Hey guys, updates here. My wife wanted to get to bed early Saturday evening, so I went out to the shop to try to make some progress on this.

I decided I was determined to find/make a temp axle rather than wait to use a friend’s lathe. I grabbed every piece of pipe and round scrap I could find until I found an old galvanized pipe that was close to the right diameter. I used my belt grinder and got it to a workable diameter and also took the coating off of the area I’d need to weld. I also popped my axle plate stock into the bridgeport and milled it to the correct thickness, then called it for the night.

The next morning was rainy and I felt pretty lazy. Decided I needed to do something though so I went over and looked things over. Decided it would be cool to get the swingarm off which meant finishing the jig, so I started on that. Used the belt grinder to get the vertical piece close in height then I filed the rest of it in. Popped everything into the right place and welded it up. It looks a little goofed and crooked, but the axle is perfectly straight and right where it belongs which is the only thing that matters. I’ll never use this jig again and I’ll just be cutting it apart after to be used for something else someday.

With that done I got to cut a bunch of junk off which was cool.

One of the next steps is making the axle plates. I ordered the 13/16 endmill I needed (got a ball end because it just happened to be the cheapest). None of my endmills will plunge, so after marking out the location of the slot and lining up my y axis in the middle I just drilled through. Then plunged with a 3/8″ endmill since the lack of cutting edge in the middle didn’t matter. Then I just milled the slot in .100 increments. Then I did basically the same with a 3/4″. The 13/16 I plunged full depth and did the slot in one pass for uniformity. Came out great and the oem tensioner fits, so we’re good!

Next steps include coming up with the axle plate design and cutting them apart/shaping them, figuring out exactly how I’m cutting the stock frame to add my new tube, and bends.