ON GUARD

They're on at last, the mudguards that is. I collected them from Arthur, Monday week ago, the pair of universal, stainless, rear, bike mudguards, aluminium stays and a pair of steel brackets that Nigel the blacksmith had fabricated, to fit under the top of each guard.

The stays were easy to fit, one set just bolt onto the back of each hub carrier and the lower stays bolt onto the back edge of the calipers, by replacing a bolt with much longer one. The guards were much to big and would need a chunk cutting off, I placed one of the guards on the wheel with what I thought was sufficient overhang at the front and determined how much to remove. A cutting disc in the angle grinder made short work of that. The steel bracket I bolted on to the vertical stay, set the mudguard onto it and marked out the drill centers.

 

With the mudguard bolted onto the top steel brace, I turned my attention to fitting the lower brace to the guard, I think the intention was to just bolt the stay onto the side of the guard, but I thought the result would be a bit flimsy. I ordered through EBay a half metre of ally strip, 1in x 1/4in and did a bit of forging, trying to match the proper blacksmith's steel one. Blowtorch a hammer and my big vice and the angle grinder and the finished result wasn't far off the pattern.

 Again centers marked and drilled and the brackets attached to guards and stay, with a angled spacer in between and I finally had a pair of rigidly attached mudguards.

I also got to fit the old bike silencers and as I hoped, on a couple of circuits of the block, the engine was now pulling well with no hesitation up the hill, great. The look is compromised, but I will leave these pipes on for the MSVA test, but after the test I will have to experiment with the Brookland cans by gradually reducing the amount of stuffing until I get the same level of power. 

However by the end of the second circuit the car started to slowdown and eventually stalled as I tried to get back up my drive. Both front brakes were smoking and the brakes were fully locked on and the car was going nowhere. I got the brakes to free up after continuously splashing water onto them to cool them and was able to continue up to my garage. The front wheels had always taken some effort to turn them by hand whilst the car had been on the trestles. I assumed that when rolling, the pads would quickly be worn down, but obviously sufficient heat was being generated to gradually expand the discs and eventually lock the brakes up. I will have to remove the pads and grind them down to provide sufficient clearance to allow the wheels to spin freely, allow an hour, but will probably take three.