As noted by Verslagen the battery sat on the rubber but was pulled back against the frame tubes behind it, away from the engine. Brackets installed above and below the battery serve as attachment points for stretchy cords. The battery, an Odessy dry cell type, is just resting and waiting to be mounted when REX is ready. It is a strong battery, made for the big twins, so it will spin a Savage really well.
Front forks and wheels, front and rear, are from early 80's GS 450/550 donors. Front wheel is standard 19" and rear is 16". The rear wheel uses the same rear brake system as the Savage but had a different stabilizing mount point (Savage has the slot on the brake and steel extension on the swing arm, while the GS had a hole/bolt set up), so all I did was pull the GS brake assembly and slide in the Savage assemably...exact fit; same pads and everthing.
Metzler 880's front and rear 100/90-19 & 130/90-16 tubless of course. Local independent Harley guy... one of the good ones ... "76 Cycle" in Chapin, SC ... specializes in the pans and shovels & such.
Anyway, he mounted and balanced the tires for me; said the rear tire is one of the extra reinforced types that required just over 100 lbs of pressure to make the tire bead "set itself" on to the wheel... will never come off unless hydraulic help is used, and that even if I have massive air loss the tire structure is so strong that I could run it flat for 50 miles or more with no problem. He has done it on his hulking road cruiser for 30 miles, which we all know weigh in at over 600 lbs, so on my less than 300 lb
grass hopper I could probably ride all day as long as I stayed below 60 mph.
The front wheel as noted has double discs, but the forks have just the one caliper. I will be watching ebay for another fork set, or single fork tube of just the bottom since that is where the caliper mount is located. Then I can set up the dual disc function.
Axle spacing is same on front and nearly the same on rear; I just pulled out the box with assorted spacers collected over time and worked it till it looked good. Very scientific approach
*** I must give Verslagen much praise for the tremendous help and guidance he provided during 2 full days ... nearly round the clock... in helping me do the final assembly stuff, especially the electrical which is my weakest area of all. We spent a lot of "QUALITY BONDING TIME" together working on REX and the SRX; which by the way refused to cooperate as well.
I invite him out to SC from CA for the Dragon ride, offering him one of my bikes to ride and then neither one will work. Oh man, I am bummed. He is just all cool, no fuss, just waits for me to say what we are going to do. My daughter offers her BMW to use and Toymaker offers his now old Savage as well. We are both saved and have a bike to ride. Lots of driving to get the BMW, but we make the ride just in time.
A better friend could not be found anywhere than Verslagen;
he is a good man. The 40 mm Edelbrock carb works fine with this setup; pvc 90 deg corner piece attached to rubber flange on engine, with rubber tube connector from pvc to carb which will be shortened later to decrease the carbs distance from the frame centerline.. I will be adding an additional metal brace to hold the carb in position. I have also modified an aluminum velocity stack that is now about 4-5" to be mounted on the carb, and will have a microscreen filter cover over the intake end of it.