Drilling Cradle for Oil Filter Mount

My 1972 has no oil filter, so I am looking at mounting one in the stock location at the rear of the cradle. The Old Britts website has some useful information on drilling the cradle to accept the stock: http://www.oldbritts.com/filter_mount.html
I also have the factory info on retrofitting the unit, with layout dimensions for the mounting holes.
In the Old Britts photos the cradle is out of the bike.
Does anybody know if it is possible to drill the cradle as per the factory specs without dismantling the bike?

Stephen Hill
Victoria, BC

If you take off the right side exhaust and Z-plate assembly you should be able to drill the holes if you use an extra long drill bit. I recommend that you drill the top hole first and then make sure the angle of the unit is correct for the hose clearance before doing the bottom hole, a couple of degrees rotation either way can make the difference with this clearance.

Yes, I easily drilled the holes in the cradle on my '69 without resorting to anything special with the complete bike together. Just make sure you have the holes in the right place, you can hold the filter assembly inside the cradle and kind of gauge it with your eyeballs, it didn't seem to be very critical on mine. I made it so it had a slight down slope towards the rear so maybe the oil didn't leak out so fast with removal. Just be careful screwing the bolts into the assembly, I got everything right, and then started them by hand and finished with a socket, unfortunately, I got one cross threaded and because the assembly is aluminum and the bolt is steel, I didn't know it was cross threaded until I noticed it never tightened, and the threads were all pulled out. Had to get a helicoil set. Bottom line is thread the bolts into the assembly by hand and make sure they are in correctly and don't over-tighten. I used a standard length drill bit and a milwaukee drill which has a rather large chuck with no problems.



Dave
69S