Lord Gruntfuttock

Yeah just looked and that pattern is BSA. Interesting...

No BSA logo chainwheel, has it been swapped or too early? Not sure when they came out but my 30s roadster has one.

Lockdown progress. Been truing the wheel while waiting for documents to load remotely in my slow remote office, and put tyre on it last night. Was worried I had no rim tape to protect tube but found some in my hoard of old bits... And what I'm starting with... Widened the front fork slots to fit the motor axle... And stretched the forks out a bit, they were around 86mm and need to be 100mm... And it's not going to look too silly... Clearance on one side slim but ok... But the other was touching... And couldn't slide a washer on cos there's a plug preventing the nut coming off. So bent a spring washer open, slid on over the cable, and closed up again... Old pedal was a bugger to get off, had to get grinder out... And MKS pedals look sweet in white... Adjusted crank bearings and put new seat on too, plus slight panel beating of front guard. Starting to get close... Wasn't going to put seat and pedals on, I like putting new bits on last, but not much else to do until I get rear wheel made up. Hope to get on that this week...

Yeah brakes is something I happily pay to get right, not stopping can coast a heap more than some new lines...

Well that was disappointing. Went home at lunch to lace up the rear wheel, got started and things went awry pretty quickly, seems the other CR18 rim I have is a 32H. Bugger. Went though old emails and I did buy one 36 and one 32H (in 2015). Can't remember why, but I assumed they were both 36 when I found them in parts pile for this project. Ordered another 36H but my cheap build is getting more expensive... [Edit] vague memory now that the front rim was going on an old Dynohub, think it was 32H and I bought spokes to suit. Suppose I can still lace that up and swap for the motorised front rim if I change my mind in future...

Meh, just use the 'rock side to side and listen for a slosh' method. I reckon those tubes ruin the clean look and are just something else to leak/go wrong. Far better spending your efforts on getting the fuel tap location right cos it sucks when you 'run out' but there's litres left in the tank. I know this cos i adjusted the angle of my tank after brazing in the tap... Actually I'd rig up a trick bracket for a 1 litre alloy fuel bottle. They can look pretty cool, and when you do run out you've got enough to get to a servo...

Any tension on those short leads? I'd leave a little slack so vibration doesn't kooze them. Old industrial electrician thing with crane cables etc.

Dug the old BSA frame out of the shed for a cleanup... Been putting it off cos I'm a bit over cleaning up old shit, was thinking about putting new bars on... But some steel wool and WD40 and the old bars came out great... Love how good 50+ yr old chrome is... So minor achievement, but should encourage me to get wheels finished so it's rolling at least...

Yeah apparently a bunch of Japanese rims were shithouse in the 80's. A few people have found similar horror stories when they went to change tyres...

Since I had the wheel apart I thought I'd paint a bunch of stuff... Stripped old bits... And sprayed with Durepox primer, a mix of grey/black depending on the final colour, when they chip the undercoat of epoxy should be similar in colour... And just top coated with VHT wheel paint. Will be interested to see how this goes... Brake plate was quite pitted but seems sound, smoothed out quite well with few coats of primer and paint... And spokes look as good as possible I guess, seeing it's only silver paint... And lower triple clamp looks pretty sharp. Had some drips on this from spraying too heavy but wiped them smooth and the wheel paint seemed to recover itself... Sort of waiting on Ali new rear rim to arrive now to give me some enthusiasm to start rebuilding shit, paint will harden in the meantime...

Nothing to lose so had a crack at it, remembered to measure offset beforehand., just with a ruler from a flat surface.. And a combination of heat, penetrant impact gun and force got them moving... Until I broke my favourite old spoke tool, was a bloody good one too... So out with the vice grips for the last few stuck nipples... And success. All spokes out without breakages. Should be able to clean them up and re-use with new nipples on a new 32 hole rim... Pretty pleased with that as I've already bought bearings etc for this hub...

Tidied the garage in the weekend and thought it'd be good to start putting this back together. The rear wheel looked ok, so I thought it'd be a simple cleanup and new tyre job, but oh no, nothing's simple. First mission was getting the ancient tyre off, was a real mission as was hard as fuck, so cut the sidewalls with a hook blade Stanley knife, removed the tread and tube, and levered off the remaining bands... And the obvious signs of corrosion worried me under what looked like orange insulation tape... And yep, disturbingly shitty... Wire brush on the drill appeared to clean it up ok, and at this stage was still hopeful it was recoverable... But serious cracks mean otherwise... So thought I'd just lace up a new rim, fairly standard size so should be no probs... Except it has some weird spokes that go right through the hub on one side. Never seen them before... Turns out they're Z-spokes, an innovation Yamaha brought out in '84... And discontinued cos they were a bit shit... So that's where I'm at. You can get new spokes, but they're stupidly expensive. Annoying as I thought this wheel was ok and just needed some paint. So can either clean it up and use with cracks, or look at other wheels/hubs that'll work... Will see what looks similar/is available...

Seat build info down near bottom of this if you want pics. Seat still going well several years later...

I just used sleeping mat foam from the warehouse. Closed cell so waterproof, can glue together and is sandable for shaping. Cos it's fairly hard I added a gel pad on seat section, and covered the lot in smoothing foam to even out before it went to upholsterer...

SCIENCE!!! I so want to graph that...