More progress on the Rapido. I ran into a couple of snags but nothing too serious. Went I took the fender and taillight off I cut the wires inside the taillight housing. The other option was to take the wires apart at a junction block up by the coil but that didn't appeal to me. There's a lot of room in the housing for a couple of spade connectors, so I opted for that. When I went to install the taillight I found I had only two pair of them, which is what I needed but when I was installing the light one of the fittings was going together overly tight. When I went to pull it back apart to work on it, the wire pulled out of the fitting. So I need to get a few more to finish the Rapido and restock my inventory.
When mounting the shocks you thread the bolts into brackets on the frame and then put a nut on the backside of the bracket as a locknut. The two top bolts came out hard when I took them apart. Both of them had some issues with the threads where the locking nut had rusted on. I was going to replace them but they are some super fine thread 10mm bolt. I had bolts in coarse and the normal fine thread but nothing in the super fine thread. I do have a metric thread file so I was able to get them cleaned up where they threaded into the frame brackets just fine. I might get the rest of the bike put back together today. Not much left, actually.
Close up photo of the inside of the heat shield for Surly's big twin. The piece missing in the middle is 1/4" wide and about 3/4" long to give you a sense of scale. These are to allow a hose clamp to be threaded through and around the exhaust pipe to hold the shield in place. When he brought them to me, two of the brackets had been operated on by someone previously with a MIG welder. And of course they had turned the voltage down to keep from burning through the pieces but so low that they didn't melt the wire to get any fusion - just a big blob.
I ground them down and cut some new pieces out of some 16 gauge and TIG welded things back together. I have an .040" tungsten set up I used with some .030" MIG wire for filler. The welding was not that difficult but preventing from damaging the chrome on the other side was the real challenge. I did OK on all of them except the one in the photo. Because the only place to weld was right on the original spot weld, there was a direct path to conduct the heat to the outside. I had the piece clamped down onto a wet rag and quenched the weld immediately after breaking the arc but I still got a bit of bluing on the chrome. I shined it up with a bit of polish and steel wool but it still is slightly noticeable. You have to look for it but I know it's there.
There's one of the finished repairs above one of the originals. I fixed five of these and it took me damn near two hours. No two pieces were alike, a couple of them had to have a bend on them and the welding went real slow to prevent any over heating. You'd be hard pressed to find someone capable of fixing these at a price that wasn't going to make you gasp. I wouldn't want to pay $100.00 to have these repaired if they were mine. But as Sailor Jerry said: "Good work ain't cheap, cheap work ain't good."
It's supposed to be warm again today - might take the Himalayan for a spin. I'm caught up on the mowing, so a little garden work, a little shop work and go for a ride. I think I deserve a little bit of Enfield time.
Happy belated birthday to my older brother - missed it by a couple of days. That's what happens when all the days are basically the same, I guess.
2 comments:
Good, cheap, fast. You can only pick two.
Thanks again.
My pleasure. Kind of job I need to keep my skills sharp.
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