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Pressureangle

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Everything posted by Pressureangle

  1. Also, figured out that if you press the 'next' button through the ads on YT, start the ad on the next song, then 'back' your browser you get what you wanted to start with minus the 8 minutes of extortion for YT premium.
  2. I haven't had much luck with *anything* I've purchased over the past 10 years. I assume anything new is Harbor Freight, regardless of the label. The Chinese Conspiracy is pervasive.
  3. I have a Blue-Point made by Jaco that's about ... 40? Years old now. Doesn't have the safety relief but has been reliable, accurate, and consistent across time. I did have to replace the plastic disc in the pressure release button once about 15 years ago.
  4. Well, being Aussie/English he'd call them 'Lambchops', of course.
  5. Tony Foale was (is) a mad scientist racing Aermacchi, which all had from '61 until '73 a single-tube frame which looks and mounts *very* much like the MG 'spine' frame. Lightweight and apparently sufficiently rigid torsionally- but it's plain if you've watched the '95 BEARS Raceco bike weaving and wobbling everywhere staying in front of the Brittens that the limits were found. The term 'frame backbone' goes back farther than I can remember.
  6. I never thought of the H-D spacer, probably a good start. Also, because the H-D uses tapered rollers instead of ball bearings, they make a great selection of spacer shims to get the precise bearing clearance they want. Not a bad option for us, perhaps to be explored. If you have a short spacer, which is the real problem situation, just add the correct H-D part number to it. Ball bearings in our bikes do not tolerate a great deal of axial load- there are ball bearings made with that more in mind; so the perfect situation is that the outer bearing races are perfectly parallel, and the inner races are held at the distance which holds the balls dead neutral in the outer races with no preload in either direction. Neither of these conditions are likely present in something as mundane as a motorcycle wheel, but they don't die early so the dimensions are adequate for reasonable life. So to make a new spacer, I'd drive the bearings home in the wheel and measure the distance between the inner races, then make a spacer that's exactly the same length to no more than +.010". On my Sport, with the bearings driven home hard in the wheel, the spacer is tight enough between them that you can't move it by finger but you can move it with a screwdriver. It's as close as you can be certain about unless you get crazy about measuring the wheel bores. Again, 'sufficient' is good enough for wheels, with only the worst offenders reducing bearing life. The problem with a short spacer is that the bearings take the entire load from the axle nut, rather than the bearing race; if the spacer is a tiny long, the outer races can relax against the wheel bores a couple thousandths which limits the force they can be subjected to. Don't overthink it with me unless you have a bunch of measuring equipment and like self-flagellation. If you drive the bearings against the spacer and it's tight between them, it's ok. I always give the inner race a light whack to be sure the opposing bearing has moved the outer race if it has to before installation. I noticed just today that my '89 Mille spoke wheel has snap rings on the bearings, at least on one side; that may change the metric a tiny bit. I'll stop now, I'm falling down the well again.
  7. I wouldn't make it of aluminum for a street bike, though I'm sure certain grades of aluminum are more than sufficient. Steel won't compress or fret away, and the weight difference is meaningless. I.D. doesn't have to be a slip fit, 1" = 25.4mm so an inch is pretty close to perfect. Give me an ID from the wheel hub for the rings, or measure the sample and I'll ask about getting one. Even then, you should fit the new one very carefully with the idea that the spacer is precisely the same length as the distance between the outer bearing races, to hold the bearings centered with no preload. With that in mind, it is always better to have the spacer a bit long (a very little bit) than to have it at all too short. That way, the bearings can relieve any side pressure by moving a few thousandths out in the wheel, which you'll never know about elsewise.
  8. There must be some nuance that makes certain bikes deadly and others Sublime. The worst bike I ever rode for regular tankslappers was a '75 Kawi 500 triple; no surprise there, and I still have the lump on my collarbone to remind me. I put 2 dampers on it, though the factory dampers were...weak. I raced an FZ400 chassis with a 600 motor in it in a 4 hour endurance race, probably had a damper but I don't recall any trouble; was at E. St. Louis, not a particularly fast track tho. The absolute worst tankslappers, though, were on H-D 883 Sportsters. They were dead stable and slow handling- until the front end went to Mars. We put high-end dampers on them and if you couldn't do 3 sets of 50 pushups you could barely wrestle them around a track. Loose (or neutral) steering head bearings were a lurking suicide. I raced a tube-frame Buell for half a season, never had a stability issue but the front end had zero feedback and tucked in every corner unless you had the throttle on. I didn't get a chance to drop the rear enough to discover if it would help. <shrug> I'm sure smart guys have the answers, and I'm equally certain they don't publicize them conspicuously.
  9. I'd wondered about that myself. My '97 Sport has never given even the slightest sign that it needs a damper of any sort, not on rough 2-lane nor 90mph sweepers. I hit some sort of diagonal groove coming down the mountains of Idaho on the way to Spokane in a very fast, very leaned-over sweeper and was dead certain it was the end. I felt a single boomp, the bars never twitched, and I rode on from then with the certainty that I could trust it always to be so. I can't imagine what situation could produce a tankslapper on this bike, and I've not even put it back together since I discovered that the steering head was loose on the bearings giving a suspicious and anxiety-producing 'clunk' occasionally. Although my rebuilt Bitubo is capable of tightening to land-speed strength, the lightest setting is hardly noticeable and I keep it there.
  10. In a previous life as a poor kid racing flat track bikes, I've made more than a few axle spacers. At it's simplest, a piece of steel water pipe, a hacksaw, sandpaper and a caliper will get it done. For a more ... precision ... application such as this, a proper lathe would be nice. The rings around the spacer are for no other purpose than to facilitate assembly- it takes a bit of wiggling and fishing from the opposite end to get the spacer in front of the axle without them. So, pretty much anyone with even a small benchtop lathe can make the spacer and rings. Your only real concern is for the proper length and proper diameter so the bearing race is supported around the entire surface. If I was at our shop, I'd say send along your sample and I'd pop it out, but I can't say how long it would take them to get at it if I had you send it there.
  11. My '97 Sport came to me with an empty leaking Bitubo. I have a WP and an Ohlins damper on the shelf, neither of which could be made to fit the MG. Being a cheapskate and easily annoyed, I took the end cap off the Bitubo, cleaned the seals and internals, refilled with power steering fluid (with leakstop) and it's been righteous ever since- ~15k miles. (Edit-on review, I took the PS fluid out after a bit and gave it Motul fork oil) Smooth, great adjustability, and leak/weep free. Costs nothing to try. If you do, be sure to get all of your cleaner out and run the shaft up and down a few times in the oil with the cap off to release any bubbles. Then fill to top and let the excess run out while you thread the cap on. Clean up and go.
  12. You know I do all my own work (usually) but I was quite happy to let the local WP service center give them a mechanical rebuild and facelift for only a couple hun; replacing bushings is something best accomplished with correct tools- which requires in my experience either time and money to acquire the 'official' tool (which lays unused for eternity after) or 3 trips to Home Depot for the correct (?) size PVC pipe to cut into a tool. What broke the camel's back and drove me to outsource it wasn't that WP is literally a half hour drive, but that I couldn't find online a way to be certain of what fork I have and educate myself on the process before I took them apart- or halfway apart. FWIW here's your nearest WP service center; WOOLY'S CYCLES OF ATLANTA Address 1581 Cobb Pkwy S 30060 Marietta, GA There are few things I hate more than taking something apart and being stuck for parts or tools while I forget where I was and how it fits back together. Like my Sport with no TBI linkage. Or my Mille GT waiting for spoke nipples from Sweden. Or my Aermacchi starter needing a register bored for the Suzuki upgrade. I have nothing that works properly today.
  13. They don't call it 'a spare tire' for nothing lol
  14. My Sport came to me from the oilfields of Southern California, with every nook and cranny filled with basically dirty, seasoned road tar. I've used everything trying to rid it of these evil dark bits, and it's clear that until it's stripped to the core I'll live with some of it. That said, the best two cleaners I tried were Westley's Bleche-White (do not let it linger, it's quite caustic) and WD-40. As an act of desperation trying to find something to clean the front wheel and fork ends, I used 'like dissolves like' and it worked. That said, I never got everything returned to new and eventually had the wheels stripped and powder coated and the forks rebuilt and vapor blasted.
  15. FWIW, here's how I solved my tailpack problem on the 1100 Sport; this worked out perfectly. I used heavy velcro on a spare pillion, cut the bag straps and screwed the buckles to the base.
  16. Here's a thread from 2010 about racks. This place never fails to enlighten.
  17. I see @Lucky Phil had a set for sale a couple years ago?
  18. No, I don't have one. I only found Ventura while investigating a rack for my Son's LeMans.
  19. You don't need heat, you need leverage. An impact gun and appropriate *impact* socket is the least difficult, but you'll have to remove the front wheel for access. I did mine with the 'ring spanner' but I do admit to spending some time sussing out angles, access, and holding the bike in place while I applied torque.
  20. I'll disagree, absent someone who can do the math. The rattle gun impacts the teeth, the wrench only applies torque, about 90 lbs-ft. divided by the gear radius. Not an issue.
  21. My deep 32mm; https://ibb.co/XLZZwwq
  22. Oh yeah, the significant bit I forgot was that ZDDP only attaches at high heat, which means your metal bits have to rub hard enough to make the heat necessary for bonding. It works obviously, but the B/Mo doesn't require the heat.
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