Every little thing helps you feel good about yourself...

Cold night, tired after a day at work, but Red Dead Redemption held no appeal. Set PVR to record Horizon doc. about the Deepwater rig disaster, and went down the dark muddy garden to the shed. I'll just do a bit.... (God I have to keep re-learning that essential lesson)

Radio 4 drowned out by my improvised bench grinder. Trusty Bosch drill I've had for years, mounted in vice (without squeezing the section with the motor in it - luckily the casing has a ridge and is made of very tough impact resistant plastic/nylon).

Note - DIY disc for fast paint removal bought in B&Q has far out-lasted Scotchbrite type mops sourced on ebay. Nothing wrong with Scotchbrite it's brilliant, but cheap accessories are often crap - they just wear out too fast. This stripping wheel was a few quid more but results speak for themselves and it seems to be lasting a lot longer.

 

These are the adjuster end-caps for the swinging arm that I was looking for, as mine don't match each other. A kind UKMOC member contributed these (Thanks Greg!!) and I owe him a pint or two in the summer, he wouldn't take any other payment. These were from a 600 or 620 but fit fine. Again I haven't gone for a high polish finish. I want an industrial lived in look to the bike.

I had a bit of a play putting the suspension rocker linkage in place, having to sand the powder-coating back on the faces on the suspension arch that slot into the linkage (scary but getting used to having to do it). Put the polished end-caps in place and held the gold anodised chain adjuster side plates in place just to get a sense of the effect. Going to look nice. Might investigate some lacquer to protect these small parts that I am leaving as bare metal. Not had a lot of success with that in the past though... Maybe I have to learn about "two-pack"?

A couple of hours of farting about had gone by very pleasantly, and one more task accomplished and a bit of thinking done about next stages. I went back into the house to crack open a beer and watch BP manouvering robo-subs around 5000ft underwater. Night night Chickenshack...

At last....

......rebuilding has started! And it feels so good. But Cutter is not Cutter without anxiety, so there is some play in the swingarm, can it be sorted with shims? Or is that S/H pivot pin just not up to it? And, I am now realising that powdercoating in threads is not as much of a problem as I thought, it's a bigger problem on all kinds of mating surfaces I hadn't thought about. These then need to be sanded back and I start stressing about taking metal off areas that should be flush (suspension rocker to frame etc. etc.). Not to mention some wounds I then inflict accidently into areas of powder coating near by. OMELET OMELET OMELET!  The war cry gets me through (see earlier post). Plus three attempts to spray valve covers and the paint still doesn't stick..

However the fun stuff HAS started, bolting it together and seeing  my version of the bike come together. It's not exactly over the crest and downhill from now on, as plenty of challenges to come, harder ones than taking the thing to pieces. But the difference is you get to see it grow.