So a few remaining pre-assembly tasks.
Time to do the swingarm bushings on the "new" chrome swingarm. Other threads detail this process in more detail. I went through my collection of parts and picked the pivot sleeve that was in the best condition, and used the pivot bolt that I'd prepped upthread.
New bushings, these are the early style flangeless style, not the top-hat style. These are the steel material that Honda sells now, and not the bronze (brass?) that was used in the past or as used by Mark Paris. This is part of the reason I wanted to make sure I could grease these really well, to prolong their life as much as possible.
New felt dust seal rings and pivot caps.
Drove the old bushings out using the "grind a flat on each side of a washer, drop them inside the swingarm and lay them flat across the inside of the bushing, and drive them out with a long rod" technique, in this case an old Harley rear axle.
Used aforementioned old Harley rear axle, some tape, and an old pivot bushing to build a driver tool, then pushed in the new bushings.
The early swingarms used phenolic thrust bushings instead of the later tophat design to control end play between the ends of the swingarm and the pivot caps. Digging through my bins I came up with a few in good shape and picked the best two.
The early-style bushings are pushed in to a recessed depth in the swingarm (deep enough to leave a gap between the inside of the phenolic bushingm and the swingarm pivot bushingm for the felt ring) then the felt seals are added...
... and then the thrust bushings ...
... and then the pivot sleeve is slid into place and the pivot caps placed on top.
The pivot caps sit on the ends of the pivot sleeve but do not press fully against the phenolic bushings, because the length of the pivot sleeve is slightly longer than the overall measurement from the outside of one phenolic thrust washer to the other. I must admit that I didn't measure the end play but it was nice and close, but not so tight as to cause binding.
I'd rather have sent this all off to Mark Paris (Hondaman) for his premier swingarm rebuild service, but I was in a hurry by now, had the parts in-hand, and had done this procedure before. Mark would have taken far more care with things, measured the end play, and he does up custom bushings in (bronze?) that are fitted to your actual swingarm and pivot collar for a really precise fit.
Ready for installation.
I also took the opportunity to polish up the rear brake backing plate (and the sprocket carrier). Did you know that you can chuck up a polishing wheel to your angle grinder, since the shaft is essentially the same as on your bench grinder?
Also polished up the fork lowers a bit.
This.... isn't necessarily the best way to polish things
But I was just looking to clean up a previous polishing job, and wasn't looking for a show-perfect finish, so yeah.
Also bent up a new kickstand. This was originally an "extended" kickstand, harkening from the era when one threw longer forks on these bikes and called it a day. You needed a longer kickstand then for a proper lean angle. This is the type of kickstand I'd had on the bike before.
Since I'd put the frame back to a level position, this type of kick stand was now too long, so I measured things up and added a bend. The first bend nearest the tip of the kickstand was the factory bend, I added the next bend to create a new "foot". This also had the happy result of making the kickstand tuck up nicely behind the pipes while also leaving enough sticking out to catch with your toe. Slight bend near the top fine tunes the final resting position.
mystic_1
