Good ole Stella. True to her form she gave up some progress today but exacted her toll on a few items as well.
We got the forks rebuilt with new seals, o-rings and fork oil. Bill's seal driver that he loaned us made super short work of the fork assembly. We should have known at that point that things were going too smoothly.
Next up was the clutch. We got the clutch basket on and after a few bouts with the POS Harbor Freight circlip pliers, we finally got the circlip seated. Awesome....take the clutch friction plates out of the oil where they'd been soaking and realize that the clutch plates we'd inspected months ago had a problem. We had inspected them and they appeared to be brand new so we didn't replace them. Well, they all were perfect...except for that one that had about 1/3 of the friction material chipped off of it. So the clutch work got tabled while I went & ordered a set of EBC clutch friction plates from Amazon. Supposed to be here Monday morning.
OK. We'll do the swing arm next. Well, that actually went smoothly. Got the swing arm and shocks installed.
Next, on to the installing the Pamco coils. Well, we didn't get that done because we're not 100% sure whether we're supposed to use the old sub-base or not. My thought is that we ARE supposed to use them but that would also mean that we likely have to drill out the holes to accommodate the larger bolts instead of the screws that were in them. Anyone who has information on this please feel free to chime in. The Pamco instructions online are pretty good for installing the ignition plate and how to connect the wires but the instructions for installing the coils just show two photos that aren't super clear and don't give any instruction on how to get to that point.
So, what's next? Let's do the All Ballz steering ball bearings and get the triple tree installed so we can put the new forks in. Well, we figured out what we think we're supposed to do and started to install the lower bearing onto the lower part of the triple tree. Using a piece of PVC that fits so that we're only driving against the center part of the bearing and not out on the edges, we began to install the lower part onto the triple tree shaft. But it keeps wanting to go on angled so we stopped with it only about half way down because it's going on slightly angled downward. I figure I'll wait until we get a chance to ask Bill's advice on how to install it. So the forks and triple tree still are waiting to be put on.
OK, so what now? Well, the rear wheel is on its way back from California where Buchanan's cut the correct outer spokes for it, laced them and trued the wheel for me. The front wheel and tire are at Wow Motorcycles in Marietta, GA where they're trueing the wheel and putting the tire on for me. So we can't do anything with the wheels just yet.
My wife is out of town for a few more days so we decided to get a bit more of the painting of parts done. We try not to do it when she's home because the paint fumes trigger her asthma and make her use her inhaler. Logan got most of the fine detail painting done on the stator cover, making it black. But we need to get him a tool with a finer point for him to get the details a little better. Makes the HONDA really stand out though with the black.
Also got the center of the front rotor painted. Got all the foot pegs cleaned up and ready to paint the metal portions. We spent about an hour and a half cleaning the exhaust collars with wire brushes to get all of the oil and crud that was caked and baked inside those crevices.
So, tomorrow we're going to jump onto the breather and try to get it separated so we can check the insides of it. Then, assuming we can get the triple tree & forks mounted, we'll mount the headlight bucket and front fork stays with trim pieces, followed by the beginning of the wiring harness installation. The brand new Scorpion battery is on a battery tender to ensure that it's at 100% because the goal *fingers crossed* is to try and do a first start sometime around next weekend.
