I've reassembled the bike, photo attached. Repainted the fenders and side covers with Dupli-color spray bomb paint and a few coats of clear top coat. I think it looks pretty good, certainly better than before.
Started up and ran fine, no different than before I tore it down which is a great relief. It shifts through all the gears nicely. I GREATLY enjoy the new gearing afforded by X-ing the gears. Second gear is much better, and I can now cruise along in third gear on city streets which before had me lugging a bit in third or revving higher than comfortable in second.
The only problem I have now is I'm having clutch troubles. I adjusted the clutch in accordance with accepted procedures before firing it up, and when I dropped it into first gear there was immediate grab as if I didn't have enough play. So I took out the small amount of slack at the adjusting bolt and it seemed to give a little play, but still a little grab is present. Going for a test run to see if getting everything up to heat would cause a change, I found that the clutch would slip a little under heavy acceleration. So I have a perplexing combination of too much slack and not enough slack in the clutch cable at the same time...? Perhaps I've installed something wrong, I may pop off both covers and reassemble the clutch components on each side and see if that improves things.
Anyone have advice about something I should look for?
Fresh meat!Getting close
Re: Getting closeCall me. .........lm
Back in actionWell, with Loud Mouse's kind offer to talk me through my clutch issue in my hip pocket I decided to spend a little more time on it before I decided it was something I couldn't fix. I know it's not the clutch itself...I bought it from LM and it's been working great! So I pulled off both side cases and removed the clutch plates. I didn't see anything amiss....ball bearing was in the clutch lifter thread, clutch rod was in correctly (I had started fantasizing about things I may have installed incorrectly as sometimes happens when it's not right) but I noted that my clutch plates were fairly sticky as if I had coated them with corn syrup before reinstalling. So I carefully cleaned them all and spread fresh 30w on them and reinstalled. Buttoned the engine back up, adjusted the clutch and it worked better. Went on a 50 mile ride Sunday, everything was working great. I figure that shortcomings observed on a short driveway cruise are perhaps not indicative of a problem, one needs to get everything up to heat real good and then see what's going on.
I continue to really enjoy the modified gearing that X-ing the gears created. I would highly recommend it to anyone who's into their transmission for gear work or otherwise. I also note that it seems second gear wears out soonest on these bikes, X-ing the gears is a way to rotate the gears around a little and perhaps get more life out of a transmission before new gears need to be purchased. I bought a new speedo cable from Retrobikes but couldn't get it to thread onto the box at the hub correctly. If I screwed it on a couple of threads, something was binding and the mechanism wouldn't turn. I ended up putting the new outer cable aside, pulled the inner cable out and ran it up the original housing to the speedo. Seems to work fine. All I really needed was the inner cable anyway.
Re: Back in actionThat's good news and music to my ears, Neil. It's my intention to do the operation once I drop my powertrain; I have the same 'traffic speed' problem, except mine seems to be more a case of lugging in second or uncomfortably revving in first! I'm looking forward to getting in there with my new FASTFRED cotters too! And re-bearinging to shut the grinding noise up..... It's not that bad, just bloody irritating.
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