The Thrash in Miltucky- Part 1

Simultaneously while building the engine for Brando, I was also building myself a Yamaha twin for vintage dirt track racing this season, as well as updating Eddie Van Haulin to truly live up to the namesake...Here's the last nine months of some shop life in pictures.

Now back to some regularly scheduled programming and update on EVH- The front seats were replaced with a set of black leather "stow and go" captains chairs from a late model err, um, (dont really want to say it) minivan. They rock to say the least, super comfy, have seat belt receivers, they fold up, have armrests, headrests, slides and the recline. Super upgrade, they were brand new out of a medivan conversion place and were a steal. Also I updated the swivel pedestals to the leter model wide tube, lever detented style and made up some brackets to adapt the metric seats to the imperial pedestals.
 

 Next up was the miserable task of wire wheeling the floor of all the liquid nails. That dust got everywhere, the sheet was really doing nothing. Next was removing the paneling and finishing the floor, sealing the gaps to keep the exhaust out as needed and building some wheelhouse lockers.

The doghouse was also wire wheeled to get rid of the liquid nails on it. My original intent was to cover it with speakerbox carpet, but I couldn't bring myself to coat the damn thing with a different type of adhesive all over again, so I shot it with rubberized underbody coating.

Lockers. I wanted to have as much space utilized for storage as I could, plus I had a harebrained idea for a bunk set-up at the time.  (more on that later)
The lockers were framed out of 3/4" angle and are fully welded, but are bolted to the chassis for relatively easy removal.
Piano hinge- go buy it from Speedway. Its a great and affordable product-"Put racecar parts on everything,"
I always say. Plywood inserts that are upholstered in speakerbox carpet. 

Right side was the easy side, drivers side I made longer with two seperate lids, but the rear lid opens both and the front lid is independent.

 

 Welded some hardpoints to the bulkheads for anchoring D-rings, and also made the front panel in each locker a speaker carrier so the boxes double as enclosures.

The seats were a little low, so the easiest thing I could think of was to just use some rectangle tube and raise them up a few.

Welded in a gang-channel under the floor for the condor-style front wheel chock, easily removed by four bolts and it is the paddock stand in the pits as well. Fully rigged out with room to spare.

Vans look better when there's a racebike in 'em.
I will do a dump on the racebike build sometime soon. Thanks again for stopping by.