Lucky Phil

Not at all, I've personally never used a torque wrench on exhaust studs or nuts for that matter in 50 years. As a matter of fact I dont use a torque wrench all that often. Just for critical fasteners and groups of fasteners that need to be tensioned evenly. The reality is its not a very accurate way to tension a bolt its just that its better than free hand for the overwhelming majority of people. Get rid of the spring washer though, they are an embarrassment. Whenever I see spring washers i think "someone got the engineering wrong then".Buy a couple of Nord-Lock washers. Ciao

Ok Pete thanks. Did you see a member here recently had his gearbox shifter sleeves ( or movable hose as the manual calls them)replace during a gearbox rebuild and the rebuilder fitted sleeves that ended up too wide and the box wouldn't shift. Dont know why the sleeves ended uo too wide but it seemed one of the possibilities was that they were incorrectly manufactured. Just something to look for if you need new shifter/drive sleeves. Ciao

No worries Pete. I just measured my old style RAM plate thats fitted to the Daytona engine that's finished on the bench. It has the fast wearing plate and I measured it at 5.75mm thick. Bear in mind that I couldn't get the calipers in there as its all assembled so I used the Plasticine impression technique and measured it with the digital calipers. I have a pretty high level of confidence in the measurement. You wouldnt happen to have the two special tab sockets that fit the internal ring nuts on the 6 speed box shafts that I could borrow do you? p/n's 01 91 38 30 and 01 91 37 30. 28 and 24mm I believe. Ciao

Nice find. The torque should be the same as any grade 8 or 9 steel bolt as the torque is determined by the bolt/stud material not the nut material. You need to stretch the stud to maintain the tension so if the brass nut cant cut it then you need to go to steel or Titanium. I'm sure the brass nut will take the torque though esp if you opt for the extra long ones to give greater threaded surface area as thats the idea. Personally I'd go with a Titanium nut and anti sieze. Ciao

lovely image. Ciao

Just be aware that depending on the model RAM clutch you have the plate thickness might require to be different. You can use the later thicker plates on the earlier clutch but you need to modify. open the small image under the main one and it gives you the diagram and requirements. http://www.mgcycle.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193&products_id=3117 Ciao

Nice work. I love this kind of thing, both the engineering and the added knowledge base. Ciao

I'm assuming that the stator housing is probably cracked as I see no other reason for the bodge job with the clamps and resin. There is no rattle issues normally Ciao

Buy yourself a new alternator stator housing, believe me its the best option. As for the cover mount bolts they will be 6x1 and 30mm sounds right. Dont use SS fasteners. I know they keep their finish better than passive cad plated bolts but SS is a poor choice for any fastener. They were only ever made originally for the boating and construction world where the premium was on corrosion resistance. They simply dont have the elasticity for effective engineering fastening. I use Titanium bolts wherever I can and the std passive cad plated steel where I cant or its too expensive to use Ti. Timesert or helicoil the front engine cover mount holes. Timesert is my prefered option. Do it once and do it right and you wont be sitting on the side of the road sometime wishing you had. Ciao

Ive owned a couple of K100's in the past and the gear indicator was one of those things that you don't really need but its nice to have. I generally used it to check I was in top gear. I still toe the lever sometimes to check I'm in 6th when my brain is in neutral Ciao

The manual doesn't mention a minimum thickness for friction or steel plates but new plates are 8mm from what i've seen on MG cycles website. So worn out would be be anything under 7.5mm i'd imagine. Ciao

If you can, get someone to hold the cylinder down while you pull the head. Ciao

Not unless you want the extra work. If you're careful and dont disturb the cylinder while pulling the head you'll be good. Ciao

Another surprise. I pulled the old input shaft seal today and noted the input shaft fwd bearing not seated in the casing to the tune of 1.5mm short. You can see the evidence of this in the inner race. Should be fairly easy to rectify. Its not a major issue other than the bearing outer race is not fully supported in the case. Makes you wonder whos putting these things together sometimes. Might be the same guy that lubricates CARC swingarm bearings. He's moved onwards and upwards. That's around 1.5 mm short of the shoulder. Evidence of the bearing not running central on the race. Ciao

So I had along with my wife and dog a very pleasant catch up with my mate on his farm over the last week where we among other things, worked on the gearbox mount repair. He is extremely experienced in these type of crankcase weld repairs and modifications over many years. He reported that the cases weren't nice to weld due to probably a high content of zinc in the alloy very much the same as late model Ducati bevel cases. He started off in the mill by machining down the square lug section with a ball end cutter to the level of the case to give himself some space to get the torch in and a nice radius to weld up to. We then locally heated the case with a torch to 190 deg C. As soon as the welding was completed I held the case and he used a 1/4 inch arbour in a rivet gun and peened the entire weld while it was still soft. This stress relieves the area and reduces or eliminated any distortion to the gearbox end plate face and also shaped the welded area to a degree. He then used the die grinder and blended the welded area to the original lug. When I got home I did some further minor detail work with the die grinder as I had a very small cutter and then used some emery to further smooth it off. It did of course look a bit nicer with just the die grinder finish and if I weren't going to paint it and leave it in its natural finish I would bead blast it and it would be almost undetectable. We checked with a machinists flat and the end plate face was totally undistorted but interestingly I had checked it on my granite surface plate before we started and found in the area from the cracked mount around to the fastener below the oil filler port you could geta .004" feeler gauge in so the rear plate face wasn't true to start with. Pete put it on the mill and levelled it up with a .0035" cut. The whole process took a couple of hours with me doing nothing but assisting with heating the case and holding it during the peening process. I guess it would be a $125 US repair at an estimate with the exchange rate as it currently is. We both kind of feel that the cracks origin is probably more to do with the casting and cooling than anything else. Some will have a tiny intergranular crack develop during the cooling process due to the large local change in cross section and will then go on to develop a full blown leaking crack after an undetermined amount of heat/stress cycles. This case wasn't leaking and had no visible crack so it may have gone on for years without issue or the crack may never have propagated. So cleaning painting and assembly to go. Might need to consult Pete Roper for a borrow of a few gearbox tools. L/H mount radiused and smoothed. This lug interface with the main body of the gearbox housing was also not radiused so I undercut the lug end and formed a radius. The final repair Ciao

It's a WKF that red paint has much higher tensile strength than black hence the more chassis rigidity of the red framers and better handling. You need to carry a post it note with "please turn" to stick to the top triple clamp every time you come to a corner with a black framer /sidecar hauler. Real men like em to wriggle a bit when you're riding em. ciao

From memory normally the earth is made when the plunger is extended. Sounds like yours is the reverse. Put a meter on it and depress the plunger and compare it to the original. ciao