DELIVERANCE

It all arrived in the same post amazing! Four 4.9 drill bits, air riveter gun and the 20mm, replacement swing arm pins, which have been stored with the freshly painted, swing arm ready for fitting as soon as the chassis is back up the right way.

The drill bits were put to immediate use and half of the holes have been drilled ready for the rivets. There was just enough air left in my baby compressor to try out the air riveter and boy did it bang home those big 4.8 rivets, my Ebay purchase was great value at just over half the price than the same gun at Machine Mart.  Unfortunately my 2.5kw generator isn't man enough to power up the compressor, I have tried it out with a 50m extension lead, plus another 25m of cable and despite my concern about voltage drop it seemed to work fine. However I am still about 15m short of my garage, so I have ordered another 50m reel. I had originally considered putting in a permanent electricity supply, but the armoured cable would have cost in excess of £600 and the final cost would probably be over £1000, by the time a trenching tool had been hired, and a professional electrician had connected it all up, so 80 quid for a couple of extension leads, seemed the best way to go, especially as my genny powers up every other tool that I need.

Another 120 holes to drill and then I can get riveting.

SPRAYED OFF

I collected the swing arm and brake back plate from the sprayers today, they look great. The back plate is still wrapped in bubble wrap, but the guy in the paint shop said 'he had done a little baking, but it was only done a few hours earlier and he would rather not wrap the swing arm in case in left marks'. I laid it in the boot and drove home carefully. The photo shows it laid on a dust sheet and tomorrow I will wrap it and store it safely until the floor plate has been riveted on.

Talking of which, I have now marked out where most of the holes need to be drilled for the rivets, every 50mm, each mark has been dot punched and a pilot hole drilled into the alli. Just need to finish off and hopefully the 4.9mm drill bits should arrive soon.

I have also order from Ebay an air riveter, as my trial rivet with a 4.8 rivet, using the usual pop rivet gun required an enormous amount of effort. Several hundred rivets need to in place before the sealant goes off and I realised that I was going to need some extra muscle to do the job quickly, it should arrive in a couple of days.

BOTTOMS UP

At last I was able to recruit some chums to come over and help me to turn the chassis upside down, ready to drill and rivet the bottom floor pan on.

I had already stripped off the scuttle, cowling and rear cover from the chassis, tided up tool and bits and bobs from the floor pan, which was loosely bolted onto the chassis and would obviously stay attached as the chassis was turned  I tried lifting one end off the trestles and thought 'no problem' three of us should be easily able to lift it.

 Frank and John arrived early in the evening, keen and ready to earn their promised refreshment and with Jacquie standing by with the camera, we lifted the chassis and backed it out of the garage and let it down onto its side, on to a board I had positioned in readiness. I readjusted the trestles and as we lifted we turned the chassis bottom up, walked it back into the garage and let it back down onto the trestles. A little packing was needed for the end trestle and all was secure.

Job done, beer and nibble for everyone, thanks guys. Next week I can get on with marking out where I need to drill for the 4.8mm rivets, but first I must order some 4.9 drill bits, I am sure that a 5mm bit would be fine, but better do the job properly, Ebay here I come.

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.