Project Katmandu: GS rebuild

Can I ask about the steering lock? It looks as if you've powder coated over yours. How was it protected? I ask because today I finally finished the strip down of my R100GS-PD and realised that I needed to do something about the steering lock. It has a plastic cover to it. Presumably there is some way to remove the lock, or can it be left in place with some sort of protection?

Hi I took mine out. Well drilled it out as I didn't have the key and haven't replaced it yet. I wouldn't think you can leave it in whilst it is powder coated.. but others here might know better.
 
Pete

They are replaceable so there must be a way of removing them. Perhaps they are pinned in? I'll take a better look in the morning. I know they aren't the most secure of security devices and I always use a G-lock anyway, but I'd like to keep what's already there.
 
Right, solved it. On my bike, the steering lock is held in place by a round plastic cover, and this in turn is held in place by a tiny soft aluminium rivet. By tapping around the rivet head for a few minutes, the rivet slowly emerged sufficiently to get small Mole Grips onto to it to remove it. The plastic cap then comes off. Only one of my small collection of Neiman keys fitted the lock and by turning the key anti-clockwise and pulling, the entire lock barrel was withdrawn.

I hadn't appreciated just how the lock operated. Once replaced the key needs to be turned anti-clockwise, pushed inwards, then clockwise. This then locks the steel pin into the hole in the steering stem.

With the black plastic cover removed, I could just make out the tiny four figure lock number on the face of the lock.

Simple really but nothing on this in Haynes.:)
 
project katmandu has let me down

I don't know about katmandu - but my bike let me down on the way to Newbury today.

She's been running great. Just over 300 miles on the Richie Moore engine and I was thinking that tonight I'd change the engine oil and re-torque the heads etc... but

on the way into work when I let the clutch out .. no drive to the rear wheel. It happened once then came back .. then at the next set of lights it didn't.

The clutch has always been very very heavy to pull in.

I think it is the clutch not "clamping" back up, maybe, but the lever action feels fine. Any reason why this might happen?

Any ideas before I start to strip her down?

stranded ...

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Done about 200 miles now, so time to sort out a few teething issues.

Slight leak from rhs carb so replaced the gasket.

Fitted a softer rear spring acquired from wilbers some time ago: this has made the ride much better


Fitted bump stops: aquired some conical ones time ago for the purpose and cut them down to fit

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Cracking idea. What bumpstops are they and where did you get them from please?

I've had a poke round Ebay but there's not much way of judging the size of these things from a single photo. Classic mini ones look about right but may be too big.
 
Hi Pete, the bike looks stunning. I'm finally getting mine back from Richie next weekend and will be doing final assembly over the christmas holiday. I have the same clutch as yours and mine was impossibly heavy too. Richie suggested I'd put it together slightly wrongly. I'll find out in a week or two if it is any better when we re fit the engine and gearbox ( I'm changing the cam).
 
Hi Pete, the bike looks stunning. I'm finally getting mine back from Richie next weekend and will be doing final assembly over the christmas holiday. I have the same clutch as yours and mine was impossibly heavy too. Richie suggested I'd put it together slightly wrongly. I'll find out in a week or two if it is any better when we re fit the engine and gearbox ( I'm changing the cam).

Hello - wondered where D468ABL had got to.... what's Richie been doing for you? Looking forward to your threads next installments!

Thanks for your feedback re the heavy clutch. I was thinking maybe i had done something wrong - but there really is nothing you can do wrong..so I spoke to Richie today and he said when he put my clutch in the kit included a very heavy spring plate which explains the heavy clutch. May have gone too heavy so I'll see how I get on with it and maybe step it down a bit if I can't.
 
ok so I had a problem : broken drive shaft..

lost drive on the bike and suffered the indignity of not making a ride 15 miles to newbury let alone 15,000 to Katmandu and ended up on the back of an AA van.

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Transpires the lengthened drive shaft had snapped.

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All repaired by the Nixon (aka Dogbytes of this parish)

Repair described as "Re-drilled to clear broken bit, cleaned, pressed together, the join area vee-ed out and the shaft aligned in lathe. I clocked it up with a dial gauge as well as I could but there were flats on it from dressing of the previous weld, so it was difficult. It was then pre-heated to avoid cracking and fusion welded as seen below.
The fusion weld is covered by a layer of filler rod...
The weld has been turned back to original diameter and lightly polished
All done.
I still think its a silly way to do it!"


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Why Machine it Down?? You have removed metal and consequently strength too, n'est pas?

It's not as if anyone is going to see it and also it isn't being redlined all the time so high speed rotation/whip shouldn't really be an issue

Therefore a couple of grammes of weld (If Even) close to the centre shouldn't affect the balance too much I would think??
 
Why Machine it Down?? You have removed metal and consequently strength too, n'est pas?

It's not as if anyone is going to see it and also it isn't being redlined all the time so high speed rotation/whip shouldn't really be an issue

Therefore a couple of grammes of weld (If Even) close to the centre shouldn't affect the balance too much I would think??

Good point. John said that to me:it would be stronger to make something that fits over the the shaft and actually increases the diameter. In my case its actually because of the monolever drive shaft tube bodge that I have to put up with until Richie delivers his pukka extended monolever for me. it means that I have limited clearance inside so I need to keep the original diameter of the shaft.
 
Why Machine it Down?? You have removed metal and consequently strength too, n'est pas?

It's not as if anyone is going to see it and also it isn't being redlined all the time so high speed rotation/whip shouldn't really be an issue

Therefore a couple of grammes of weld (If Even) close to the centre shouldn't affect the balance too much I would think??

You'd be staggered how much centrifugal force is generated by just a tiny amount of imbalance, certainly enough to put double the strain on any bearings running throughout.

Any weld that is greater in diameter than the shaft is redundant anyway.

The best course of action by a long way is to machine and balance up after welding. :thumb
 
Good point. John said that to me:it would be stronger to make something that fits over the the shaft and actually increases the diameter. In my case its actually because of the monolever drive shaft tube bodge that I have to put up with until Richie delivers his pukka extended monolever for me. it means that I have limited clearance inside so I need to keep the original diameter of the shaft.

Pete and I have had long discussions about this :) and, as he says, in this case we don't have an option due to lack of space. I'm tempted to do a longer shaft for my project bike just to see if there's a way to do it which is more pleasing from an engineering point of view - short of having an entire new shaft made. There has to be. Having said that, I'm interested to see how my weld holds up...
 
Not on gs's but years ago we used to have a real mare lengthening shafts for chops and low riders, no matter how careful we were, 50% would break at the join, we figured out that it was a balance issue not getting the shafts 100% straight so we started to get a guy to make new shafts and weld the ends of the old shaft into it, this brought reliability up to perhaps 90%. In fact i put around 200 bhp through one extended shaft during testing of one of my motors, it stayed together ok:thumb2

Good luck, how do RM and HPN extend theirs?
 
all back together ..

all back together ... 4hrs .. really fiddly

I'll try some wheelies out tomorrow - that should test the welding :D


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