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I was working on a few small projects this weekend on my 79F:
While working on this, I noticed the bolt on the right side of the center stand LOOKED a bit lose. As it turns out, the bolt was not loose, but had a HUGE amount of slop in it. Which DID explain why it always tipped to the right when I put it up on the center stand!
And always has as long as I could remember...
When I took the center stand apart, I found two issues:
The incorrect hardware makes everything a bit loose, but that lack of a bushing gives the right side of the center stand almost 3/16" of slop on that side. Very noticeable as you can guess! It also explains why both bolts were double nutted (as one side could not be properly tightened down against the spacer).
Right now, all the hardware is cleaning in the ultrasonic parts cleaner, so when it is done, I'll take my calipers to everything and figure out what size hardware I should actually have on there. I'll probably have to order the correct stuff to get the exact right size. I will also need to take the spacer to the machine shop at school tomorrow and turn out a replacement bushing as well.
I'll be interested to see how much easier the bike goes up on the center stand when it has all the right parts in it.
Now if I could just get the neutral light to work and the left blinker to work reliably, I would be in pretty good shape at this point!
- Replace lost spacer/damper between Kirker muffler and bracket
- Replace tail light lens gasket
- Replace front right turn signal stalk (bent from original owner's crash before I got it in '89...)
- Replace cracked front turn signal lens (ditto)
- And while doing this, I found the spring from the rear brake to the brake light switch was disconnected (fixed)
While working on this, I noticed the bolt on the right side of the center stand LOOKED a bit lose. As it turns out, the bolt was not loose, but had a HUGE amount of slop in it. Which DID explain why it always tipped to the right when I put it up on the center stand!
And always has as long as I could remember...
When I took the center stand apart, I found two issues:
- The proper metric bolts had been replaced with slightly undersized standard size grade 5 hardware
- The bushing in the right side of the center stand was gone
The incorrect hardware makes everything a bit loose, but that lack of a bushing gives the right side of the center stand almost 3/16" of slop on that side. Very noticeable as you can guess! It also explains why both bolts were double nutted (as one side could not be properly tightened down against the spacer).
Right now, all the hardware is cleaning in the ultrasonic parts cleaner, so when it is done, I'll take my calipers to everything and figure out what size hardware I should actually have on there. I'll probably have to order the correct stuff to get the exact right size. I will also need to take the spacer to the machine shop at school tomorrow and turn out a replacement bushing as well.
I'll be interested to see how much easier the bike goes up on the center stand when it has all the right parts in it.
Now if I could just get the neutral light to work and the left blinker to work reliably, I would be in pretty good shape at this point!