Footrests - part 2. A third installment will be called for I think.

     Beer was good, I have a penchant for PBR, refreshing and tasty. So a few days later I get to designing and machining the foot rest nuts, for the other side of the rear-sets. You can see them below, My original design did not turn down the outer side of the nuts but the finish was clunky and, dare I say, amateurish, lacking in thought and refinement. S, after a little thought and some math, one prototype later, a finished design was settled upon. Off to the lathe.
     I had some hex aluminum stock, 3/4" across the flats, this was my metal of choice - mainly because it suited my needs, was free and is very easy to machine.

     Firstly, the holes for the frame mounts were drilled, tapped and counter drilled to fit the bike:

 

     An easy and straight forward task, KAWASAKI do everything in metric, I have an old American Sheldon lathe, acquired 6 years ago from the back of an old army service trailer in a junk yard. Dealer said if I could get it out I could have it (Oxy--acetylene torches, 5 ton army repair trailer suspended under a crane, July in Georgia and a near death experience). Bob's your uncle, I was the - much to my wife's delight - the proud owner of a lathe, albeit at the time in dire need of a lot or work to get it running. Once the holes were done, the overall depth being approx. 7/8", and the M8 X 1.25 mm tapped hole being approx the deeper 1/2" or so. All depths calculated and the drill bits marked with tape for ease of production. The bar was then turned to 5/8", to match the rear set bushed holes:

     Once this was completed, the stock was cut to just over an inch in length. Then turned to the required inch and then turned to 3/4", mostly because that was aesthetically pleasing to my eye. Then the ends had a complimentary angle put on them.

     Repeat four times and hey presto - securing nuts for the rear sets. Now, this is when, on further inspection, the rather nice racing foot pegs that Barry gave me do not fit the hangers. The space being 3/4" and the foot rest ends being 5/8" in diameter. As you can see from the picture below, some more engineering was demanded.

 I measured, re-measured and then got to work. As it turned out, the hex stock I have been using for the securing nuts fits the foot rests. I elected to use that as the starting point. Being all aluminum worried me to the point where it was decided that instead of just boring the aluminium stock out to 5/8", interference fitting the pegs and mounting into the rear-sets. although a nice solution, is inherently weak, being all aluminium. Ah-ha! I will produce a steel liner for the hex stock, interference fit that, then fit foot pegs into the liner, and then into the rear sets. I am a genius! So a steel sleeve was produced, forced into the prepared hex stock, with some metal epoxy - courtesy of Gorilla Glue for extra security. There will also be a cross pin when fitted to the bike, this is where the pegs will pivot.

     I faced off the piece and will let it  cure for 24 hours prior to drilling the cross hole for the fixing pin, machining the 45 degree angle to facilitate the rests moving up and back to horizontal, when i ground the pegs in a corner......

     The foot rest production so far shown above, not to shabby, very bespoke and, as it turns out, cost effective. I have about 2 1/2 hours vested in production and another 2 1/2 in mistakes and fuck-ups. Another hour or so will see them complete and mounted. More to follow in installment 3!