Wednesday 4 February 2015

Primary drive pulley

Today, I got my motivation back and did some more work on the Yamaha Roadstar project. I received some time back the micro belts from SDP. They are a perfect fit, having the same width and pitch as the original kit part.



This is the original kit part - it is molded as one single part with the belt and final drive pulley, requiring painting in different colors to achieve some sort of realistic look. So I decided to make them as separate parts. I have machined the primary drive pulley out of 6061 aluminum. It was not necessary but I wanted to do it anyway, as a learning process. I will have to do it on the custom chopper so better practice with every occasion.

I had to grind a special grooving lathe tool for this job, but since I am planning to do more custom bikes in the future, I will use it more than once. This was the first time I have attempted to grind such a tool and I am very happy how it turned out.



Unlike the kit part, which is supposed to be painted and glued, the machined part will be secured with a micro bolt and nut. So next job is to machine a 2 mm bolt with nut.

Some more photos of the pulley and fit: