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