Sussex Scrapbook
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Nature walks in Sussex throughout the year
Saturday & Sunday 18th & 19th July 2009
Replacement of drive belt and other repairs
The bike urgently
needed a new drive belt, a thorough renovation of the braking system plus
a few other running repairs, so with the expert aid of my good friend and expert
ironmaster Dave 'Spanner ' Tanner, we took a whole weekend getting completely
covered in muck and grease, swearing at inanimate objects, grazing our knuckles
and drinking lots of tea.
Many thanks to Dave Batchelar for the donation of a front pulley and for the use
of all of the facilities at P&D custom. Without the help and generosity of these
two fine English gentlemen I would have spent a lot more time on the bus over the past five
years.
So that the alarm wouldn't keep going off, and for safety's sake, the battery
was disconnected.
To let the dog see the rabbit we first had to drain the primary chaincase oil,
remove the gearchange linkage and also the
footboard. While the oil was draining, I put the kettle on.
Then off with the primary chaincase cover. The primary chain is still the original
but needs
to be replaced soon.
The primary chain tensioner: showing very little wear after 80,000 miles
The clutch comes off (left-hand thread) and then the rear primary cover can come off to expose the
front pulley. The two bolts that
hold the starter motor on to the back of the rear primary cover are hard to get
to and are removed from the other side of the engine,
typically one of mine was stuck. Luckily, after another cup of tea and a lot of
swearing it came undone, which saved us a lot of work. Phew!
Here's the front pulley - a bit worn and chewed up!
The new (second-hand) front pulley installed.
The new gearchange lever was installed, so no more wobbly gear lever. Woo Hoo!
The split in the belt: it's amazing that it lasted so long without snapping.
Next, the rear wheel and the chain guards needed to come off. Also the exhaust
had to be slackened off and moved out of the way
so that there would be room for the swingarm bolt to come out.
The rear wheel gets a new brake disc and a
shiny, new, rear pulley.
So that we didn't have to remove the whole
swing-arm, it was instead clamped in position. The swing-arm bolt was
pulled out just enough to allow a large spacer on the left hand side to be removed,
then the old belt was
pulled through the gap
and swapped for the new one,
then the spacer was put back and the swingarm bolt was pushed back through. Job done!
That's as far as we got on Saturday. So Sunday morning we were back at it.
After a cuppa, the front wheel gets a new disc...
...and the rear wheel gets put back in.
A new, blue O ring so that the rear primary cover fits snugly and leakproof.
Clutch, primary chain and tensioner back on.
Dave searches for the tight spot on the primary chain so that he can set the
tension.
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Primary cover and footboard back on and the replacement of the drive belt is
complete.
Time for lunch and a celebratory cuppa.
Next, the pads in both brakes needed to be changed but one of the bolts holding
them into the front calliper
had become worn out and needed to be 'surgically' removed.
Dave welded an old bolt onto the pad pin so that it could be taken out with a
spanner and a modicum of swearing. Thirsty work!
The same trick had to be used to extract the corroded brake nipple from the same
brake.
The nipple came out but ruined some of the thread.
The new nipple went in adequately, but not perfectly. The whole calliper needs
replacing soon....
Then the brakes and front wheel were reinstalled, the fork oil was replaced, and
finally the brakes were bled.
A quick brew and we're good to go!
Looking good, feeling good and ready for another 80,000 miles!