So, I got a lot of work done over the weekend. The amount of progress is really inspiring!
My first task was to install my Hondaman overhauled swingarm. Easy as pie, and greased up according the Master’s excellent instructions. I made sure that grease was evacuating from both sides of the arm – very messy! – and then cleaned everything up after that. The manual called for the pivot bolt to be torqued between (I can’t remember exactly) 52 and 65 ft lb, so I torqued to 57 ft lb.
Next up were the Tapered Bearings for the Steering Neck. I had read quite a lot of how to perform this upgrade, as well as watched some video How-To’s on Youtube. I had saved the original bearings and races that were taken off the bike for a measurement comparison.
Now Allballs calls for the difference between the original bearings and the their tapered ones to be about a millimeter apart from one another. The kit provides 2 washers of differing heights to be used to accomplish this. When I measured out, the thicker washer gave me a a tapered set height within one millimeter of the original – this however was not a very good thing, as I will explain.
First off I had put the tapered races and steering stem into the freezer for a couple of hours to reduce their diameters a bit. I then carefully banged them in using my trusty bearing driver set. On the bottom, I was too careful, and did not seat them all the way, as you will see in the picture below. The top race seated very nicely, and stands proud of the frame by about mm or 2.
You can see a darker space above the race in the photo above – the race needed to banged in more. It became obvious when we test fitted the stem, and the steering stops were missing each other. Once the race was seated properly we had excellent contact on the steering stops.
Here you can see the race standing proud of the frame neck.
Now I moved onto installing the lower bearing on the steering stem. I know you can heat up the bearings themselves so that they slide on pretty easily, especially to a stem that has been in the freezer. However, I used copious amounts of grease to pack the bearings and was not sure how much of a mess heating them up would have made. Instead I carefully drove the washer, dust seal and bearing onto the stem with a 1 ¼” length of pipe.
Let’s backtrack for a minute. Upon comparing measurements of the original stack height with the stack height of the new tapered bearings, I thought the thicker washer supplied by All Balls should have been used. So that is how a installed them on the Steering Stem. The washer on the bottom, then the dust seal and lastly the tapered bearings. I then test fitted the stem into the neck. I could not get the upper thread “cap” to grab the threads on the stem. Something was wrong.
I took the stem back off the bike and CAREFULLY drove the washer, dust seal and bearings off the stem. Light taps with a punch resting on the washer, going around the circumference got everything off safely.
At this piont, i realized I had missed an issue with the frame. My left hand steering stop was not making contact with the tab on the steering neck itself. The tab had been bent, and I missed it before having the frame powdercoated. I was loathe to hammer on the frame, and ruin the powdercoat and/or destry the weld.
So my buddy and I did the best we could. I carefully protected the surrounding areas and we hammered the tab back into place. Of course the weld cracked and the PC did not survive the process. Fortunately, you cannot see this area upon completion. I scotchbrighted the finish on the tab, masked it, cleaned it and shot it with silver engine enamel. It came out ok, I will fill the crack with some JB Weld, I just wanted to give the paint a week to totally cure (initially cured with the Heat Gun). Lesson learned...
