Immortalised in Print!

Update on the RG

Well at least with all this horrible weather, it has given me plenty of time in the garage! It snowed again today - the 25th of May! If I had to miss a years racing then this was the one - I don't think any race weekend has been completely dry as yet!

So I got the milling machine working to finish off my ride height adjuster for the RG, I was a bit tentative at first, but it works fine, still can't suss out how to remove the mill chuck inserts that hold each tool, at the moment I wack 'em with a mallet - not very good as they fall on the machine somewhere, I am sure blunting themselves in the process - note to self, must look that up on google.

I have now fitted the adjuster so that's job done (no photo yet). The other big job I've decided to tackle is fitting the bigger carbs that I bought second hand - TM34's, to the RG. In order to do this you need to open up the crankcase so that the admission hole is as big as the carb, I didn't feel quite up to this, so I have found a specialist in France who could do the job. Classic Racing Motos is up near Nantes (North West France). So I drove up on Friday (8 hours), to drop off the top crank case plus the cylinders and heads, as well as the carbs. Jerome is a fireman, and in his spare time he tunes RG 500's, he has a stack of them in his garage, and he does all the work by hand, in fact with a dremel, he reckons about 3 days to clean up the 4 admission ports, plus he will match the cylinders to the crankcase, and generally clean up everything so it fits nicely - he is an interesting bloke, with loads of stories etc... He will also provide some Marenello rotary disk covers which are oversized, again this should help with opening up to make the best of having big carbs.

So the bike is all over the floor again! When I took it down, I was happily surprised at the wear level of the pistons, cylinders compared to the last few times I have had it a part, I will probably change the rings as I have them already, as it would seem silly not to. I don't know wether to remove the cranks as this will disturb the seals, as who knows what crap there is in the bottom of the crankcase... we'll see.

I had to modify the inlet manifolds as the only rotary disk covers he had in stock were 70mm between bolt holes, and to wait for others would be end of July so out with the hack saw... As you can see my big radiator was looking messay, so I  spent a couple of hours straightening the cooling fins with a pen knife, a good snowy weather occupation!

Rainy weekend

Pissing down again, so thought I would change the chain on the Ducati and while I'm at it its the only bike in the garage without fresh oil in the forks.

The chain for reference has 102 pins and is a 530 pitch,  fitted with a quick change link, so it took me about 5 mins to thread the new one onto the old one and pull it through. A quick fiddle with the link and then adjust it to the appropriate tension. The rear axle move in a good centimeter so the old one was really knackered. 

Changing the fork oil was not really any more difficult, although goodness knows what size the allen key is for the fork caps. I had to use a smaller size and stick some thin sheet metal in to build it out. They weren't too tight fortunately.  The Ducati forks have drain plugs! After propping the bike up under the engine with some wooden blocks,  I released the drain plugs and let out approx. 230 ccs of grubby 10 sae fork oil, which was replaced with some Motul racing fork oil. Difficult to measure the actual fork level with the forks off the ground, so I simply added back 230 in each leg. The Ducati forks are 38mm Marzocchis, but the fork springs look like they came from oversize watch springs or maybe from a biro, they are about 20mm max outside diameter and these ones were 462mms long. I searched far and wide on the internet and in the workshop manual, but  couldn't find the free length of the springs, anyway I think a good upgrade would be some racetech emulators or different springs, anyway job done! Libby helped screw up the caps while I pushed against the springs thank goodness for helping hands.

I am going to fit 34mm carbs to the RG so I will stripping the engine to send of the top engine case to get it machined to get full benefit from the carbs. I am also getting bigger diameter rotary disks fitted which will really help it breath. Due to the extra width of the carbs I will need to go back to a standard fairing, with a seperate belly pan and side panels. I have already bought replacement bits from Poly26. The quality is ok, but I will need to get them painted up, so in the next few weeks I will need to decide on a new (or not) colour scheme. Suggestions are welcome! I have already got the carbs - second hand so I took them apart to make sure they were clean and ready to use. They are fitted with 240 mains and 25 pilots, probably a good starting point.They look new inside, but I will need to think about if I can use the standard thottle cables and choke mechanisms or not.

I am getting the engine work done by a guy in Nantes who seems to have a good bit of experience let's hope so!

Bearings...

Well in order to remove the knackered bearings from the suspension linkages you have to move the exhaust downpipes and I was kinda dreading it because they are typically well rusted up. I sprayed them up with penetrating oil a couple of times and left them overnight. In order to get at them you need to remove the water radiator which means I will end up changing the coolant as well - turning out to be a real service! The exhaust bolts all loosened really easily - great! I removed the final sleeve and removed the drag link completely. I managed to push out the two bearings in the drag link with the help of a g clamp and a suitabley sized socket, but the one in the drop link was completely solid, and hitting it with a drift and sledge hammer just ended up destroying it, so with all the needles out and bits of bearing all over the place the only way forward was with my dremel.

First off I used the grinder head and a mixture of grinding and cutting managed to liberate what was left of the bearing shell, so I now have all 3 bearings out and just need the postman to arrive with the bits.

I also took this opportunity to clean up my silencer and repaint the bracket that holds it to the pillion footrest. I will also clean up the rad a bit before reassembley.

Daytona - Rear end strip

So there are two classic problems on early Daytonas. The first is that the factory were trying to save time and didn't grease the rear hub sufficiently well, inducing some seized rear wheel bearings. The second was negelecting to grease the rear suspension linkages, again this leads to premature wear of the bearings and bearing surfaces.

As the weekend and the May day holiday were forecast bad weather, I thought it would be a good idea to strip the rear end of the Dayto and make sure that my bike was not affected.


Removing the rear linkage bolts was also difficult, so I left overnight after soaking them in penetrating oil. Oliver held the bike whilst I operated the wrench with extension bar, and they gave in the fight relatively easily. In order to remove the bolts and hence the suspension sleeves (axels), you have to support the swinging arm, which was easily done with a spare paddock stand propping up hub. A swift tap with a mallet had the rearest linkage apart (the one that goes thru' the shock bottom).

The right hand bearing was very notchy and the sleeve was quite marked, the left hand bearing and sleeve was in fine working order. Removing the next one connecting the drop link to the drag link, was also easy to remove, and again this time the right bearing was difficult to move and the right hand side of the sleeve was knackered.

I thought about just replacing the bearings as they are cheap, and then I got sensible and decided to order the bearings and sleeves.

Both linkage bearings are in the same position relative to the rear wheel, but the left ones are protected somewhat by the swinging arm, maybe that's why they wear first....

Anyway I have ordered the bearings on Ebay 20x26x20 needle bearings, and I have ordered the sleeves as in the photos from World of Triumph in the UK, we'll have to wait to fit them.

In the mean time in order to drift the old bearings out i will need to remove the rear linkage from the bike, which means I will need to move the exhaust headers, not looking forwar dto this as typically the header bolts are well rusty, and you can strip the heads - if you are not careful!

Stay tuned.