26 Sep Hell On (Two) Wheels 12 – Box Social
Since we left you hanging earlier in the week, we’ll pick Hell On (Two) Wheels back up and finish off the current job.
Monday’s edition of HOTW focused on the creation of half of the underseat box. When we left you last, we had finished the brackets to hold the battery in place, but there was still plenty of work left to do. Seeing as how the right side of the box wasn’t the most intensive part of the remaining work, we’ll start with that today. Since the battery, ECU, relays and wiring harnesses are being stashed to the left, the right side’s main purpose is to hold the OEM tool kit in place. Since there will be a panel covering it from the outside, we planned on cutting the right side “wall” of the box to line up exactly with the frame.
Here’s how the above piece fits inline with the Vulcan’s frame, connecting to the black bar that bolts to the side of the bike. Like we said, it’ll be covered with a different panel, so having the box wall cut to the shape of the frame will allow for the most space possible when fitting your hand in there.
From there, we added another “floor” panel underneath the Vulcan’s soft tail adjustable strut, as well as another wall less than an inch from the one against the frame. As mentioned earlier, the point of this side is to fit the tool kit, which is quite thin but long. With this little slot in place, it’ll fit the tool kit exactly, leaving it no room to go bouncing around the bike, making all sorts of rattles and other noises.
With that slot out of the way (we welded it later, when the camera wasn’t present for shooting), we went back to the other side to get the rest of the wiring parts in order. First up, we created a slot for the bike’s ECU, which is essentially an aluminum bracket that holds the ECU in place via a set screw. As always, the point was to make sure that fitment was snug, yet easily worked on by a non-mechanic with few tools, but still didn’t create any rattles or other unwanted noises during regular operation.
With a little patience and a little filler rod, we had the first bracket in place to hold down the ECU.
Following the exact same procedure, we had a second bracket installed relatively quickly, again using a set screw to hold it firmly in place.
With the largest components accounted for, we went in and made a series of smaller brackets to hold all the relays in place between the battery and the other components.
With the wiring harness on top of the other parts, it’s a little tough to see the fruits of our labor, but there’s still a bit of tucking and wire connection work to do, so we’re not done with all that just yet. But we’re much, much closer than we were at the beginning of the blog post.
Next up, we’ll be finishing the bike’s exhaust, including a small bit of weld porn and a trip to one of our favorite exterior coating companies. Stay tuned! Soon enough, there’ll be a set of pipes in this garage loud enough to match Keller’s yelling voice.
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