform professionally and in a manner which would ensure a safe-to-ride chopper. this was something each of them (matt at working man's customs, chis at limeybikes, and jeff at "saint motorbikes") told me the bike would be. the night it arrived at the party, matt even told my woman "don't let trent get on this thing until we fix it."

today, i am unsure what was "fixed" by anybody.

after a month at matt's, where he told me "i'm done with this," because it was well beyond what he thought he was getting into, it went to limeybikes where chris charged $420 to fix a handful of still half-assed shit. three of the supposedly minor things he was charged to repair were the kickstand, the steering dampener, and the brakes.

chris told me the brakes were "repaired" when i took that photo of him when the bike was "done" in october of 2010.

although he and others told me chris was a honda and yamaha "expert," it seems this expert did not know knew the brake was on backwards.

initially, the drum was taken from a honda cb360 and modified to fit the stock xs650 forks. i will spare you pix of the gory multiple spacers on each side and the shitty, wobbly fit, but here is what a proper drum brake looks like on a cb360:

here is another view. notice the drum is on the left side of the wheel and in the proper "tension" position:

now that the frame has been liberated from all the cool stuff that was on it, we stripped the paint and found..... surprise!

bondo.

guess what was under the bondo?

stay tuned for more damning evidence!