what have you done to your "bike" today

[Virt]

1986

I don't know old bikes that well!!! the eBay ad said 1976 either way they can't be any worse than the current ones. Looking forward to having a front brake again

[lloydie]

1986

I don't know old bikes that well!!! the eBay ad said 1976 either way they can't be any worse than the current ones. Looking forward to having a front brake again

you might get front brakes but no suspension unless they have been rebuilt
as the bushes and springs and oil will be well passed it ,
why did you opt for them forks ?

[Virt]

you might get front brakes but no suspension unless they have been rebuilt
as the bushes and springs and oil will be well passed it ,
why did you opt for them forks ?

Cause original hornet forks cost a sh1t tonne!!! We've just been messing around with them and they are solid. We could barely compress them when we tried, compared to the hornets which constantly bottom out at anything and everything. The only difference between the forks is these ones are about 1cm longer. But they've definitely been rebuilt

[lloydie]

It might be a good idea to change the oil in them anyway as its bound to be mankey .

[MacV2]

Having got a 'advisory' for loud exhausts on my MOT the other week, I thought it was time to repack them.

I was thinking of doing them anyway as they were sounding a bit too 'raucous', hard to describe but they just sounded wrong...too metallic.

On Monday I ordered up some packing material from P J Engineering, over the phone Monday lunch time, delivered on Wednesday, well impressed with that. http://www.pjengineering.co.uk/

So today I set to with the strip & repack...



With the end cap off the packing didn't look too bad...




From the other end you can see the problem...



Like this you can see just how much is just not there !
The white roll is the new packing. The black lump is the remainder of the old packing.

Getting the new packing in was fun, it comes wrapped around a cardboard tube with cling film around the out side, the idea being that you pass the tube over the inner mesh tube of the exhaust slide it down then pull the cardboard tube out, the cling film stays on & shrinks down with the heat when running...Believe me it's easier said than done, jeez it was a cow-sun to get in, talk about faff, as you try to squeeze it in & push it down the cling film bunches up & just gets in the way. I ended up taking it back out & re wrapping it with new sarin wrap so it was tighter.Being that the cans are oval it's not like you can twist it in...took some effort to get it in, but got there in the end. Riveted it back up...one down one to go.

More of the same tomorrow with the other pipe.

I might even treat them to a polish whilst they are off, well at leasts clean all the greasy finger prints off.

[agentpineapple]

good work mac, nice to see the photos aswell.....
i take it, it was easy enough to drill out the rivets, i've always fancied buying some slightly damaged end cans, lob of a quarter of the length, repack and rebuild them. maybe one day i'll have the tools to do it, now wheres carl when you need him......

[chric]

Forgot to tie wrap my satnav 12v cable up and burnt through on down pipe
What a waste of a tenner that was.
And rode it like I stole it

[seb421]

Forgot to tie wrap my satnav 12v cable up and burnt through on down pipe
What a waste of a tenner that was.
And rode it like I stole it

yes always make sure wires can't touch pipes,

my bike nearly burnt to the ground when the hot grips wire properly set alight other year, it was a miracle i hadn't set off for work when i noticed it, had to cut about 8" out of ii and rejoin it and make a new sleeve

[lloydie]

My art cans both looked like that when I repacked them !
I'm going to do my Leo soon lets see if that has any left in it .

[MacV2]

good work mac, nice to see the photos aswell.....
i take it, it was easy enough to drill out the rivets, i've always fancied buying some slightly damaged end cans, lob of a quarter of the length, repack and rebuild them. maybe one day i'll have the tools to do it, now wheres carl when you need him......

Easy enough with a new drill bit Marty, fortunately I have a bench drill so that made it easier, too easy to slip with a hand held drill.

Getting the new packing in was quite frustrating TBH, one of those struggle for a bit...walk away have a cuppa then attack it again jobs.

Got to go & do the other one today...but it should be easier this time as I know what I'm in for.

[AMCQ46]

Mac, did you get special rivets, or just use the normal halfords pop rivets?

[Chrish]

Got two panels off eBay to fix damaged ones on my bike just need to spray them up now

[MacV2]

Mac, did you get special rivets, or just use the normal halfords pop rivets?

From Halfruds but they are stainless steel ones.

[Virt]

Okay scratch the forks thing. We just checked them about to fit them. The bottom bolt for the left front brake caliper is about an inch below the hornets time to buy a new caliper pads will still work the same at least. So I have another week of sh1t braking

[VTRDark]

Easy enough with a new drill bit Marty, fortunately I have a bench drill so that made it easier, too easy to slip with a hand held drill

I use a cone cutter for getting the heads off rivets.

I dread to think about what the condition of my packing is. Bit they sound so good, I don't care.

(:-})