The plan is to turn 140,000 into 50,000

[chilidawg]

joedrum » Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:11 am[/url]":226vo0a6]
...can’t speak much on steering bearing ..to this day and all the bikes I’ve had ..I’ve never changed one yet ...anyway just keep plugging away with it ...

Don't worry about it Joe, if ever you have to do that job I'll gladly make the trip to Florida with my dremmel tool and the Holy fricking Grail and do it for ya for free, it ain't like I ain't had enough experience!! :smilie_happy: :music:

 

[chilidawg]

Okay, so asking advice here? Given that I've finally got the third bottom inner steering head bearing secured in place on the stem, with its seal.

Should I now replace its outer race with the one that actually came with it?

We all know that in the old days there was some old guy at the end of every bearing making process that grabbed the two halves of every bearing and honed them into a pair that could not be divorced from each other.

I'm thinking in these days of Chinese made products, I can envisage a conveyor belt of these things dropping off into two bins and someone grabbing a pair and packing them.

Do you think I've really got too mess with changing out the outer race, it ain't like it really spins, it only moves though about 30 degrees of motion.

What would you do?

 

[joedrum]

I don’t think it’s thabig a deal .....it just needs to be smooth ...the reality of its operation is very low on wear really ..one of the reasons I’ve never changed one that felt good ...seems to me it takes like fork bending hit to cause damage to a great degree ..or one ran loose for a very long time

 

[dan filipi]

Roller pitch could be different. I’d replace.
I always replace both so there’s no question later.

 

[saganaga]

I'd do all new.

Is the outer race hard to replace?

 

[chilidawg]

Hell yeah, it is!!

 

[pidjones]

I found the outer races very easy to replace. I have a ~1" aluminum bar with a 3/8" tapped hole in the end. a bolt and a heavy duty washer a bit larger than the bar make it excellent for tapping out the old races. The new races are tapped in using the old ones as drivers. a small ball peen is all that I use for driving. Small taps to a piece of oak and then the old race are all it has taken. I don't even use cold races or warmed head stocks.

 

[saganaga]

Never done a motorcycle headset, so this may not apply, but I'm going to leave my technique for a bicycle headset here (stolen from others on the internet):

To remove races, take a PVC pipe slightly smaller than the interior opening, split it with a saw, and insert it into the head tube. Drive a wedge into the split to expand it, and hammer the old race out. You can also use a long flat screwdriver, but the PVC pipe applies pressure to both sides, making it less likely you'l distort the head tube.

To install a race, take a piece of threaded rod, some big fender washers (cheap is good), and a nut on either end, and just insert it through the assembly and tighten the nuts to press the bearing into place. To insert a bearing on a sticky steerer tube, use a piece of PVC pipe and the threaded rod.

Dunno if that helps - as I said, never done a motorcycle before, only bicycles.

 

[chilidawg]

Do y'all remember I said I tore up the U joint boot getting the circlip back on? Well I found a new one, well NOS anyway.

Now I'm looking into the can of worms I've got to open to get it installed.

And have I got a ton of questions? I've never been down this road before.

It looks like if I take off the rear shaft circlip and take out the swingarm pivots, the swingarm will pull right off, leaving the shaft in place connected to the motor.

Am I right? Or am I likely to destroy anything else on the swingarm pivot line, or just get in the way of pulling it? Like for instance bearing dust caps, bearings etc.?

A lot of what I'm worried about here is not replaceable, even from eBay, NOS sources.

I'm not really worrying about replacing any of this stuff due to wear given that it's all just done 50,000 miles, just that I might destroy something inadvertently while pulling it.

Thanks.

 

[joedrum]

Hmmm morning Paul ...I think I’d go about it different...I’d take the circling out ...then have bike on centerstand and pull final drive back after loosening all the stuff on it ..so the joint can be push back and the boot can go on ..and leave the swing arm alone and mounted ..I’m thinking that will work good ..axle ..rear brake caliper and shock seem to be all that would have to remove ...

 

[mcgovern61]

Are you just trying to replace the boot? You should be able to remove the circlip and slide the shaft backwards enough to install the boot. It is tight but it should fit without taking everything apart.

 

[joedrum]

i agree with Gerry ...lol right now boot is not on my bike at all....I need to get one ...

 

[chilidawg]

Thanks for your input guys, it seems the general consensus is to do it from the front, I shall have a concerted effort at it when the new snap rings arrive.

Because part #19 on the Honda fiche is totally unavailable and exactly the kind of part I was afraid of messing up.

Thanks, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

 

[chilidawg]

Well fella's I just had a great bit of luck.

When I took off the snap ring to make way for the new boot, it disappeared and I didn't hear at all where it might have gone.

So I go looking all over the shop especially looking in the places I found all the others in the past, with no luck but I can't just let it go unfound in case it's still somewhere were it's gonna chew something up at a later date.

In desperation, I took a magnet all around the boot area and as a complete last resort stuck it inside the coupling, I heard a click and there it was. Now given past experience I would not have given a thought to the coupling being hard to couple up and probably would have wasted days before looking in there for an obstruction.

Sometimes I get lucky..... :BigGrin:

 

[dan filipi]

Great you found it! I still have one in the garage somewhere that never did turn up

 

[pidjones]

Based on past experience, I'd buy a new one, anyway.

 

[chilidawg]

Oh, it's getting a new one! I've got 3 new ones right here because I know now how many attempts it takes to get it right.

I just "had" to find that one, before I could continue!

 

[mcgovern61]

Glad you found it! That could have been ugly. :shock:

I'm not sure why you are otherwise having issues getting the circlip on the shaft. Are you using circlip pliers? I can only recommend the longer circlip pliers (spring load to close type) for getting it on.

 

[chilidawg]

Got it done fella's, from the front, just like y'all said.

I think the reason it was that hard to get the snap ring on was purely because I was pussyfooting around an already tore up and grizzled old boot. (Not a reference to the ex-wife) :BigGrin:

About using the long pliers though, the picture is what I had to chose from, I couldn't get it anywhere near close with the long ones, the short ones where the only ones I could get the clip parallel to its slot with, there just isn't enough room between the two walls of the joint.

 

[chilidawg]

I think by now you all know that I seem to have this habit of falling into a bucket of crap and then coming out smelling of roses, well it just happened again.

About a month ago I decided on an order in which to rebuild this thing and because I remembered how hard it was to run the stainless steel rear brake line with the gas tank installed I figured I'd start there. The master cylinder always did mysteriously leak fluid and needed new insides and an O ring. Well that idea lasted about a day because after a good clean down it was apparent that the holes in the snap ring had rotted away and the screws to the union where rounded out, basically the whole thing was useless because I could not even get it apart.

I got lucky and found another one on fleabay, paid through the nose for it but it was all that was holding the job up. This one had none of the issues the old one did and it came apart good, until it came to cleaning it up inside and the tiny return hole, I was able to get a very thin strand of wire down it but knew it was going to be coated with the same hard scale that the rest of the insides where and just waiting to stop up.

So I ordered some tiny little drills, now I don't know if I'm just ham-fisted but it seems with drills, tiny means weak, the very small ones just broke off, but I was able to get the debris out so, so far so good, then I tried the next size up and it broke off top and bottom of the hole leaving me with a stopped up hole.

So today after days of trying I had a last ditch attempt to clear it with the same size drill in the Dremel tool and miraculously it seemed to fix itself! :BigGrin:

Got me a good clean hole now in what I think is a viable master cylinder........ :Egyptian: