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Post by JonW on Sept 29, 2011 13:34:50 GMT 1
Good call, cheers for that. I hadnt thought about tidying up the head welds as yet, ive been flat out since i got the head back on the other stuff, but yep, i reckon youre right. tho it is pretty hidden behind the rad, under the tank and between the plugs lol! Also was only part joking about the cover... if people want to make me an offer then they can. bear in mind its got to be posted from Aus and whilst it looks and feels unused (the bolts under the seat had defo never had brackets on them so i dont reckon its been used on a bike, but maybe on a display?) there are some marks to sort out, some look like pen marks (some are pink maybe when it was in a sale at the bike dealers)... anyway, pics below.... Shows tide mark where it was obviously wet at some point, seems fine tho, and the foam is the same spongey stuff in that area as in the rest of the cover. The coloured blobs and the bits hanging loose are old glue from the original factory fitting back in the day, not stains or damage. ...and whilst i was looking at it i spotted that it looks to have had some restitching on the seam on the top of the front faced edge (hidden by the tank) which has come away, and that should be fixed by resewing on the inside edges not thru the outside anyway of course. I just unpicked some of the amateur tacking style stitching to see what the issue was and its some failed stitching on the inside, and not a rip. I would think an upolsterer would fix it in no time. Anyway, PM me offers if people want it, its NOS, just needs some work...
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Post by lb on Oct 3, 2011 10:49:21 GMT 1
Sh!t Jon,that welding.......what the hell they use? Id be spitting (metal) chips at them for warping a brand new head. Me thinks that head will be a world of hurt. The Athena kit I just bought comes with 2 heads,jfyi :-)
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Post by JonW on Oct 3, 2011 22:48:05 GMT 1
Sh!t Jon,that welding.......what the hell they use? Id be spitting (metal) chips at them for warping a brand new head. Me thinks that head will be a world of hurt. The Athena kit I just bought comes with 2 heads,jfyi :-) Not much anyone can do i guess, tis done now. Its not massively warped, just rocks very slightly when on a flat surface. I'll see about getting it faced, or will just bite the bullet and get a billet YPVS head from Wicked.
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Post by JonW on Oct 3, 2011 22:49:35 GMT 1
Uploaded with ImageShack.usI did my transfers by hand with small files Blimey! that would have taken ages! eeek. There was a lot of metal to be removed on my cases, i reckon id still be filing if id gone that route.
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Post by JonW on Oct 7, 2011 13:31:35 GMT 1
Busy week having man flu and working on other projects this week really... mostly building up some more of my restoration of the 1974 Honda MT250, which had a quick burst of activity at the weekend and suddenly got much closer to being finished after I finally got the front end on since I gave up my search to source new head bearings, basically no one has any that fit my frame, hmm... The old ball units were fine, but it made sense to fit new up-spec ones when doing this much work, and that messing around delayed the project by months, all for nothing. The MT has had its wiring loom cleaned and repaired, the electric ancillaries re-fitted, the brakes sorting out, the seat fitting, the clock mounts re-newring, the front and rear lights refitting plus all the messing about with all those wiring connections, the engine has been fully rebuilt with new bearings and seals and fixed a mistake in the gearbox from a previous owner, it also has a rebored CR250 top end and a super rare Bassani pipe added... And a whole load of new or cleaned and painted/powdered parts fitting. And now we basically have a bike... Anyway i started another thread on it in the non LC part of the forum if youre interested... rdlccrazy.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=chatt&thread=12357&page=1So... Because of that, the LC421 project continues much more slowly this week... The seat has now been glued, the vinyl had set nicely into shape and I was able to pull the lowest seams a little further round to hide the stitching so it was then sitting perfectly, which meant I cold now stick it down with contact adhesive, I use stuff designed for shoes, that way it solid and also water resistant. Its really good to have that done and now stored in the spare room. Last week I helped a mate with some projects and whilst there I raided a his 'alloy stash' to find something to act as a mount for the rear brake master cylinder, since neither the LC or the Raask rearsets were designed for a rear disk brake setup. I spent quite a while checking if what I had might work as a solution to get that mounted and it seems like with a bit of work I might get that done. In the meantime I did cut out some of the inner mudguard to alloy the swingarm to move up where it hit that part, as shown in an earlier post. And.... I think ive finally got the last of the missing RGV parts... Hmmm... (Here follows a little advice for anyone wanting to do any conversion work) Buy a complete bike and sell on the bits you don't use, never buy parts of things as you will spend a long time and a lot of extra cash locating the last of the bits if you do. The biggest missing part was the rear brake assembly, and those for the VJ22 are hard to find, seems its not used on any other bike. Grrr... Anyway, the last parts ive had to source were an OEM Suzuki RGV speedo cable (the Yamaha ones don't fit at drive on the axle) and the hoop-like bracket that fits under the front mudguard. Luckily Deet at RGVSpares.com is a good guy and has been very helpful with this stuff as I don't (well... Didn't!) know much about RGVs. Whilst this week I got some more small parts, Im still waiting for a few things to arrive... The Swingarm is at powder and the bearings for it and the wheels are en route, along with the brake disk bolts and some other parts. So its time this week to look at building the engine if I can find a few hours free and also clear off the other bike parts from my bench.... Fingers crossed! Still to buy... Brake disk for the rear and then with the bearings fitted and a sprocket on it, I can get my rear wheel balanced... so still a lot to do...
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Post by JonW on Oct 11, 2011 0:58:40 GMT 1
Not a vast update, but i get my powdered parts back today so wanted to be ahead of the game on fitting the swingarm when it comes back. So the next thing once I pick it up is to make sure all the pivot parts fit properly in the frame so i can fit it easily when the bearing arrive. I already had the pivot end of the swinger cut down to 197mm (this will make sense later when you read on) by having the machine shop take the required amount off of each side equally to achieve that dimension when they were welding on the shock mounts to the swinger (they had to do that as they used the LC frame as a jig for the mounts), that way the wheel stays centered, hence also why I test fitted it before it went to powder, it would be very annoying to have to adjust it further once you spent money on powdercoat etc. But that's just part of the puzzle... The RGV swinger pivot pin itself is much thicker than the LCs, so there are some sleeves (they fit inside the part No. 6 in the Suzuki parts diagram below) to go in there to take up the gap between the LCs pivot pin and those original suzuki collars that fit inside the bearing, and these were supplied by NK Racing. The next bit that takes a bit of measuring and cutting is the tube in the middle of the swinger (No. 4 in the diagram) as the swinger pivot itself now less wide, so we need to make sure the width across the bearings/sleeve tube are also reduced in line with that measurement. The tube sits between the bearings and stops the OEM Suzuki collars (No. 6 in the diagram) that are inside the bearings from falling inwards when you do up the pivot bolt and actually form the pivot shaft itself, in the same way that the inner races of wheel bearings need the collar in the middle of a wheel. So... Since we've cut down the swinger, we now need to reduce the width of the collar as the bearings can only stay the same size. What is worth noting is that the area where the bearings sit is in a nice deep recess on each side so at least we don't need to scallop out any material to get them deeper than they sat originally. The width between the frame spars of the LC is 200mm, and we cut the the new swinger down to 197mm. The sleeve (No. 4 in the diagram) plus the OEM Suzuki bearing collars, think of them as the inner races, (No. 6 in the diagram, part number 61251-17C00). Have to total 197.5mm to distance themselves slightly out of the swingarm itself so it doesn't bind when moving up and down, then with the two OEM suzuki dust caps (No. 8 in the diagram) fitted we get 199.5mm, as they measure 1mm each... Or what we call 'a perfect fit in the bike'! (FYI the OEM suzuki washers, No. 7 in the diagram, are not used) That's not quite all the story tho, as mentioned earlier, NK supplies two small sleeves to sleeve down the bearing inner races (No. 6 in the diagram) to allow the fitment of the LC's swinger pivot pin, these are slightly longer than the Suzuki inner race collars as they also slide in a little way into the spacer tube, this holds everything together when its being done up. The NK parts are precision engineered to be a sung fit in the Suzuki inner race collars, but not quite so tight in the sleeve. So.... NK sleeves in the freezer and warm up the OEM collars... Then press home... Eeek. I'll let you know how that goes... Here is a photo of the parts mentioned above: Starting from the left; Cut down inner tube, Suzuki inner race/collar (No.6) and then the NK spacer tube that fits inside No. 6. So I used pretty much all new parts for this work... Personally I like to do bearings only the once on parts like this which are of course safety items and buried deep within the bike when it comes time to do them its always a pain... so at the very least I decided to replace the bearings, NK said I could reuse them, but why would you when they cost £6.50ea? Lets face it with parts you buy like this, you don't know their history and mine didn't look like the grease was very clean and new. Anyway I broke one getting it out... Which I sort of assumed I would, its a wide bearing in a steel cage that's been sat in alloy for years... So the new bearings, I didn't buy them locally... In fact they came from Marksman in the uk... Cheapest I could find with a google, even with post to Aus via a mate. Aussie bearing places think bearings are made of gold/Platinum or unobtainium it seems... Hmm... I also bought new collars (inner races) from Suzuki. I didn't have any with my swinger, and always feel that with parts like this that it's good practice to buy new inner parts of a bearing where you can if they are not huge money. I bought the from PowerParts Plus in the USA, cheapest I could find with a google of course. Arrived really quickly too. The dust seal end caps I had were damaged, and may not even have been from a VJ22, but luckily a mate had a brand new set still sealed in the suzuki packaging in his 'spare seal box' so I scored those. A real bit of luck! The only part I didn't renew was the sleeve from the center of the swingarm. I will admit that I had damaged the ends of it when whacking the recalcitrant bearing out, but the worst end was the one I was going to cut off to get the length right anyway. So, after dressing the marks out of the other end I cut it down with an angle grinder in an aftermarket chop saw setup I bought from Aldi of all places, it worked well once setup to right angles, but took a while as I guess the sleeve is hardened. Here is my grinder setup... cheep n cheerful, but actually worked really well for this. One thing I have noticed in the pics I was sent by friendly forumers when I requested as many as I could to show the welders, is that often the shock brackets have the NK logo CNC cut into the upright plates, but not on mine... Maybe he only does that on the ones that are actually welded up by him? Shame tho as it was a nice detail on some really nice kit, and did of course let people know the conversion parts came from him. I also assume it would have been good advertising too and simple to do on all of them on CNC but there you go... I will say again that the NK kit is well thought out and that Nigel himself has been very helpful with this conversion since he supplied me just the parts I needed. Thumbs up to him!
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Post by JonW on Oct 11, 2011 9:29:46 GMT 1
Interesting, Mine are tight as anything. Wonder if your inner sleeves were worn or something?
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Post by lcowner on Oct 11, 2011 9:32:27 GMT 1
looking good john i persumr he doesent want to put his name to the brackets as the fitting,alignment n welding is outa his control ,can u pm me sum photos of the ride height ajusters of the brackets please if its not t much trouble?paul
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Post by JonW on Oct 11, 2011 9:50:52 GMT 1
Thanks mate, I'll have to take some and will put em up here so everyone can see em. You could well be right, and i get it, but does seem a shame. So.... ive been to the powdercoaters... he handed me this... I told him 'Thats's not mine! Mine is silver!'.... he didnt look amused... Just need to have my bearings land and i can build up the rear end!
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Post by lcowner on Oct 11, 2011 10:04:35 GMT 1
cool what else apart from the brackets needs doing ,swing arm pivot needed to be machined each side to get it to fit the lc frame?
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Post by JonW on Oct 11, 2011 12:31:48 GMT 1
er, read the bit i wrote above (reply 99 at 12:58am)
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Post by lcowner on Oct 11, 2011 13:51:25 GMT 1
sorry dident get a chance to read it until now!!
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Post by JonW on Oct 11, 2011 23:08:31 GMT 1
haha, no worries m8! Ive been sort of trying to write it all down so that anyone else who wants to do it can follow it. When NK and I talked about it his first set of instructions met with a bunch of questions from me, so I wanted to make sure anyone else who tried it didnt need to do that.
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Post by JonW on Oct 12, 2011 1:59:15 GMT 1
sorry dident get a chance to read it until now!! Ive just updated it with a few more pics...
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Post by JonW on Oct 13, 2011 23:21:42 GMT 1
...can u pm me sum photos of the ride height ajusters of the brackets please if its not t much trouble?paul Paul, here you go. The blocks are CNC's from billet alloy. you get two sets, this is the standard setup, ie the hole is in the middle of the adjuster. The other set has the hole offset a bit, ie so the hole sits half way down and to the right if viewed from the left. you can fit these two ways up, so you get 3 adjustments, standard, up and down. Hope that makes sense, here are the pics.. apologies they arent better and the bolts still in there, i was short on time when i did these...
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Post by JonW on Oct 13, 2011 23:35:06 GMT 1
For a while now I have been scratching my head about fitting the rear brake master cyl with my Raask rearsets as of course they dont come with provision for the master as the LC never had one, being drum braked. Last week i was at a mates place (Cheers Lyall!) and he was having a clear out and by the door in the 'chuck out pile' was a few bits of old race bike including some solid chunks of alloy that were once home made rearsets, probably from a bucket racer. i looked them over excitedly as i always do with alloy chunks... He said 'take em...', and ... I did! There were two of these.... this is the one i didnt use of course. They had a few extra holes over what i needed but there was enough alloy there for its new use so i set to work. I sorted out the holes to mount on the rearset and the the master, scalloped out the side edge so it would miss the lever boss and then realised they were too thick (10mm). Not only would they space the footrest over a bit, but the new bracket would also foul the lever where it exits at the back of the footrest, so i cut back into the alloy to step it in at the footrest mounts until it cleared the lever boss, about a 4mm step. Then once it all test fitted I tidied the work and then blasted it with glass beads to get a uniform look. Next job was to sort the lever for the master which attached to a square part on the lever shaft, I reused the one that came on the rearsets just cut the tab off and welded it back on slightly different for the rear brake light switch and ground the welds flat and painted it. Fitted it up on the rearset: Bear in mind i dont have a mill and this was mostly done with a dremel and a pillar drill with some carbide cutters and normal drills. Its all even on the pegs and solid as it fits well, even if its not got that CNC look. Im sure someone will say 'doesnt look any worse than the Raask rearsets' LOL
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Post by lcowner on Oct 13, 2011 23:46:20 GMT 1
thanx for that john
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Post by JonW on Oct 14, 2011 12:28:19 GMT 1
no worries mate, hope its useful.
Slow progress today... spent a long time trying to get the powdercoat out of the bearing wells for the pivot, in the end i had to use paint stripper... not ideal.
... and some parts of the pivot linkage are now chillin in the freezer....
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Post by JonW on Oct 14, 2011 14:06:19 GMT 1
Yep, Ive been tapping and die'ing like a looney the past 2 days (I had a bunch of YPVS parts incl the frame done at the same time)... bloody lazy powdercoaters... wast of space!
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Post by nikfubar on Oct 14, 2011 22:16:14 GMT 1
Jon Another way to mount your rear master cylinder is to weld some lugs onto the frame. This is what I did as I didn't like the angle the lugs on the rear sets to take the master cylinder were.
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Post by JonW on Oct 14, 2011 23:22:00 GMT 1
Nice work Nick! And, Yes I considered than with my original frame as i was welding stuff on that one, but this frame came to me freshly powdered and I didnt want to ruin the job. What I have done works well and is nice and solid, so i'll run with it for now, and only change if i change the reasets.
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Post by nikfubar on Oct 14, 2011 23:53:36 GMT 1
Sorry Jon didn't realise your frame was finished.
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Post by JonW on Oct 15, 2011 4:24:51 GMT 1
no worries m8. Its the same reason why i messed with lock stops on the lower yoke rather than sorting out a larger frame stop.
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Post by JonW on Oct 17, 2011 9:59:04 GMT 1
Been a slow few days, just doing stuff that most people wouldn't know had been done unless I told you... so defo not much point in doing many pics Fitted the brake switch spring. Initially i was going to use a pressure switch, but i had a brand new pull unit handy, so it made sense to use it... Swapped to the newly powdered rear subframe as it was a spare I had that was uncut, and the one on the bike was a cut one. Also added the indicators and new rubbers. Aftermarket indictaors I got seem a bit nasty if im critcial, but I will move to some aftermarket ones once the bike has been registered as LEDs can be problematical here if it gets a big test. Will probably go back to the cut one when i change the indicators, but nice to have the choice. Fitted the chain 'buffer' to the swingarm. This is an RGV part and designed for the swingarm to be the full width so needed the rubber trimmed on the outside edge to clear the LC frame and also the inside edge reemed out so the pivot end caps will nestle in nicely or it would have pushed them out as its for the full width arm. Took ages to do the latter with a burr in the dremel but worth it. All fits nice now. Fitted the Tyga carbon hugger. Because of the nature of CF parts and also the fact the NK shock brackets are now welded on the carbon panel needed some trimming and then re lacquering. Easy to do with the dremel again, what would we do without those things! LOL
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Post by JonW on Oct 18, 2011 13:03:23 GMT 1
Few more little jobs today.... pics to follow. Was going to fit the Banshee hydraulic clutch to this bike instead of my KTMaha, but.... the damn thing doesnt fit. The lever is too short for being on the right side of the switch block, and the master cylinder is too long to sit on the left of it... so dug out an old clutch perch off something else that sort of matches the Gixxer 1000 brake lever. This was quite a messed up unit but after all the hard work to find things (not many sadly) to reuse on the YPVS build im also doing, I was determined to clean it up and use it. I have boxes and boxes of old parts, but have been buying more and more new and clean parts for my builds and im worried that very little will remain of the original bikes at the rate i am going, tho thats less of an issue with this bike as the whole ethos is to mod it of course. But, I felt the need to clean up and reuse something old today so I got on with it and it took ages to sort out the parts, I could have saved time and hassle just bought an R6 setup from ebay for cheap LOL! Anyway... Glass bead blasted the perch and then satin black painted it, and much the same with the lever after I had straightened it and also sanded out some road rash on the ball and some marks from lightly bashing it straight, but instead of black paint I lightly polished it up to give that sort of half polished look. Looks pretty good... Also mounted the reservoir for the rear master cyl. In the end i used the upper most right side mounting bolt for the inner mudguard and that means the reservoir sits up nicely behind that captive nut/ frame lug that i dont think has any use, the other side is one end of the center stand grab/lift bar i think? With no swingarm fitted Ive yet to see if this location means it fouls anything when the swinger is in, but it seems pretty much out of the way so i'm hopeful. Also messed with the horn setup as I really wanted to use the twin horns to get an LC look to the front end, but gave up when one of the horns i had was dead. The bracket fitting is really not that easy with the RGV fork lowers and would mean brackets and faffing for no real progress, so instead i just fitted a smaller horn from my spares box after a good clean up and repaint. In fact that horn was about 5 times as loud as the working horn (originally from the YPVS) in the spares box that i was going to use... im not sure why, and its not like i'll ever use it, the bike will be louder than the horn i suspect! but we have to have it for govt testing, like the UK, but called a Pink Slip here. Fitted the standard, but cleaned up and repainted, radiator today, since it was lying around and I needed to have it out of the way as i was worried it might get damaged. It may well not be large enough for the 421, so may need to be swapped out later, we'll see. Ive heard that just going bigger wont help as the thicker fork legs mean most of the airflow is blocked with a standard width rad anyway, even when upgraded, so i may need a mito or RGV rad to get the width.... hmm... I have my eye on one in a mates garage... Oh... I used Norbo's rad fitting kit for the rad from his website... took about 10mins to open all the OEM yam packets! LOL Always nice to use parts out of the packet! So we trundle ever forward with small jobs while i wait for bearings to land to complete the rear swinger and rear wheel fitment.
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Post by JonW on Oct 19, 2011 12:44:47 GMT 1
A few pics of the progress..... Small horn form my spares box.... uses a bracket from a 70s Honda rectifier... Amazing what can work when needed... Clutch perch from some bike that i dont know what it is.... might make getting another lever problematical LOL The rear tiny Tyga master cylinder reservoir on its lightweight mount... ....And then today i had a bearing delivery....! So they are off to the Freezer....
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Post by JonW on Oct 19, 2011 12:59:02 GMT 1
And a couple more from the other day... Spring now fitted on the rear master cylinder light switch... Rear subframe replaced with freshly powdered uncut unit and also aftermarket indicators added... And today I tidied a few things like fitting the seat catches on the Gully seat and had a bit of a tidyup as once the bearings are cooled down I will do the wheel and swinger bearings and fit them. Ordered a few more parts from the ever helpful Deet at RGVSpares.com - this time it was a better caliper as Ive found that my one has suffered a broken nipple which has been plugged and it had the banjo bolt modified to allow bleeding from there which is interesting, but I wanted a standard one. I also found i was missing the rear wheel left/right spacers, so picked them up as well. When will the missing RGV parts end I wonder... hmm...
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Post by JonW on Oct 21, 2011 9:38:56 GMT 1
Time to play with the sidestand...
Originally I wanted to use my natty late model R1 stand setup but it meant too much work to cut up the really nice LC frame and then Chris showed his bike with the T595/Daytona alloy stand and I was hooked. Its a great stand as its a nice alloy jobby and seemed the right look and feel, plus any mods I would do to the frame wouldn't be irreversible...
Problems... The hole is 10mm not 12mm, the spring pin is on the back and needs to be on the front (would have needed to do that anyway as the pipes would foul it I think) and the bit that stops it from just flopping forwards is not compatible with the stand as its too short as Chris found.
So one by one...
- 10mm ---> 12mm hole... I ground it out, but drilling out have been fast if I had had a 12mm drill bit...
- Spring Pin... Remove and swap the pin round... Simple! Grind off the weld on the back (the side that you see when its on the bike) and the pin will tap out once the weld on the outside is removed. Clean it up and refit and weld it on...
- The stop... Less easy. I decided to do a 2 pronged approach as I don't want this bike falling over.
1 - welding a wider tab by building up weld on the back of the frame stop, the lower edge and also the side you see on the outside all to stop the stand from sliding past the stop. 2 - putting an 8mm piece of alloy into the bottom of the grove in the 'fork' of the stand mounting would have been best, and having it welded would have been even better, but I did it the simplest way I know by fitting an allen headed bold. Drill, tap and screw in. done. Its not what id want to rest the whole bike on daily, but its a good 2nd line of defence if for some reason the tab gets broken off.
Fit the stand with some washers on the inside of the fork of the stand to take up the slack in the frame mount, the triumph frame mount is much wider.
Ok, so yes the frame got a bit altered and I welded the powdered frame which I said I wouldn't do, but... I can easily reverse all those things by grinding the parts off and fitting a sleeve in the stand hole, and after a quick paint with some smoothrite it looks fine and the stand works!
Phew! sounds like it will take mere seconds to do it when i wrote it like that... LOL... pics to follow...
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Post by JonW on Oct 24, 2011 2:26:06 GMT 1
Few pics of the stand mods... (read previous post for more info) ...mount hole ground out, weld ground down and spring pin knocked out and linsed ready to refit Pin refitted, welded from behind and also a small amount of weld on the front for extra security, tho i have to say just welding from behind made it very solid as it was a nice tight fit back in the frame. Note the extra metal added to the sides of the lower tab to form a paddle to contact the stand sides and stop it falling forwards. The secondary line of defence if the welded tab fails (unlikely but i like to be safe, the bike may even have been fine with just this mod of course) - I worked out 8mm was the highest i could go as that didnt foul the frame 'hinge' parts, so drilled and tapped for this allen bolt with an 8mm height head. FWIW, the stand is solid alloy at this point if not throughout its whole length...
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Post by JonW on Oct 24, 2011 4:41:57 GMT 1
And fitted... using the double spring originally from Triumph. On the ground you can also see the R6 shock bracket that i cut the L shaped steel from to extend the tab into a paddle.
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