Be there or be square!!

Can't understand why they missed my name out, but hey.....

Bought a lathe and milling machine...

Well, I have been layed up with a bad back for the last 2 weeks now, and some retail therapy was necessary, so I bought a lathe and milling machine. I have been umming and arrrring for the last couple of months (since the RaceHQ was finished). Everyone telling me to buy a second hand machine from a school or auction, but I really have come to the conclusion that the second hand market for suitable machines, doesn't really exist, or they are really expensive for what you get. So I have been looking around on the web, to see what was in my price range, and could do the job. Everybody also seemed to think that buying a combination machine was a bad idea, so here, I did take the advice and went for 2 seperate units.

I bought these machines :
Lathe
and this milling machine

As Libby said, if they are crap, then I can resell them easily on the web somewhere, as they don't seem to exist second hand.

From the bike perspective, I have finished changing the oil in the RG500 forks, although I didn't get around to re-installing them yet. Bad news is that one of the valve covers is STILL leaking!!!!!
Gonna have to try some gasket gunk or change my gasket supplier, the ones behind the inner covers were Marinello Engineering ones, but to be fair they seem good quality, and it is leaking past the rubber O'ring, so will add some gasket silicon. Next job is to get the heads off the RG, and change the rings and install the new adjustable ignition pickup which will fully enable me to blow the think up if I desire :-)

Hopefully I will be fully operational, as I have shelves, and a tool board to setup, plus making room for the new machines!

Speak again soon.

Fork oil RG500

Despite my back still hurting like $#*@, I had to get out and get something done, plus I needed to finish off cleaning the last exhaust, so I managed to fill the last pipe with caustic soda (it's looking a bit rank now...). Looking at the other pipes as they have dried, I think I'll have to get something to rattle around in the pipes to loosen the dried crap in the pipes, I have an old bicycle chain that might do the job.

Loosening off the forks went OK, and I removed them and drained about 400ml of oil from each one. The book says 416ml (SAE 10W) so I will leave them upside down over night to get rid of all the old stuff. Surprisingly clear colour, with little aluminium suspended in the oil, unlike the 350 which is always filthy. I also fitted a new Regina Chain purchased in the UK from Trialsbits.co.uk - cheap and cheerful with no o'rings (reduced friction).

Changing exhaust wadding

So I got on with cleaning out my exhausts and changing the exhaust wadding, as my RG has to go through the noise testing at 7500rpm, and I was on the 102db limit last year. It is really surprising coz it really doesn't sound loud at all, compared to some of the four strokes, and even the TZ's sound louder, anyway. The plan was to remove the silencers and fill the pipes with a solution of caustic soda. This stuff is really dangerous as apparently you just don't feel it on your skin and it burns, so to be treated with the utmost respect. As the powder disolves in the water it reacts with it and creates heat, so you have to add the powder to the water and not the other way around, otherwise you risk it spitting.

I attached a thick rubber glove to one end of the pipe, and then filled a pipe with the caustic soda, the idea is to use the glove to squish the liquid up and down to help it remove the carbon deposits. Unfortunately it's pretty difficult to manipulate and of course I spilt some over the bench vise, and onto the aluminium on the pipe.... tshhhhhhhh as it reacts with the aluminium.... quick chuck some water on it. Pheww.... all OK.. no damage but this stuff really cleans the wood on the bench!

I had made up 5 litres which is pretty much the volume of each pipe. Initially I kept it in the pipe a couple of hours, and then emptied it back into my bowl. I decided to leave it in longer, as although it removes the carbon deposits that are flaky it really doesn't do anything for the stuff that is baked onto the pipe. I think I would need to rattle something around inside to facilitate the removal of the baked on stuff.

Anyway I used a metal brush on the my drill to remove the layer of rust on the outside of the pipes, and I don't know if I will spray paint them again or just leave them with liberal coating of WD40, to be honest the first time it rains the paint seems to come off, so don't know if I'll bother.

Repacking the silencers went pretty easily. The old stuff kinda cracks off as it had hardened presumabley because of the heat, and I just cut a new length and rolled it in to place, I then pushed the carbon sleeve on to the baffle with a screwing motion to keep the fibre in place.

Next on the list, is to do the forks on the RG, and I have also received my static ignition adjuster and a couple of spare rotary disks, as I noticed that they are loose on the end of the cranks, the castellations seem to wear a bit on the rotary disks... I am not going to change them yet, I'll wait and see.    

Fork Oil Change - RD350YPVS

I wanted to increase the damping on the Gold Valves, the forks on the 350 still dive a lot, to do this you need to remove the fork springs, so an oil change was in order. Fortunately on the 350, there are drain plugs at the bottom of each leg, so with the front stand in place it was an easy job to drain the oil from the fork legs one at a time. You also need to remove the top cap of the forks in order to allow the oil to drain out. The springs are then easy to grab, with a hook, the gold valves themselves sit on top of the damper rods under the springs, so not easy to see let alone remove. I ended up with a bit of stiff electrical wire which I made a loop in the end of that would go over the screw on the top of the gold valve an hence enable them to be pulled out. It took me about 10 minutes to fish them both out, which was definately worth while as pulling the fork legs out would have taken longer.

I used the tuning guide on the Racetech web site here to tune the damping on the gold valves - I went for maximum damping with 7 threads showing on the end of the valve preload screw - probably a bit excessive, but I want to feel the difference and if I have to back off later then I will.

The oil level states 140mm on the racetech site, and I used SAE 15 oil, I made a mistake when filling the legs though as of course with the stand on the fork legs are fully extended and the measurement is done with the Gold Valve installed but the legs fully compressed.... derrr... waste of some oil.

I also noticed that my preload spacers were not exactly equal lengths so I ground off the longer one to make them the same. If I remember correctly I made them on a race weekend on a circuit, so not surprising thinking back!

Oil Leak fixed - perhaps....

You may remember eariler this year, that I was searching for a fluid leak on the RG500, after every race I was getting streams of oil coming through the fairing holes and although it wasn't getting on the tyres, it was getting embarassing having to clean the bike before each "controle technique". Anyway, the bikes been sitting in my new garage with the fairings off, and I noticed it was even dripping on my nice clean concrete floor! My initial throught was gearbox oil, but the leak was covering the front of the engine as well, and couldn't possibley work its way forward like that, then I throught it could be a combination of shit leaking out of the exhausts covering the front and a gearbox leak covering the back, with a smattering of carb blow back.

I couldn't identify where the drips were coming from, so I thought I would start her up and see if the added heat would give me a clue, anyway I couldn't start her up - I think a mixture of old petrol and not enough oomph in my battery eliminator, plus the very cold conditions....

After kicking it over for a while, I gave up decided to get some fresh petrol, and connect a battery, anyway when I came back to the bike after a couple of days, there were fresh drips, and they were definately coming either from the front crankcase (right hand side) bolt or from the rotary disk cover. Libby (sensitive nose) identified the fluid as premix - so we were onto something!

Anyway to make a long story short, there were some loose screws on 3 out of 4 inner disk covers, fortunately they had not loosened to touch the disks, themselves but my current thinking is that they were allowing premix to leak out.

My worry about this hyposthesis are twofold :-
1/. Why didn't my bike lean out and seize if I was leaking oil out, then air must have been getting in?
2/. Why didn't the outer covers, which were all tightly closed hold the oil in?

There was a large quantity of oil behind the only disk cover that seemed not to be leaking so I am fairly confident about my diagnosis, but still a little surprised!
I am in the process of replacing the gaskets and rubber seals plus loctiting the screws in - will update later when I've finished the rest of the winter build.

My 2013 Calender

After negotiation looks like I will be doing :-

- 23/24 March 2013 : Carole               RG500
- 6/7 April 2013 : Le Castellet              RG500/RD350

- 17/19th May :  La Haute Saintonge    RD350

- 1/2nd June : Nogaro                          RD350
- 6/7th July : Spa-Francorchamps         RG500
- 20/21 July : Le Mans                         RG500/RD350
- 3/4 August : Magny-Cours                RG500/RD350
- 7/8 September : Ledenon                  RG500
- 28/29 Septembre : Croix en Ternois  RG500

- 19/20 October : Le Vigeant               RD350

See you soon.