Expresso front wheel rebuild

[Mal S7]

For your information, I had my hair chromed.
Years ago. When I had a Harley.

But now there's some pitting right, and places where its rubbed through?

[dougie]

I think it is what Jeff uses on his hair.

Hey Doug! I resemble that comment!
For your information, I had my hair chromed.
Years ago.
When I had a Harley.

You Aussies, always fashionable!

[Mal S7]

So now I have nice new nipply tyres



I reluctantly clear coated the hub, as an experiment. Mostly as I am still trying to clean off the Nymagee mud from the rest of the bike. It sticks impossibly well to alloy. I think some kind of clay/aluminium chemical bonding going on there?

[ME 109]

Looks bewdiful Mal!
That mud sure is a sticker alright. My ss headers are still brown.
Great tyre choice btw.

[dougie]

Looks brand new!

[DucatiPete]

Lookin' good Mal! More than a little incentive for me to do likewise for fivey... though i am reluctant to pull the resto trigger on her.

Yeah, Nymagee mud: the headers of my gs look like they're ceramic coated - on the outside!

Talk about headers, check out these ones i prepared earlier:

HeadersInProcess.jpg (41.34 KiB) Viewed 967 times

I'm up to my 'pits in RS pipes, buffing 'em back to 'nice'. Mainly 'coz I scored a v nice pair of Staintune mufflers recently and they made the headers look decidely second hand. So i bought a bunch of buffing paraphenalia and went to it.

The pic shows one taken to the first buff stage - two more after that. Gotta say they sure look good now.

Now I'm debating with self if i should cut out/blank off the rear cross-over (to enable easier pipe removal for filter changes etc)... thoughts?

[Mal S7]

Thats the beauty of stainless Pete.
My overlander headers are 'flash chromed' stainless steel, they look great but I will never be game to wave a buff at them.
They only have one cross-over. I never knew they came out with two? I will have to be more observant.

[Mal S7]

The autumn weather here is TOO good and this "expresso" project has gone on for TOO long, so I decide to give up on my package from Motobins and re-assemble the old worn forks and single disc front end but ....

curses!!!

where are my 8mm crush washers for the fork lowers?? Not in the major service washer kits that I waited 3 days to arrive from Perth? I can't even find the old ones!

Anyone know a handy substitute? Punch a hold in a beer bottle lid?

[DucatiPete]

"where are my 8mm crush washers for the fork lowers??"

supercheaparse et al would be my first port of call... i bought a 'handy pack' of copper washers a while back for just this type of occasion.

[Mal S7]

"supercheaparse et al would be my first port of call... i bought a 'handy pack' of copper washers a while back for just this type of occasion.

You were right. Supercheaparse it was Pete. Pack of 5 x 5/16" copper washers for $3.

Haynes manual says 18ft/lb torque for those little nuts ...... umm I wasn't game to take it that far, it didn't feel right,.. and even then the RHS nut feels like it has gone to mush. aghhh!

sigh ... oh well this reassembly was only meant to be a practice attempt ...