“Bobbing” a motorcycle is the process of taking off anything and everything that adds weight, complicates stuff, or looks wrong. Wikipedia Bobber
Today I whipped out the hacksaw and went to town. Not too extreme, but enough so that there’s none of the superfluous bits hanging around any more.
I was going to run the angle grinder over the cuts, but remembered that the road rules say quite clearly that no heat is to be applied to the frame at any stage. Better safe than sorry.
I bought a new chain and sprocket.
Seemed like a good idea at the time, and eBay is always just a click away…
Turns out, the nice shiny new chain was a bit wider than the old one. All the high-spec roller bearings and such like added a few millimetres here and there. So although it fit in a theoretical sort of fashion, I was left with only one option to make it fit in a way that allowed the chain to actually move – cut away half the gearbox casing.
So, the chain goes back in the box, and I revert to making the old parts as “new again” as possible.
This was just plain tedious. First, wirebrush all the mess off the sprockets, so they look all shiny. Then soak the chain in a bath of kerosene for a day or so.
It comes out looking like nothing has changed.
Sigh.
So you get the wirebrush out again, and scrub off the rust and gunk. Then you cover the chain in oil and grease. rummage it around for a while, and put all the bits back where they belong.
Twitch the tensioners on the axle until the chain freeplay is about a half inch or so. Tighten the nuts and bolts, and apply the cotter pins etc.
Next time I’ll take measurements before buying replacement parts.
Maybe.
The 1982 GSX has rear brakes.
That’s pretty much all I can say about it.
The rear brake pedal is connected to the rear brake hub with a metal rod. Step on the pedal, the rod is pulled, and the rod in turn pulls on a lever in the rear hub. This lever has a cam that spreads the brake shoes inside the hub.
Once I cleaned up the metal (the usual wire brushing and sandpaper) I replaced the brake shoes. I’m not 100% convinced that this improved the braking, but it’s a bit a guesswork anyway since it takes forever to bed the brake linings in. Suffice to say, while rear brakes are the “safest” to use on a bike, they’re certainly not the primary stopping apparatus on this old classic.
While working on the brakes, I also cleaned up the rear axle.
Once the bare metal was primed, It was time for a coat of gloss white to match the rims.
I didn’t have to repair the clutch mechanism itself, thank goodness.
The sidecase / clutch cover was of course horrendously filthy. I guess it had last been cleaned around 1990.
I scraped out the worst, then got to cleaning the rest with a brush, some mineral turps, a rag, and plenty of patience.
I left the sidecover with some patina, and didn’t go down the highly polished route which would have ended in tears and frustration.
The actuating rod was bent a little, so I gave it a few whacks with a hammer to straighten it out.
I bought a set of new bolts because 2 were missing and the others were a random assortment. Turns out the missing bolts were actually broken off in the gearbox. So I bought an easy-out extractor (which worked surprisingly well).
Lastly, I cut the mirror mounts off the clutch lever, and polished up the alloy surface.
Foot pegs are weird things. Just little folding bits of metal with a slippery coating of rubber. Yep, that’s all that keeps your feet from dragging along the road.
Granted, you can get those metal ones with sharp teeth that rip your boots to pieces over time. But in my case, I inherited the 30 year old rubber ones that were made of rusty metal with a chrome finish. And a whole layer of gunk.
But lo, the wire brush was handy. After an hour they looked almost good enough to put back onto the frame, so that’s what I did.
My brother came for a visit.
We decided it would be fun to take the motorcycle apart.
At the time, I didn’t have a workshop space — we did this in the shared garage space of the apartment building. Thanks to our understanding neighbours.
A couple of interesting rust spots were uncovered – but most of it was surface rust, and I dealt with that in the rebuild process.
By the end of the day, we had it stripped down to the most basic of frame pieces.
About a week after getting the bike running, the starter motor blew up.
Well, not literally blown up – it just make a horrid clunking sound instead of turning over. I took it out of its housing, and discovered that the permanent magnets had come loose, and were rattling around in the casing. Most undignified – bits had chipped off and the whole thing inside was a mess of dirt, rust, and magnet fragments.
I took everything apart and cleaned and polished whatever I could find.
I couldn’t figure how to glue the magnets in place, so I decided to build a couple of packer pieces using a heat-resistant epoxy putty. It’s lasted for over 4 years so far – I guess it worked.
Everything went back together OK. A dollop of grease finished the job.
Davo's Weekend Workshop 