Someone mount that oil tank already!

I have a lot of bad habits. I smoke, I drink, I'm lazy, and the list goes on and on. One of my worst habits is that I will hem and haw over a decision for days, weeks, months.

They say that perfection is the enemy of good enough. I'm not a perfectionist, I can't be. But good enough isn't always good enough. What happens, is that I have an idea, then a little voice in my head will shut down my motivation and stop me from doing anything. What's really happening is that I know my initial idea isn't up to par with my vision. So, basically I will keep screwing around and circling the project until the better idea shows up.

Sometimes, this habit just makes me stressed out, and ultimately late. Other times, that little voice has stopped me from doing something that wasn't as good as it could be. In this case, something better came along, and I'm digging it. Let's take a look now, at the first stage of mounting my new oil tank into the Organ Donor.

The oil tank has three mount points. It will tie into the back bone here, and on the cross member under the seat. Drill guides help in these matters. If you ever need to center a hole through tubing, you should make one.

Drill guide. Here's the deal...get a shaft collar of the appropriate size. Line it up in the milling machine and bore a hole to fit a drill bushing. We have a few of these at the shop, we fit 1/8" drill bushings and use that to pilot the hole. Once the hole is through the tube, it can be opened up to final size.

A funny thing happened on the way home from the shop. One night, a couple of years ago, I broke my hard tail. I didn't even notice until the next morning that I had been charging down the freeway on a broken frame. What did I learn? Unsupported holes in a frame are dangerous. I now make tubes to weld into the frame.

Tubes in place for the back bone. These will be welded in, then ground to their final height. I'll give you a little more detail below, as I cut into the cross member.

Now for the cross member. I have to offset the tank slightly in the frame, and the frame itself has a bit of offset. In other words, these holes aren't centered. Here, I have laid out where the holes will be drilled for the tank mount. The crescents on either side represent where the seat posts will be welded on.

The drill guide is next to the point where I want to drill. I have center punched the location that I want to drill. From here, I can slide the guide over and use the center punch to line up the guide.

This is how it works.

Sleeves in place.

Another view of the sleeves.

That's as far as I got yesterday. I would have done a little more, however, I didn't realize that I was out of 1/2" stainless bar. The mounts for the tank will mostly be made from 3/8" stainless, and the mounting hardware will be button head cap screws. I need the 1/2" to make some nuts. This will make more sense during the week when I have the parts machined and mocked up onto the bike.
Stay tuned for part two!