3 November:  Just down the street from me is a motor cycle repair shop.  For way too much money I get the chain shortened.  I reinstall the shortened chain.  I have enough of this together to a least fire up the bike.  I get some gas and mix it with oil.  Pour it into the tank and get ready to rock and roll.  Just a little pedalling and the engine fires up.  I zoom down the street.  Wow this thing is fast!  Did I mention I had to detach the rear brake to reinstall the rear wheel?  I forgot to reattach the brake.  Stopping was a bit of an issue with only a front brake.  My neighbor was out and he came over to critique my work.  I blame him for the whole thing anyway.  He tells me the front engine mount is not going to work out in the long run, that the chain needs to be straighter between the wheel and the engine.  He makes some recommendations for how to adjust the chain alignment, which I take to heart. bike engine bracketThen he says he has the solution for the front engine mount. He goes in the garage and come out with a "T" bracket that I can bolt up the engine with.

4 November:  I go vote.  After that I commence to pound on the "T" bracket from my neighbor to shape it to fit my configuration.  Once I have it shaped properly I pull the engine out, drill a couple of holes in the frame add in the new front motor mount and reinstall the engine.  I pull the rear wheel and get rid of the thick rubber gasket holding the sprocket on to the wheel.  I replace with a much thinner vinyl and neoprene gasket that I have made from stuff in the garage.  Now the chain is aligned properly.  I take the shifter off my old bike and attach it to the Skyliners handlebar mount.  I have to move the gas tank back about  2 inches so that I can move the lever.  Everything works out and I take the bike on its next road trip.  About 2 miles to my brothers house.  Yes, I did remember to hook the back brake up before  I got on the road.

5 November:  I  am concerned about the chain tensioner.  It just does not seem to ride right.  It looks  like it is going to move and get jammed in the spokes or just stop working.  I remove the tensioner and the chain.  I remove a set of links from the chain and put the chain on without the tensioner.  It is a tight fit but it works.  I need to find a half link for the chain to get this to work right.  But for now it works.  Now this chain is not for a bicycle and it is not for a motorcycle.  So finding a half link is not going to be that easy.  Meanwhile the bike works.

7 November:  A trip to the motorcycle store (Screwy Lewy) proves fruitless, but I did get my nephew a gift card for his birthday.  A trip to a lawnmower repair store gets me the half link, or at least I think so at the time.  I did get a new primer for my lawnmower which will sure help with getting my mower started.  The half link is too big for my chain.  The pin doesn't fit with the master link for my chain.  Drats.  I did manage to figure out how to mount the tensioner on the rear fork and have it not move.  I also ran across another solution for the tensioner on the web, if plam "B" doesn't work out.  Tomorrow I will try a different lawnmower repair shop to see if they have the right link.  I would hate to have to order one on the net since shipping would be more than the cost of the part.

8 November:  Well it turns out that the Lawnmower shop is closed on weekends so no link for the chain.  Book reading is a good thing so I read a book instead. It was a "Western" not my usual reading

Part 3