RG 500

Well I made a couple of air filters from a clothes drier filter. I tried the bike at Ledenon on Saturday but it was running miles to rich, I could just about get into power band but really high and with zero mid range.

I didn't really notice any change due to new ignition map, anyway I decided to go down on the mains. So all mains were set to 220, the next run was much better until one of the filters came away and was flapping loose onon nr. 2 cylinder. I thought I had done a piston through leaning off nr. 2, however returning home, the spark plug looked rich, so I decided to redesign the filters so each carb. Has it's own filter held on by tie wraps!

I wanted to richen up the needle but I was on the highest clip setting, so I went back up to 230's on the mains, but put the needles on the middle clip. We'll see how this goes next outing.

Daytona

Changed rear tyre S22 Bridgestone. F#€king brilliant but doesn't last long!

115K kms

Side car troubleshooting

Well I have my first sidecar in the garage this week! Monster of a thing, I have had to reorganise the garage to get everything under cover.

The bike is a 1990 XJ 900, which doesn't run after 10 or so Kms. Initially thought it was a petrol related issue, vacuum operated petrol tap or breather so that lot got cleaned up. But after running the bike for a bit, it soon went onto 2 cylinders - 1&4 had stopped and I had to get a tow home. What an experience driving a side car - I think the tyres need a pump as the steering was so heavy!

Anyway I diagnosed an HT coil that feeds both 1&4, measuring the low voltage side of the coils they were both out of spec. So I ordered a second hand pair, they are not yet here, so we will see.

Daytona fork seals

Just for reference the left hand fork seal had blown on the Daytona, so being a responsible mechanic I changed them both out, after having tried to clean out the seals using one of those plastic slidey things (fail).

I put about 580 ccs of silkolene 10w oil in each side with focus on the air gap as per the manual.

Daytona Front brake pads 114563 kms

I noticed a couple of months ago that the front brake pads were not wearing evenly on the dayto so at that time I removed the pads and pushed the pistons out (a bit) to clean off any crap so that they would all work optimally. But one of the pads had been used up almost to the metal, so despite putting them back in, I knew that one day soon I would be changing them again. So I ordered up the same brembro red pads and set about changing them. I now have a tool to hold the pistons back, I could concentrate on cleaning the pistons on one caliper whilst the other caliper was being held by the tool. On the left hand caliper there was a piston that was particularly sticky so they all got a good clean but I will have to keep an eye on the pad wear to make sure I don't miss something.

I had to remove some fluid from the master cylinder reservoir to accommodate the pistons right back in, so I managed to hoover up some crap with my syringe!

Now I need to bed them in.

The other thing I tried to do this weekend, was to clean out the accumulated crap in the fork seals. I don't know if you have seen these "tools" which are a thin piece of plastic with a hook shape on one end. The idea is to insert the plastic (hook end) inside the fork seal the hook shape then deploys and you move it around the seal to remove the crap. Well I watched a viedo on youtube and got to it, although in hindsight I think the mistake I made was not relieving the weight off of the front end. Maybe I'll try again when I get another freebie. Anyway you remove the dust cover and then push the plastic tool into the seal, well this point didn't work too well, as the plastic was not rigid enough and it bent and folded and once folded it could no longer perform it's task.I did manage to get it in at one point and removed some dirt however the side that is badly leaking, didn't work, so it looks like I will have to change the seals. Am seriously considering buying some Triumph branded seals as these Athena Pyramid ones don't seem to last long. I think the ones I have ordered this time are from Tecnium (piston makers from Japan) so we'll see how we do this time around! For info the last time was Pyramid seals which I only change one side (right side), and bingo this time it's the left side that is leaking so. The RHS seal has lasted almost 4 years, so I s'pose that is not that bad!

Anyway disappointed with the tool, now not so disappointed with after market seals! Both are ordered so will be changed together I will update the blog when I have done the job.

Daytona clutch switch, Light switch and others

Old and new connectors exactly the same except for the colour

OK so the 2004 Daytona has no light switch, as the lights are permanently on, they switch off when the starter is pushed but they draw considerable current from the battery before that, which I have always thought is crazy. As my battery is getting a bit weak I wanted to give the maximum current to the started motor on start up so I thought I would replace the new type (no light switch) with an old style one with a 3 position light switch. As you can see the loom connector is the same (except for the colour), however on the 2004 bike the clutch switch is wired directly onto the loom, there is no connector, whilst the old style one has a 3 pin connector shown below.

Inside the clutch switch just 2 wires

 The picture above shows the inside of the clutch switch as removed from the clutch perch, it just pushes in and out and you can see the small catch that holds it. There is a small hole in the clutch perch if yours doesn't want to come free easily.

The clutch switch connector from the "old" commodo with 3 wires

 Above is the clutch switch connector from the loom side with it's 3 wiresI have read that the third middle wire does serve some purpose however it is unclear to me. So I cut off off this connector and fitted a couple of bullet connectors to the yellow/black and black wires and taped up the middle wire.

 The rest is simple plug and play, which is what I did, after having cleaned out the "old" switchgear with a bit of WD40. All works and now I have a fully functional light switch, just need to remember to switch it on and off now!

Removed this connector and replaced with 2 bullet connectors

Added some carbon fibre wings

The photo above is old old FZR fairing to whihc a added a couple of carbon wings to the broken parts and which I will add into the package of "to be painted bits"

Update

Well just thought I would post as it's a quiet Sunday and ages since I wrote anything.

From a technical perspective here's the list :
Had the Ducati rev. Counter restored and it came back beautiful from Peter Bond in the UK. Not cheap but good. The needle still vibrates a bit, but I think it's as good as it gets. Also changed oil, and filter I used 15W40 mineral oil. I also repainted the frame under the rear master cylinder, which must have come in contact with brake fluid as it was rusting a bit.

I am in the process of redoing the fairing on the FZR, I have 2 repaired side fairings that have been primed and the rear side panels. I have 2 nose fairings both a bit broken. The one that Carly broke, has the least damage so I got my soldering iron out for a bit of plastic welding. Which went quite well,I managed to weld the inside and outside and used tie wraps as filler rods. I fibre glassed over the inside of the cracks and filled a hole with fibre glass and gelcoat which isn't really solidifying, I will wait.

The Daytona was the last bike to be used before the shutdown, so I cleaned it yesterday and touched up the frame wheels where paint has been chipped off. I have this silver paint of a well known brand which is great! And leaves a good finish.

I am starting to think about how to convert a clothes drier filter into basic air filters for the RG, but so far little creativity is abound!

I cleaned the garage floor so all the bikes were out on a splendid sunny day.

Peugeot 125 T51

I have been working on a Peugeot two stroke from 1953. The points needed changing and the clutch wasn't right.
The timing is relatively simple to do with a dial gauge giving TDC, and then working back 4.5 mms to the point at which the points are just opening! Then setting the arrow on the fly wheel to be lined up with the stator arrow and good to go. On this particular fly wheel there is no Woodruff key so just screwed up on a tapered crankshaft, the customer asked me to put a couple of drops of loctite bearing stuff on it to prevent any slipping.

The clutch is extremely light and made of bronze and steel plates, alternated on the end of the crank. The previous owner had added a bronze plate, which my customer had removed. During a test drive pre disassembly, the clutch was slipping alot so I decided to put back the additional bronze plate. So the bike ended up with 12 plates bronze and steel, which gave the clutch a much better feel and seemed to transmit the power a little better.

Inserting bearings

I had magnificent plans of cooling the bearings and heating the suspension links, however all went to pot when I had a 20 minute phone call in the middle.

In the end I repurposed the puller I had made for another job and successfully got them all in place.

Daytona suspension linkage bearings

Internal bearing puller

Just a few photos to help me remember what I did for the next time! The bearing puller worked but only after a night in the freezer, then I heated the outside hoping to create some temperature difference to break the "seal".

Full complement Vs. Not

I will only take full complement needle bearings shown at top, these would  have been the ones I didn't swap out last time versus the lower one whihc was replaced in 2013. To be fair the bearings all seem to run OK, but all of the axles are marked.

What gets changed minus 2 seals

Showing the marks on each of the axles the bearings and seals that are going in the bin.

The 2 link piece, easy to remove bearings from the RHS bit and difficult from the LHS bit

So to remove the bearings from the ally piece was quite easy with a G clamp and socket, removing the bearings from the steel bit was a lot more fun, involving freezers, heaters and big hammers!

Silencer and link pipe cleaned up

 The silencer and link pipe came up well, the build quality of the scorpion titanium silencer is really quite good although it does mark quite easily.

Daytona suspension link bearings

So I looked at these and changed some in May 2013, thought I would take a look to regrease and see how they were doing. We'll they are all knackered, here's the story.

You remove the rear wheel and then get a17mm socket on the link bolts which turned out really tight, I used penetrating oil and then the rattle gun on the nuts which worked in the end. To remove the bolts you need to remove the silencer and then remove the lower exhaust header bolt and push then header slightly to remove the last bolt.
The axles were all well marked and need replacing, and one is specific Triumph, so 55 quid on a piece of hardened machined steel ordered from world of triumph No. 2, 7 and 10. I ordered full complement needle bearings and seals from 123roulements in France all together about 200 euros!

A word about the bearings, some people (eBay, Sprint manufacturing etc..) sell kits for this however I didn't find one kit that came with the full complement bearings, that means no space just needles in the carrier. So beware of you pay less you will need to do the job more often. Not full complement FYI.

You need to pull one of the axles out I used the following bolt and old bearings to pull the axle out (photo).

The old bearings can be pushed out using a gclamp and socket however the ones in the horizontal link are a bugger! They are in the freezer at the moment and I will heat the outside later with a heat gun to try and remove them. I ended up with a Dremel last time but you never know!