1961 CB72 Project

[G-Man]

My new relined rear brake shoes would not quite fit in the rear drum and my lathe isn't big enough to swing either part.

My Father-in-law has a bigger machine and a business meeting took me close to his workshop yesterday so I took the parts along.

The drum was attended to first with just a light cut to clean up rust and scoring.



Then I was able to put the back plate in complete with the shoes to skim them to a nice fit with the drum.



It didn't take much to get the parts to fit but the linings are now well matched to the diameter of the drum.


If I'd remembered that this was an almost irreplaceble early style drum and back-plate I might have been a little more nervous doing the job. Thankfully that didn't occur to me until afterwards..... :-)

With that job done I am free to get on a build up the wheels.

G

[Seadog]

Nice to see you back at it again. Good work.

[G-Man]

Thanks Seadog. It's nice to see parts coming together.

G

Nice to see you back at it again. Good work.

[G-Man]

Before the forks can go on the frame the headstock bearings needed fitting. I found the cups & cones and some fresh balls.



It all went together without fuss but I now have to search out those oddball early steering damper parts that I carefully put away somewhere.....



Slowly moving forward again.

G

[G-Man]

The damper parts emerged from the cache of spares and went on the bottom triple clamp.



These early bikes also have a diffrent arrangement of the fork 'cushions' they fit at the top of the headlight ears rather than in the fork ribs.



It turned out that I had the wrong ribs so they had to be opened out to clear the 38mm fork tubes.



I visited CeeBee72 this afternoon to see his '62 bike and I was able to see his fork ribs. No place at all fro any cushion rings but I don't have any the same. We also discovered that his 1962 CB72 and my 1961 CB72 were both registered on 1st January 1962. How strange is that?

The fork tubes went in really easily but I found that none of the washers I had were suitable for these early large top nuts. A bit more lathe work required unless I can find a pair somewhere.



I got quite excited at this stage and went on to loosly assemble the swingarm and rear shock absorbers. It's beginning to look like something now.......




G

[G-Man]

My trip to see CeeBee72 at the weekend was to pick up this very nice 10mm plug head.



It has survived for around 55 years without picking up any broken fins and the combustion chambers are not corroded like many in my collection.



The only downside is that these two exhaust stud holes have been opened out rather clumsily. I'm going to weld those up and re-drill for new M6 studs.



If I can get that done I will get this one cleaned and built up as a spare.

G

[AlanW]

Nice work G, see you at Stafford at the weekend?