Homemade Custom Motorcycle Battery Box

What’s up y’all? Long time no post. Sorry about that. Got caught up at one of those job things. Anyway…

Below are some photos of the battery box. After making a cardboard dummy and getting all the measurements correct, I jumped on the computer and used Adobe Illustrator to layout the design. I then printed it onto a mailing label and stuck it on some 1/8″ steel plate. Using the band saw I cut out the shapes. Like butter baby!

For the holes I just used the drill press and a stepped bit. A spray bottle and water helps to keep the bit and metal cool while drilling.

After the pieces were all cut and filed it was just a matter of tack welding and making sure everything was square. The angle magnets were a big help in positioning things for welding.

I bent up some aluminum sheet to cover the battery but I might not use it. It’ll either be polished aluminum around the battery with the outer box painted whatever I decide for the frame or just lose the aluminum and spray the battery black and chrome the battery box.

After some sanding and grinding it looks pretty good. Need to fill in some spots before it gets finished.

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Front Brakes

I am a true believer of, “buy the tool and do it yourself”. (I will get that metal lathe 😉 ) In this case it wasn’t really the right tool but it worked nevertheless.

My problem was I needed to remove some material from my brake bracket. The front fork leg and bolt were in the way of the position I wanted. I stopped by the local machine tool shop and picked up a milling bit to do some plunge milling on my drill press. I sketched out with a sharpie what I wanted to remove and clamped her down tight, making sure not to scratch up the chrome finish.

After patiently removing the material I sanded it smooth with a Dremel and like Jim Carrey once said, “LIKE A GLOVE!”

In these photos are JayBrake calipers and El Cheapo rotors from Ebay.

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Setting up the wheel spacers and brake caliper bracket.

Yup, I did it the easy way. I had somebody else do it!

I actually would have done it myself but the best way to cut the spacers are on a metal lathe, which I do not have…yet! A good way to have cut them would have been to use some PVC conduit until I got the measurements I wanted, then take ’em on over to the lathe.

Big thanks to the guys at Cycle Paint & Metal and Island Iron Motorcycles for helping me out.

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