Italian Update

New Loves, Old Problems!

Let's start with the Moto Guzzi.

We made a list of problems to take care of before the bike could be ridden to Second Sunday.

The tires were old and seriously worn.

Rick sourced new tires and had them installed. Unfortunately the installer got the front tire out of concentricity with the rim. This makes for a very bad ride.

We removed the front wheel and took it to Wheel Works, the nice guys there fixed the problem and gave it to us for free, along with a Merry Christmas.

When we got home we read the manual which states mount the front tire in reverse.

OK no problem, take the wheel back off and turn it around.

Next problem, the speedometer attachment catches on the wheel stud nuts and is dragged around..

Hmm!

Next job, pull the studs and turn them around through the hub.

Now we are getting closer.

It is where it should be.

As Jimmy Buffett sings, "The Wrong Way Is The Right Way Until You Lose Control"

Finally we were back in control.

One of the issues the previous owner discussed was a mysterious shut down after about 15 to 20 minutes.

He related this a s a heat problem.

We tend to take a more pragmatic view, so over a couple of brain food beverages we decided that the most likely culprit was the ignition switch.

After a lot of diddling we finally got the switch out of the bike and gave it a thorough cleaning.

The bike started and ran for about 30 minutes without problem.

OK moving on, the throttle was sticking and the brake pedal too.

The brake pedal was an easy fix, just a little emery cloth on the shaft and Bingo, smooth as silk.

The throttle cables were another story, we had the gas tank off and on a bunch of times to check cable routing and to give access to the top of the carbs.

The slides were removed and the needles checked.

Hmm X8 called for and X22 installed.

The engine RPM just raised up to about 4500 on their own.

No throttle twist, nothing.

Hmm... 

New needles, jets and cables have been sourced and ordered.

We will see what happens next with the Guzzi.

The Moto Morini arrived today after the trip down from Sonoma.

Watch for an update on the Moto Morini real soon.

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Ciao Bella

Norm

2016 Year End Update

2016 Comes To A Close

After a long period of not much happening we have had a flurry of activity over the last week or so,

Firstly, some good news from the Panther Owners Club, as of January 1st 2017, they will be able to sell parts to the USA and Canada.

Just in time for me to get into the Panther restoration project during the long cold winter nights.

Yeah, right.

My brother Jimmy called and asked if he could use Sheddington Transport to pick up a bike in Ventura.

Wednesday morning we set of in the pre-dawn hours for a 200 mile round trip.

Even leaving Long Beach at 5:45 AM we still hit stop and go traffic on the freeway.

The 405 we all know and love! The only place in Los Angeles where you can park for free.

We got to the guys' house and checked out the bike.

It was a Moto Guzzi 650 SP

As you can see it is in clean shape, it has one or two cosmetic issues but nothing that Sheddington Enterprises can't fix.

Jimmy took it on a test ride and felt that it was lacking in power off the line.

The guy lives on a hill or more like a mountain, if you slipped coming out of the house you would end up three streets down before you stopped.

Of course the test ride went up hill to start and that may have had some bearing on the apparent lack of power.

After doing our due diligence, the bike was loaded up on the truck and we headed for home.

Here it is safely back in Long Beach, another bike rescued by Sheddington.

I have long been a fan of Moto Morini, but each time one came up it seemed that some force of circumstance prevented the deal from working.

Recently, one came up for sale on Craigslist but by the time I had my ducks in a row it was gone.

I kept watching to see if it came back, lo and behold after a week it did.

Even though it was early in the morning, yes there is a 5:00 in the morning too!

I called the guy, he answered the phone right away, we made the deal.

It turns out that he is retired too and very much into old bikes as well as a couple of new Harleys.

The new love of my life a 1984 Moto Morini 3-1/2 sport.

Man I love redheads, especially Italians.

Ciao Bella 

       &

Buon Natale

Norm

More Panther Work

Continuing Disassembly

Or As We Say In These Parts Tear Down

The first order of business was to remove the primary covers and the clutch assembly.

The nut holding the clutch basket was pretty tight, I made a locking tool from one that I had bought years ago for the HD Sportster I owned at the time. A tie down strap around the outside of the clutch held the lock bar in place.

The lock washer is toast, when I straightened the lock tab, it snapped off.

The nut still did not want to come loose with a socket and breaker bar.

My impact wrench did nothing to move the nut.

By chance, I got a flyer from Chinese Charlie's AKA Harbor Freight for a special on tools.

A new impact wrench seemed like a good idea.

The special California model...

The Earthquake Model, 800 Ft Lbs from a 1/2" impact.

I have no way of testing that claim, but that nut came off in a hurry.

Now that Sheddington has acquired an EZ UP, a banner was needed,

It is mostly to provide shade from the sun whilst working outside.

A necessity last week.

Fortunately, Sheddington works is located right next to the bar.

Sometimes, you just need to re-hydrate.

Back to the plot, the brass rod arrived from Amazon and four plugs were made for the fork stanchion.

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The plugs were pressed in to the holes and silver soldered in place.

Then a clean up cut was taken over the tops of the plugs.

Then two new holes were drilled to match the size and location of the other stanchion.

As I said the EZ UP is MOSTLY for shade.

Now the big change hit and it was needed as a rain shelter!

When that happens, I just put away the tools, close up the sheds and break out my other tool kit.

I got to work making home made ravioli.

All made in house, the pasta, the filling and the sauce.

Very good it was too, even though I say so myself.

Hey, Leon

I'm beginning to act like Geordie John, mixing cooking and the workshop.

But at least I don't use a drill motor to stir the ingredients.

Ciao Bella

More Soon

Norm

More Panther Work

Panther Work Progressing

After a long summer lay off from bike work, I finally got back into it last week.

The front forks were disassembled and the parts separated for different repair requirements.

Ten pieces including the fork tubes were taken to Primo for powder coating. As usual, Dan had them turned around double-quick.

The next job was to remove the exhaust headers from the cylinder head.

Neither one was going to be easy as they looked very seriously corroded.

I have never been a fan of "Snake Oil" but I must admit that after experience using KROIL at the plant I was happy to give it a try.

It's not magic and it's not going to be quick but it does work.

After an overnight soak the left side gave up and came off right away.

The right side was another story.

After several soaks and heating, I was about ready to cut the nut off.

I gave it one last try, heat it up then soak with KROIL an small amount of persuasion and Voila!

Both headers removed.

The threads on both the nuts and cylinder head will need to be wire brushed to remove rust, but that should not be too much trouble.

Yeah! I know, looks like it has been running rich.

The next job was to dis-assemble the fork stanchions.

After a some info and pictures from the Panther Owners Club members, I was able to confirm how I thought they should come apart.

There is a nut with two flats which retains the spring and the bottom bushing.

Note the different sized damping holes in the stanchions.

I tried to remove the nut from the right side with no luck at all.

Then the left side was attempted and it came apart fairly easily confirming that I had the right idea on how they were assembled.

The wrench that I have fit correctly but would not move the right nut at all.

A good quality Craftsman wrench from Sears, but more than likely made in China now.

That's what happens when K-Mart takes over.

The problem being that with only two flats it is real easy to compress the corners.

Drastic measures were called for.

The stanchion was set up in the mill to make the nut into a hexagon.

This was a bit tricky as the only way I could make it fit was to have the nut away from where I could see the flats.

This made it necessary to use a mirror to see the flat lined up with the precision angle gauge.

Once having the set up in place it was just a case of repeating it four times.

When the cutter touched the nut the Z axis was moved down by 0.064" and a cut taken.

Tools used in the setup.

I had on hand a wrench that I had made to take some of the frame bolts out, it just happened to be the right size, 1.312 AF.

Using this wrench on the now hexagon nut, removal was achieved quite quickly.

As you can see, one of the two original flats had been subject to some violence in the past.

From the POC website information, I have decided to make the damping holes the same on both sides, that will entail plugging four holes on one side and drilling two new holes.

The plan is to make four brass plugs and silver solder them in place.

The brass is on it's way from Amazon.

Following that the next  task on the fork stanchions is to have the OD hard chromed and ground, they have been scored up pretty badly in the past, I polished them up but I don't think that the seal will hold oil.

So, I will need to try to think of someone to help out with this project.

Hmmm.

More soon,

Norm

More on Bikes

I know that it has been a while since I posted anything about our bike activities.
That does not mean we have been sitting around on out duffs drinking beer, well yes we have been doing that too.

Jointly, my brother Jimmy and I have been working on Kawasakis, BMWs  Panthers, and Velocettes.

As well as a Ford truck.

Our most recent task was to change the transmission fluid in a BMW RT 1100 recently acquired by Jimmy as a non-runner with a burnt valve.

 61,000 miles serviced by the dealer at every required interval.
Yes we can fix it for $3500.
Hmmmm.

Rick bought the bike for way less than that from a guy who has an independent BMW shop but not a dealership.
The guy gave him two spare heads with the bike.
A few hours work and one valve was transferred from the spare head to the bike and it was up and running.

Well done Jimmy.

We needed two umbrellas to keep the sun at bay whilst we worked on it.
Yeah, I know that was just for the guys who live in less sunny climes,
Next we need an EZ-UP with the Sheddington Logo.


It was decided to use synthetic transmission fluid from Red Line.
This stuff looks like used Pepto Bismol.

It has the reputation for reducing noise and wear, we'll see.

As the drain and fill plugs are somewhat buried we went out and bought this fancy funnel.

What a trip device this is.
As you can see it is graduated in ounces and milliliters.
You remove the lid, pour in the precise amount and insert the tube in the appropriate spot then turn the blue connector to allow the fluid to flow.

All for five bucks!

Once we were done with all of that it was time for a beer.

This one is Rick's favorite but he only allows himself one per day.

Too many calories.

You have to keep an eye on that stuff when you get old.

I'm in love with an Italian red head living in Yorkshire, we'll see how that works out.




More soon.

Norm

Panther Restoration

The Panther Restoration Project Has Begun.

After a lot of head scratching and a fair amount of indecision, at long last the project has begun.

The first thing that got me off dead center on this was the tires. From the date code they look to be about 23 years old.

As you can see the side walls are pretty cracked too.

The wheels have gone to Wheelworks in Garden Grove for new tires, re-chrome and new spokes.

All of the black metal parts except the frame are going to Primo Powder Coating in Huntington Beach for refinishing.

I'm trying to get a new seat from an outfit in the UK who specialize in vintage bike stuff.

However, it seems that they march to the beat of a different drum.

Still waiting for a formal quote after more than a week.

I can't tell if the seat pan is original or not.

But for sure the two pieces of rolled steel angle on the rear attachment points are not original.

The gas tank has gone to Classic Cycles in the city of Orange.

Check them out at the link below.

Classic Cycles

The tank needs some body and fender work along with re-chrome and paint to restore it to former glory.

There are numerous dings scratches and scrapes which need to be removed before the chrome and paint are applied. 

Italian Red,  RAL 3003 to be precise.

I have one last hurdle to overcome to remove the swing arm, the factory drawing shows a stud passing through the frame and the gearbox, even though it is called out as a bolt. 

On my bike it is a bolt, with the head on the wrong side to allow it to be removed without taking the primary drive and clutch apart.

More on that later when I decide how to tackle that problem.

Currently, the team at Sheddington are working on tooling for the dis-assembly of the rear shocks.

More soon on the project.

Ciao Bella,

Norm

Speedo Day At Sheddington!

No, Not That Kind Of Speedos

We were working on the speedometers for both the Kawasaki and the Panther.

The Kawasaki was fairly straight forward, just a broken cable to replace.

However, you need to remove about a hundred screws of sixty different lengths to take off the various fairing parts allowing access to the speedo.

With that problem solved and all of the plastic reinstalled, we moved on to the Panther.

Here's a top tip, when you have a part or tool that is essential to the project, set it next to your beer, then you will have no trouble finding it.

We modified the input device to allow it to work with the rear wheel speedo drive and hooked it up to the system.
The gauge seemed to work but nothing we could do with the input device would make the needle move.

Obviously a bit more work was needed.
So, using our normal troubleshooting technique, back to basics, what did you last touch?
All of the wiring connections were stripped and cut apart.
Then the wiring diagram was rechecked.

Using the speedo negative earth (ground) system it was found that there was a variance in the color scheme. The wire labelled "Not Used" on the right side of the panel was not in fact hooped but striped. With my aging myopia, I had connected this to ground!
On the second pass this problem was corrected and the system worked as it should.

There is a link below showing a video of how it now works.

Smith's Gauge Electronic Speedometer

A final word on SPEEDOS.

Who could put it better?

Ciao Bella
Norm