Various Car and Motorcycle Workshop Adventures and Mishaps

I's been a busy old week with lots of minor stuff going on with both cars and bikes. I have a Triumph RS955i that's just about finished now, just waiting for some decals then it will be done. It's looking good and running well, rather pleased with how it has come out but getting all the plastic panels was an absolute nightmare. Turns out everybody knows how rare they are and the prices are sky high. Got em all now though so all's well that ends well, another decent bike saved.

I have also been working on a Yamaha YZF600 Thundercat that came in with no spark and various other bits that needed doing. I have to confess here to a massive cock up on my part that cost me quite a bit of extra time. I had done the fork seals - pretty straightforward job if you have the right tools - the most important of which is a seal driver. The forks are full of oil to damp movement, seals are fitted to make sure the oil stays inside the forks, the seal driver allows the seals to be pressed home in to a recess on the top of the fork lower legs. Anyway, I couldn't find mine so decided to get creative and tap the seal down with a flat bladed screw driver - I really should have known better. The seal leaked badly, probably worse than the one I had taken off. It is now unusable so another pair is on order, the front of the bike is in bits again and that's a couple of hours and half a bottle of fork oil and a pair of seals wasted. Handy hint if you don't have a seal driver is to use a length of exhaust  tubing that is a bit longer than the fork stanchion and of a diameter that is just less than the outer diameter of the seal - 51mm did the job in my case as the seal o/d is 53mm. Cut the end off square and make sure there are no sharp edges, place the tube over the stanchion so it rests on the seal and tap the end gently to drive the seal home. Always use red vegetable oil based grease to assist the seal to seat correctly - most decent seals come with a small amount of suitable product. Don't forget to fit the circlip that retains the seal and don't forget to fit a new dust shield -- that will help make sure the seal lasts longer than if crap gets in there.

Malcolm treated himself to another toy the other week - this time it's a Vauxhall Monaro v8 with just under 400BHP on tap. It's on air suspension and has ridiculously low profile tyres so I wouldn't want to drive it on what's left of our roads but it should be an absolute hoot on track. It doesn't need much doing, mainly just some derusting underneath, should get to that in the next couple of days.