Nonsense Found Building Bikes

Some of the things I find when building bikes really amaze me! I'm parting out a mess of a bike and using a lot of the parts for a combat I'm building for a customer. The donor bike included the fork internals in the picture. Notice that the bottom of the dampers are aligned and that the rods are pulled all the way to the top. The damper tubes are obviously the same length but either the rods are different lengths or the short one is getting caught inside the damper tube.

Then notice that the springs are clearly different lengths. The long spring was on the short damper rod, so the short spring is not collapsed over time. Fortunately, I have plenty of springs, rods, and dampers to compare against so I can see what is right and wrong.

I wouldn't be quite as surprised but clearly the parts are all new. Also, I don't know where the damper tubes came from because they are not the normal darker colored steel and the bleed holes at the bottom are slightly different sizes (can't see that in the picture)!

This is just an example of the many stupid things I've found in the donor bike - a bike that was supposedly "ready to ride".

marshg246 said:

Also, I don't know where the damper tubes came from because they are not the normal darker colored steel and the bleed holes at the bottom are slightly different sizes (can't see that in the picture)!

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If aloy then possibly RGM's.

L.A.B. said:

If aloy then possibly RGM's.

ALLOY FORK DAMPER BODY (WITH IMPROVED DAMPING) STANDARD COMMANDO (1)

061888 RGM NORTON

www.rgmnorton.co.uk

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Checked today. They are alloy.

I have no idea if poorly manufactured or screwed with by the builder but the holes at the bottom of the damper tubes are .216" in one and .245" in the other and in the originals I have, they are .242" so that's not good.

Even worse is that the rods are the same length after all but in one, the bottom nut was lying in the bottom of the tube and the piston was not on the pin so inside of the tube is now scored so they are junk.

The springs measure 19" and19.5" and are somewhat progressive so they are not a good pair.

I agree that having different length springs is not ideal, but I don't think that amount will amount to much in real world riding. You could argue putting it on the brake caliper side would even things up by controlling its inertia more proportionately than having equal springs. Regarding the hole size differences, I've heard of running totally different damper settings in the two legs to arrive at a certain damping behaviour, but I'd be inclined to drill the smaller one. At least the bad one is too small so it's easily fixed.

Well, if we’re talking horror botch jobs…

A friend of mine (now deceased) rebuilt a Commando some years ago. He confessed to me that the swinging arm spindle was so tight in the bushes he fitted that it pivoted in the cradle rather than the bushes.

Good job you spotted it says I, now you can rectify… but… he left it like that !!!

Fortunately, he didn’t do very many miles on it.

If anyone has since bought this and discovered a very worn spindle bore in the cradle, I apologise on behalf of my late mate…

Fast Eddie said:

Well, if we’re talking horror botch jobs…

A friend of mine (now deceased) rebuilt a Commando some years ago. He confessed to me that the swinging arm spindle was so tight in the bushes he fitted that it pivoted in the cradle rather than the bushes.

Good job you spotted it says I, now you can rectify… but… he left it like that !!!

Fortunately, he didn’t do very many miles on it.

If anyone has since bought this and discovered a very worn spindle bore in the cradle, I apologise on behalf of my late mate…

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On the MK3 I'm rebuilding, someone in the past somehow got the swingarm spindle in the bushings along with grease. Trouble is that they sanded down the OD of the bushes. So, the bushes rotated in the swingarm, not the bushes around the spindle! That swingarm is in the recycle bin now along with the bushes and spindle.

They might have come from Giacomo Agostini's MV. I read somewhere that he had different damping in the two fork legs (secret stuff). His speed had to come from somewhere.

Where, oh where do I start...

grandpaul said:

Where, oh where do I start...

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Like when I had one like it - throwing things away with reckless abandon!

In this case, the nonsense is me!

Over the years I've bought out people retiring, dying, in money trouble, no longer interested in bikes, etc.

Once in a while I'm forced to straighten up, clean up, put away, etc. (I'm not good at those things!) I have an engine and gearbox coming this weekend to rebuild and having no open flat surface to work on it, it was cleanup day. While doing that I had one of those weird moments: "What is that and where did it come from?"

On a shelf loosely wrapped in plastic was the head in the picture. I haven't taken the time to know even if it is 750 or 850, but it appears new. On the top is says CROSSE. Anyone know anything about this?

marshg246 said:

In this case, the nonsense is me!

Over the years I've bought out people retiring, dying, in money trouble, no longer interested in bikes, etc.

Once in a while I'm forced to straighten up, clean up, put away, etc. (I'm not good at those things!) I have an engine and gearbox coming this weekend to rebuild and having no open flat surface to work on it, it was cleanup day. While doing that I had one of those weird moments: "What is that and where did it come from?"

On a shelf loosely wrapped in plastic was the head in the picture. I haven't taken the time to know even if it is 750 or 850, but it appears new. On the top is says CROSSE. Anyone know anything about this?

View attachment 122645

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Abbreviation for "MotoCrosse"?

Commando MX'er?

Yesterday I was taking a Combat engine apart to rebuild for a customer. While doing that I inspect things to see what I need to buy, service, or fix. This engine has over 78k miles and was apart once when almost new for a bad piston and never since.

When I took the oil pump off it turned very freely, already means worn, but then I noticed that when I looked into the return port turned the drive gear, it appeared that the gear was not turning and was broken. Took the pump apart and it turned out that the gears were all turning and there were no broken teeth but there was a chunk of metal stuck in that port that looked like the end of a Woodruff key. Also, the gear nearest it had small marks from hitting that metal.

Since the oil pump bolts were not staked and there was nothing to tell me otherwise, I assume it left the factory with that metal in that port. The metal blocked about 60-70% of the passage so the pump could work. The metal came out easily by pushing inward once the gears were out of the way.

It is clear that the metal could not go through the pump, so it was in the pump when the pump was assembled.

I bought an Atlas with the swing arm extended 2" with a piece of water pipe and very crude welding. The shocks were replaced with solid struts. The seat was homemade...a king and queen with an auxiliary gas tank under the queen.
Another one had the two top rails cut out and replaced with a single backbone.

I recently bought a Yamaha, which had a poorly fitted USB socket wedged between the clocks. I removed completely. It was fitted with a 3M Scotchlock blade fuseholder near the battery, and upon closer examination something didn't look right. This is what I found when I opened it !! ...

cliffa said:

I recently bought a Yamaha, which had a poorly fitted USB socket wedged between the clocks. I removed completely. It was fitted with a 3M Scotchlock blade fuseholder near the battery, and upon closer examination something didn't look right. This is what I found when I opened it !! ...


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I like it. Good way of preventing fuses from blowing !!

Why that there's a 100-amp fuse!

grandpaul said:

Abbreviation for "MotoCrosse"?

Commando MX'er?

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MX sidecars.

cliffa said:

I recently bought a Yamaha, which had a poorly fitted USB socket wedged between the clocks. I removed completely. It was fitted with a 3M Scotchlock blade fuseholder near the battery, and upon closer examination something didn't look right. This is what I found when I opened it !! ...


View attachment 122889

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I am aghast at the existence of Scotchlok fuse holders.