my bike: wiring loom + frame/ fit

This week I have finally started on the wiring loom, a job I'd been putting off. To work on it I made a large clean work area to lay the loom out in its entirety. Using a foam clean and a rag I started just to clean up the loom and connections to see what repair work I need to do, thankfully the loom in itself has no issues apart from a bit of unravelling tape in some areas, some black electrical tape will fix this.

The clock unit is damaged and had been held together with some inner tube rubber and some dirt has got in to the speedo, thankfully I do have a replacement upper case for this already and I just found a replacement lower case on ebay so I will be able to completely repair this.

The other issue is the right hand indicator bracket which at some point has snapped off, these are discontinued and seemingly unavailable on ebay, so I need to fabricate a replica metal tab and weld it on to the stay to repair it.

The next job was to look at the exhaust which is currently mounted on the bike, the problem was that it didn't line up with the rear exhaust hanger (which is part of the frame). Firstly I wondered if the engine was mounted correctly, so I loosened the engine mount bolts and pulled it around, obviously nothing changed... so I re-torqued the engine mount bolts and had another think to what could be wrong?

Looking at the back of the bike it quickly became clear that the rear foot rest hanger was bent in, so I made lots of measurements and realised it was bent in by 25mm. With a dirty great big metal pole, lots of frame protection and some brute strength I pulled the frame hanger triangle out by 25mm and hey presto, the frame lined up with the exhaust and now looked square form the rear.

I would speculate that this part of the frame bent in when the bike was crashed on the right hand side in a previous life, as this part of the frame would damage it the exhaust was hit hard.

here was the problem, not detectable until I started to bolt things on again!

new gap!

all good again and ready for the next step

this image has the bodywork photoshoped on, just to see what it is looking like!

My Bike: Bodywork, bolts, wheels

Job 1 this week was to re-assemble the tail unit, this evolved re-riveting the internal metal support, re-fitting the seat lock, rubber grommets and re-fitting the indicator blanks.

The second job was the mask the spoke blades on the front wheel and have a go at painting the front hub.

the 3rd job was to install the new taper head races to the frame and fit the triple clamps. I used this Pyramid parts kit bought of ebay. The upper and lower bearings are different with the lower pressing directly on the the steerer, remember to fit the seal on first! Also pay attention to the lower race as it needs tapping inside the frame's head tube all the way to the frame stop, this way the bearing is in the frame and the seal works properly. I actually didn't use the supplied top seal and retained the dust shield of the original MBX headset, firstly it assembles better this way and secondly keeps it looking standard.

lastly I got some more bolts back from zink plating, so the nuts on the suspension linkage now all match!

My bike: rear suspension assembly

With the frame and swing arm back from powdercoating and all the suspension links and bolts previously done I thought it was time to get the back end together.
Firstly I wanted to get the Pro-Link decals on the swigarm while the swingarm was off the bike, to get a good positioning I just studied some original images. Next the swing arm bushes were put back in with plenty of copper slip and the swing arm offered up. The linkage was put in place as part of this has the swing arm pivot run though it, then lastly the shock was put in and all the nuts done up finger tight to check it was all correct. lastly I re-riveted the vehicle ID plate back on.

So far I am extremely happy with the results, although there is a small error that needs fixing... There are three nuts on the linkage that I mistakenly had re-plated silver, when they should be gold. I do have a couple of more bolts I want plating, so these 3 nuts will have to be re-done!

note vehicle ID plate

please excuse the grease smudges!

My bike: the frame is back from the powdercoaters

I just got the frame and some parts back from the powdercoaters, this is a bit of a landmark moment as although I still have some sub component restoration to do and the engine, everything from now is re-building.