I put a couple of marks where the sides of the fender would have been and then using a cut-off tool I started removing glass, foam and wood until the entire section was opened back up. I also added more clearance on the sides of the fender as well. A lot of cleanup removing extra stuff that remained, I even removed some of the steel between the taillights that I previously installed as it was no longer needed, in the end I removed about as much extra stuff as I could and then used a bunch of bondo to help fill in any areas around the remaining steel and foam then used a single layer of 6oz cloth on this section. Here are a couple of pictures showing the results:

I also cleaned up the underside of the deck and put in a single layer of 6oz cloth underside the deck section, the sides and louver areas I will tackle another day as a lot more cleanup needs to be done there. I took a lot of care in laying up the glass and squegeed off excess resin and made sure cloth was pushed into all areas for maximum contact. If I am careful laying up all sections I may not paint the underside and leave the wood showing, it sure looks nice...

I also decided to move the side supports that I had partially put in. I cut them off and moved them back 2" from the front of the canopy. I needed to do this as they potentially could have caused interference when the deck lid was closed, now they provide needed support without complications. This helps to triangulate the canopy sides and keep them from being "floppy".

I think that even if I had done a good job of "wrapping" the areas below that I still would have ground it off - if nothing else but to get a nice level surface instead of a build up of fiberglass. The arrows below show the areas I am talking about:

At the same time I rounded the shaping sticks that are part of my structure. It would have been a lot of work to remove them as both the top and sides are glued and brad nailed to them, had I wanted them gone I would have had to grind them completely out and that is a lot of work...

Once rounded I used some bondo and created fillets along both surfaces of the shaping stick. I did this so that when laying down glass cloth it would get maximum contact.

I also decided to remove about 1-1/2" of the interior wood along the surface of the rear canopy that forms an edge with the chassis. I figure that it would be a lot easier trying to get a good fit between them if there was just the edge of the fiberglass to deal with rather than a wider surface. So I draw a line and using my pneumatic cut-off tool removed the 1/4" plywood along the line, shaved back the foam to the outside skin and ground the inside surface of the skin. I then laid up two layers of 3" seam tape into the cutout area to tie the outside skin to the plywood.

Shep said: "because of the way that the hatch is hinged, if you go into a very hard turn there will be a tremendous force that will be applied to the hatch sideways... To help alleviate this problem I have installed two Stainless Locator Pins in the front of the hatch that fit into bronze bushings on the chassis portion and extend about 1 inch".

In my mind I always wanted to put in latches but in the catastrophic event of an accident and rolling the vehicle, I wanted both the doors and the rear canopy to be locked to the vehicle and NOT flying around. Can you imagine what damage might occur by having this quite large body part flying around!!!

With the setup that Shep has he can put a single latch far back on the motorcycle chassis, with the Vortex unless additional framework is built the best that you can do is to place them at the very end of the chassis "pontoons". A latch can not be placed on the swing arm as this moves independently from the chassis/body of the vehicle.

These latches measure approx 4" wide, 1-3/4" tall and 1" thick.

What I plan on doing for the front locator pins is use some 5/8" dia. x 1-3/4" long stainless steel bolts and turn the ends down to remove the threads and taper the end of the pin. This way I can use a nut to attach them to a plate on the canopy, by making the mounting hole a bit larger it will allow me to provide some adjustment to help and locate them exactly.

I will also use a simple stainless steel plate with a 5/8" center hole and 4 mounting holes and mount these plates onto the chassis (similar to what is used for hood pins) to direct the pin into location. I might make a nylon insert for the locating plate to keep vibration to a minimum as well.

I swung by ArrowHead Machine Works and talked with Todd Deahl this morning on my way into work, he had some stock that I was interested in so I purchased it from him.

This head contact might be also be due to using an 11" rotor vs a 12" one, but regardless there is very little clearance between the bolt heads and the swing arm. The best answer is to use an offset brake rotor, by doing this plenty of clearance can be gotten for the bolt heads.

An offset brake rotor apparently is not a common item for motorcycles, and so far I have found a couple of Honda front brake rotors that might be suitable:

1982 Honda GL1100 Aspencade	1980 Honda CB750	1978 Honda CB400

The plan set calls for the aluminum spacer to be drilled using a 3.250" 5 bolt hole spacing. Above rotor dimensions are unclear but at a minimum they would probably need to have the mounting holes redrilled accommodate to the Harley belt pulley, in addition the aluminum spacer would need to be modified. The rotor for the CB750 and GL1100 appear to be identical. NOTE the CB400 appears to be a lot lighter unit as it does not appear to have the additional steel webbing that attach's the offset hub to the rotor, and thus may not be suitable for the weight of the Vortex.

In looking at Alex's Vortex I see that he used an offset rotor and in talking with him he confirmed that it came from a Honda front end, however the front end was not attached to a motorcycle so it was unclear exactly which model it came from.

Continued working on the inside area of the rear canopy. I got all of the inside areas finally glassed using a single layer of 6oz cloth, and diligently squegeeing to remove all excess resin. Birch plywood always has one side that is better than the other and I wish that I had been more careful to ensure that the 'good' side was in, as you can see one side shows some knots. Here are a couple of pictures:

Made up the delrin 'buttons' that I will be using for the front locator pins, still have to put in groove for C-clip to retain them, and make up the mounting plates: here is a picture of them:

I made the inside diameter of the buttons 1/16" larger than the pin diameter, my thoughts were to not make them too tight. Since the canopy is hinged the pins may need a little room as the entry angle changes slightly due to the rotation around the hinges. These buttons will be put into the holes on the locating plates and a C-clip will retain them. You probably do not really need them but I wanted to reduce noise from any potential vibration. Here are the basic dimensions for the buttons:

The other day I finally got the hinges that I had been waiting for and put them onto the rear canopy, then onto the back of the vehicle. I recessed them into the wood so that they were slightly under flush, this should give me around 1/8" - 3/16" gap between the canopy and the roof structure.

Once the hatch was on I saw a bit of a problem, with my glassing the canopy off the vehicle there was some "settling" on the side which the louvers mount onto. This settling caused the 1/4" plywood to bow slightly and now this area of the rear canopy is above the matching line on the vehicle. As a last resort I will have to cut off the side support "wings" that I glassed in previously, fix the bow (possibly use a heat gun and some pressure to remove the bow) and glass the supports back in. I guess that the lesson is that this should have waited to have been done after the canopy was mounted onto the vehicle.

Dustin is coming this weekend, Paul Schreiner from PS Composites is going to pick up his Vortex and do all of the glassing work on it for him. In addition I also hope to modify the tilt steering column for Dustin, he picked up a tilt/telescoping unit that I think was from a Toyota Celica, but in needs some work probably to shorten it a bit before it can go in. A tilt steering wheel is almost a necessity to make it MUCH easier to get into/out of the Vortex!!!

We tackled the inside of the front wheel wells in the afternoon, grinding entire area, putting in bondo into crevasses and making some fillets around the shaping stick. Afterwards we got one layer of glass installed on the inside area. Actually what made this job a relatively easy task is due to the fact that 1) I installed headlight "buckets" when I glassed the chassis and 2) my body was formed initially from 1/4" plywood instead of strictly foam. If you do the body in foam you have to glass the inside areas with more layers of mat/cloth, in my case the wood "backs" the foam so only a single layer of cloth is necessary.

The bolt holes will be enlongated slightly so that they can be bolted onto the 3-1/4" flat belt pulley and spacer. Once you do this it is important to be sure to put a landing onto the end of the aluminum spacer, this needs to be done because the inside of the rotor hub is larger than the axle tube. The rotor needs this landing so that it will turn concentricly with the rest of the axle. If this is not done you can easily have the rotor off center and thereby causing vibration as the rear spins.