TO POWDER OR NOT TO POWDER

I decided I might as well remove the swing arm from the chassis and prepare it for powder coating. The rubber boot at the gearbox end of the arm held the universal joint in place, the end of the joint can be seen protruding through the rear bulkhead, where eventually a bearing will join it to the new prop shaft. With the boot removed the joint slipped out, I taped over the pin bearings to stop  the dust and grit from entering and set too with the angle grinder and electric drill.

I used a non woven hard open sponge like disc on the grinder to remove 90% of the paint and a circular and cup wire brush on the drill to remove most of the rest. I bought in Aldi a spot blaster for £6.99 and thought I would use this with my little compressor to get into the difficult nooks and crannies. Well, various online forums said it was rubbish and for about the first time I must agree, up till that purchase any bit of kit that I have bought from Aldi has always done what was expected from it. With this bit of kit, unless I held the end right on the metal it only just began to remove the paint, for the 'nooks and crannies' situation, this was not possible and I had grit everywhere and the paint remained. In the end I resorted to a small chisel to scrape any remaining specs of paint, I also stripped the brake back plate in the same way.

The above shot shows the shiny, bare metal bits in the back of car on the way to the paint shop, where I was told that powder coating would ruin the three rubber oil seals and related bearings, (two supporting the swing arm pins and the other supports the UV joint) I looked puzzled until he said that baking the powder at 180 degrees would harden the rubber seal and any oil/grease in the bearings.

It was decided that rather than trying to remove the bearings, and damaging them in the process. It might be better to traditionally spray them with a two pack paint and in a weeks time I will collect the bits and hopefully they will look as good as new.

A FITTING TIME

Swing arm and rear wheel are back in my home garage and the first thing I did was to offer up the swing arm to the chassis of the kit and yes, a lovely snug fit. However when I tried to screw in the pivot pins, they wouldn't. Arthur had welded in to the chassis 20mm threaded nuts that fit older swing arm pins and my 24mm ones just weren't going to screw in. Turns out that Moto Guzzi have, understandably,  made many changes over the years to the California, one of them being an increase of 4mm on the threaded section of the pins. Arthur's advice was to order the correctly sized ones and this I have done.

Also ordered were the dual shock absorbers from Hagon, which arrived within three days. High tensile nuts, bolts and washers, that were needed to locate the top end of the shocks. arrived in one day, Westfield Fasteners excelled themselves.

The swing arm minus the drive box is now temporally located using short lengths of 15mm copper tubing, one of the photos shows where the correct pin will eventually be screwed in. The top of the shocks have been approximately positioned using the large washers. In time the swing arm will need to be removed, shot blasted and powder coated before being permanently bolted up.

 

 I placed the rear wheel in the carrier on the back of the chassis, where the spare one was carried on the original Barrel Backs. This was a good place to start cleaning the hub, rim and spokes, after I first removed the brake disc. The spokes are stainless and a little wire brush on my Dremel got rid of the light crud, and various polishing heads also on the Dremel have got the rim back to a showroom shine. Paint was peeling from the hub and white aluminium oxide crystals had built up underneath. again, wire brush on Dremel worked between the spokes has removed the flaky paint and white crystals, but I now have to decide whether to repaint or lacquer, whatever I choose to do it will be tricky, spraying is out of the question as the spokes will get in the way, so hand brushing would appear to be the only realistic option, leave that one for another day.

THE STRIP BEGINS

The donor bike is in a borrowed garage a few miles away from home, as my garage is too full of kit car to be able to comfortably work on stripping the donor.

 I have now made a start and after removing the silencers and raising the bike and inch or two by placing some scrap timber under the centre stand and precariously pulling the bike over to the right I was able to wiggle the back wheel out to the left. This was only after I realised that a bolt that passed through the side of the swing and located the brake plate had to be unscrewed, the picture shows my allen key still protruding from the bolt head, having screwed it back in, on my six year older bike in France, you don't have to do this.

 Removing the swing arm, first necessitated a trip to Halfords to buy a substantially bigger socket than anything I had in my kit, 30mm to be precise, then I could unscrew the chrome end caps to the pins, the exposed end of the pins had an allen key socket in the ends, but try as I might I couldn't get a key to fit, 6mm was too small and the 8mm wouldn't fit, until I tapped in an 8mm bit that had a chamfer on it, what a tight fit!. The pins unscrewed easily enough and after a bit of a jiggle the swing arm complete with final drive box was on the floor alongside the bike.

A quick clean up and load it all into the back of the car to transport back home and that was enough for the day.

DONOR MOTO

Back home at last after nearly six weeks away, the newly installed irrigation system has kept the garden alive and my Morgan project was patiently awaiting some attention.


The last of the rivet holes have been drilled in the chassis, except in the floor panel, I need some extra muscle to help me turn the chassis over before I can attend to that, but in the meantime I located a 1995 California 1100 down in South Wales and last Saturday I boarded a Great Western train from Paddington to go and collect and ride the bike back home. I had been assured that she was in excellent mechanical order and she was, she also looked great, seems a shame to break her, but some of the leftovers, handlebar switch gear, for instance, will be used to bring my French bike up to date and the rest put on EBay

The ride back was smoothly uneventful, apart from a heavy shower of rain encountered between Bristol and Swindon, I checked the speedo regularly and continually had to reign her back in from 90 mph plus, proving that she is an ideal donor for the Morgan.

First job will be to removed back wheel and suspension, but first some gardening to be reluctantly attended to.