TICKETY BOO

Another two jobs ticked off the job list. The black painted brackets were firmly re-attached to the bottom of the reversing gearbox and the brackets in turn bolted onto the plinth. The ends of both shafts were attached to the box, I used the handle of a hammer passed through the spokes of the rear wheel to stop the shaft turning whist I used an imperial allen key to tighten the bolts (Arthur told me that for some strange reason imperial sized bolts were in use here). I then ensured that the box was set square on the plinth and securely tightened the four bolts.

 

By turning the prop shaft I could now select all of five gears and most importantly get back to neutral, passing a couple of false neutrals on the way, albeit all rather clonkily, but that's the same on the bike without the engine running. That's really good news, I can now tighten all the gear change linkages. Finally I applied the grease gun to all the nipples on the universal joints and I have also splashed out £1.56 on Ebay for a 100ml syringe, complete with 1m of thin tubing so that I can fill the box with 125ml of gear oil.

Whilst the side panel was removed I transferred the position of the exhaust clamp bolts from inside left to outside right and drilled the first of the six holes through the exposed chassis upright, as I had hoped, much easier doing it this way. The pipe being a easy fit on the header pipe allowed me to turn it to the correct angle and the remaining five holes were soon drilled and the pipe clamped to the chassis.

I will temporarily re-attache the side panel and J strip, just to keep them out of harms way as I don't want to permanently fix them until I am satisfied that I no longer need full access to the cockpit area. A good tidy up of tools and bits and pieces is definitely called for.