Posted in Engineering, Motorcycle, Sewing and Crafts on October 19th, 2009 by feef
Amazing what you can get done when you get up early at the weekend.
Saturday, we made a fair bit of progress on getting Gayle’s workroom sorted, with a new cutting table fitting over the sofabed. Nice large panel of Spruce plywood should give ample space, and easily be strong enough. Still have to work out a way of attaching it to the wall in a way that can allow it to be easily removed, but it’s getting there. Also sorted out some shelves and a bit more hanging space. I still need to clear out the “office” a bit more, as it’s more like a large cupboard right now, and it should allow storage for far more boxes of fabric and materials than it currently allows, and I might even manage to get a chair in at the desk.
Spent Sunday getting the lathe sorted and generally organising the workshop a bit more. The lathe wasn’t running, and I couldn’t work out why, but tracked it down to a microswitch that was working opposite to how I was expecting. Tracking this down wasn’t helped by a multimeter that had a near-flat battery, so when the good connection was sensed, it wasn’t going “beep”. DOH! Final task is to drill a hole in the coolant tray and fit the coolant drain pipe, then it’ll be good to go. Other workshop related tasks were two sets of new strip-lights so I can see what I’m doing, and installing the new TIG welder in it’s home. Just have to find a decent, local, Argon supplier now.
Modified the exhaust hanger to accept the slightly higher positioning of the can, due to the new exhaust, and the existing, complete bike is good to go again (and sounds awesome). However, the end-can I’ve got on there sounds a little too loud. I think it needs repacking. Just as well I’ve recently added a compressor driven riveter to the tool box.
Shuffled the other bikes around on the drive to give me access to the “spare” bike on which much of the work is going to be done. Frustratingly I found I had two chains on it, not just the one I knew about, and I can’t find the key for it anywhere. Not to worry, the chain goes through the backwheel and over the seat, and since one of the first tasks is to remove the subframe, that’s not a big deal.
Got to work on the spare bike to get as much done as possible in the fading light, and removed the subframe, disconnected much of the wiring and coolant system. Disconnected and removed the footpegs and gear linkage, and started on the engine mountings. The plan is to get this down to a rolling frame and move it into the workshop where I can get to work on it, rather than relying on a few snatched minutes of fading light on the driveway. Looks like the carbs are a bit knackered, since there was absolutely no movement on them, but I’m not too worried as I have a spare set on the shelf in good working order, lacking only a small spring that goes between bodies, and I’m intending on changing the carbs in the future anyway.
