Progress! Sometimes it's a little abrupt. After years of having no time or money to move this project forward, I momentarily had a little of both. I was moving my workshop and had to decide what to do with the Unisport, sitting inside these last several years while I did nothing on the project, while the donor Burgman 400 sat in my driveway under a tarp, not ideal. So I found a local machinist w/ the framing experience I've been lacking, agreed on some details, and got to work w/ a grinder and a short stack of cutoff wheels. My machinist came and collected what was left, and just a couple weeks later (and some fun nights cutting metal and tacking pieces in his shop) I had a rolling chassis!
Sacrilege? What do you think? I've skipped the step of joining the Unisport and Burgman together as Unisport originally intended w/ the bike bolted into the frame. That was always gonna be long, heavy, and unwieldy (and never fit in my much smaller garage). Now, width is moving towards 5' and track is 7.5', that fits my goal of a small, stable vehicle with optional tilt feature. Weight is in the neighborhood of the 440lbs of the original Burgman, with more lightening and some additions to go, performance should be solidly ok.
I've cut up the main body piece, as well. Some day I'll make an enclosed body, for now the goal is a functioning roadster.
It looks like a vehicle now, but there are big steps to go:
- restoring the front clip (ie replacing 100% of the electronics and, cleaning up the metal, and restoring the old linear actuators)
- updating the front hubs w modern discs & calipers
- placing the radiator and gas tank
- connecting the bike controls & gauges & lights
- roll bar, belly pan, seat mounts and rear firewall
What's next? More waiting, really. I've cleaned away all the electronics from the old CB450 so just the tilting circuit remains. Over the winter I'll try to identify and find good replacements for all the components - mostly just heavy-duty DPDT switches that series together two 12v batteries and cross-wire the linear actuators so one side pushes while the other side pulls, plus some limit switches to stop you at max tilt.
Next post will be details of the front clip, I'd love help and feedback here, let me know what you think.
Also, apologies to anyone offended by the slicing up of automotive history - there are much cleaner Unisports out there, though none of them are on the road, these steps get me closer to having the old tech working again.
