STRIPPED NAKED: PART 1
we took the bike apart and eric made a little video to show how the steering dampener and kickstand were very poorly applied to the FREEDOM or DEATH MACHINE.
also, as mentioned in the comments on the FREEDOM OR DEATH MACHINE RE-BUILD page by an astute (and ironically anonymous) reader, the front brake torque arm is dangerous and should have been in tension position (before the brake), not compression (behind the brake).
here is a photo of the ForD’s front drum brake taken on october 14, 2010 after it was “repaired” at limeybikes:
i have never pretended to be a builder. i am a writer and designer and have learned more about the mechanics of custom metric motorcycles in the past year than i knew for the first 40 of my life. i trusted people who were paid to do the jobs i asked them to perform professionally and in a manner which would ensure a safe-to-ride chopper. this was something each of them (matt at working man’s customs, chis at limeybikes, and jeff at “saint motorbikes”) told me the bike would be and how it was something they could do. even so, the night it arrived at the party, matt even told my woman “don’t let trent get on this thing until we fix it.”
today, i am unsure what was “fixed” by anybody.
after a month at matt’s, where he told me “i’m done with this,” because it was well beyond what he thought he was getting into, it went to limeybikes where chris charged $420 to fix a handful of still half-a*sed sh*t. three of the supposedly minor things he said he “made safe” were the kickstand, adding a steering dampener which did almost nothing to fix the flop, and the brakes.
chris the limey told me the brakes were “repaired” when i took the above photo of him when the bike was “done” in october of 2010. he also said the kickstand was good, but a week after the bike was taken from his shop it failed, due to the wobbly nature of it, which limey said was “okay,” telling me it was no big deal when i questioned him about it after he “fixed” it. thank *** the bike is a piece of sh*t, a perfect representation of everybody who worked on it.
evidently, the bi-polar monkey who “built” it did everything right and it is all my fault for trusting mechanics and fabricators to do what they said they could do because i got exactly what i asked for. whatever. f**k you all, half-a*sed, lying losers. limey has even threatened to sue me for libel with these posts. i bet one could shove a piece of coal in his a-hole and a diamond would get sh*t out a day later.
that’s not libel, that’s a joke at his incompetence. so f**k you again, chris. sue me, you rat-eating *******.
the best part was how matt and others told me chris was a “yamaha expert.” it seems this expert did not know the difference between a backwards drum brake and one that is properly installed.
initially, the drum was taken from a honda cb350 and modified to fit the stock xs650 forks and wheel assembly. i will spare you pix of the gory multiple spacers on each side and the sh*tty, wobbly fit of a makeshift axle, but here is what a proper drum brake looks like on a cb360:
here is another view. notice the drum is on the left side of the wheel and in the proper “tension” position:
had i slammed on that front brake, it would have snapped. what if i was riding with my girl? how badly injured would we be? would she or i have been killed, or just get half our faces shaved off? maybe we’d have only lost a leg or two.
now that the frame has been liberated from all the cool stuff that was on it, we stripped the paint and found….. surprise! bondo. tons and tons of it. guess what was under the bondo? tanks that were bought square and straight but were somehow turned into crooked, uneven, washboarded pieces of ****.
stay tuned for more damning evidence and again, f**k you, limey, matt and what’s-his-name from “saint motorbikes.” it’s my duty to inform everybody just how much you all suck, that i might spare somebody’s life.
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