Weekend Stage 1………...

Hap offered last week to help me get the bike well on it's way to RWC last week. So come Sat morning I was on the road to his place to get wrenching.  It was an interesting  30min or more trip over.  I had no rear brakes what so ever……Obviously i did something wrong or didn't solve the problem when I pulled them all a part the other day!!!  So riding through twisties and hills country in traffic was interesting.

Then on the highway she decided to run out of fuel.  This model has twin petcocks and I am not familiar enough with her yet two be able to switch them both to reserve on the fly.  So a quick down hill rolling navigation across lanes, no indicators to the side of the road.  Back on track over to Hap's house.

Bit of time spent cleaning out the garage and we had space, the bike up on the lift and ready to wrench!
 First thinh to look at which wasn't on the plan was the rear brake……and what else I had stuffed in the process to shread my rear tyre. See Photo further own  Turns out I had made a few mistakes. LIke I hadn't adjusted the chain tension with a loaded weight ie me as the rider, and i had tighened the axle etc  and done everything with the bike on blocks. As a result the axle wasn't tight enough and had moved out of line caused by the chain to pulling the axle forward on that side and the tyre rubbing on the swing arm. :-(   Got all that sorted and my spirits were a bit down but we were back on track with what I was there to work on.

The Assorted bits in preparation.  I went with the 15Wt Fork Oil.

Didn't need to remove the triple trees so didn't end up checking the neck bearings to see if hey were original or taper bearings.  Another day.

My tool which Hap turned into a super tool…..20points to anyone who can figure out all the multi functions 

As you can see the Dust caps are FKD!, the inner tubes are not pitted at all in great condition to look at.   The left had  maybe 50ml of oil the one on the right had none….dry as a dead dingos donger!  

Completely disassembled the forks and cleaned em down, flushed them with petrol. and rebuilt them with new oil seals.  Put 230mls of fresh oil in each. Used the syringe tool I made to adjust and even out levels in each fork. The shed built little bolt tool was invaluable to remove the fork caps.

Dramas of the process.  You can see the damage I did to the tyre on the ride over… Axle had slipped.
The slimeline dust caps were a nice tight seal but wouldn't seat low enough in side the tubes.
The 35mm one go on the outside but looked stupid as they aren't long enough to catch on the groove to hold them on.
So the originals went back on with some cable ties to help keep them together.  Oh and the gators weren't even close to fitting.   Putting the bike back together I managed to snap the lower triple clamp bolt.  It was a issue to remove so. Thought I was going to have to disassemble it and drill it out.
Since it is a throgh hole and not a blind hole. I filed a small slot in the end and screwed it out forwards, rather than attempt to retract it.    Will have to go buy a replacement.

My Wheel.

7pm , This all took long than expected and had to finish getting the wheel on, connect the fender & brakes.    Still hadn't even looked swapping the rear shocks or fitting the Harley mufflers………. I let Hap make the call and I was off home leaving the bike till tomorrow……………….