Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

[BikerGran]

 

[saex69]

Your bike is coming on a treat Minimutly going back to your thread about welds i'v seen so some really bad welds over the the years doing custom show's at Stormin and other rally's, 2 years a go there was a bike which was a disaster waiting to happen they had struts on the rear end that looked as if they were tacked on and not very straight with welding that look'd like a young child had done it i just had to tell the guy if he did not have a death wish he should go and get some one who can weld ASAP to do the job done properly.

[minimutly]

I seem to remember reading a note from a sva inspector, or was it from the manual (may even have been the Race msa  blue book), something along the lines of a good looking weld not guaranteed to be good, but  one that looks bad will almost certainly fail.
I spent ages trying to improve the welding of a colleague who is building a locust for the road. After a long time trying and not really getting anywhere I realised he couldn't see the pool. I tried his helmet, I couldn't see with it either!
A new helmet improved things immensely.
I've just come back from a week in Cyprus, so nothing done to the trike for a week.
Huw

[BikerGran]

If I had a choice between a week in Cyprus and working on a trike I wouldn't have got much done either!

[minimutly]

Time for an update, still not much done, but been considering how to reduce the diff preload to something sane.
We'll I managed to modify an old puller by boring the centre out to take my Sykes pic hydraulic ram - didn't take me as long as I thought, but I'd never cut an internal thread before so I was going into the unknown a bit.
3 mini head studs with mini manifold (nice and thick) washers welded on and shaped to fit the recesses behind the bearing made the legs, with a jubilee clip to stop them spreading. It worked a treat.
I removed 5 thou first, but felt it could do with more taken out, so another 3, which gave me 4 thou of preload.
I don't know what the figure should be it it feels about right.
So Friday I'll be looking for a pair of wheel bearings and a diff seal. One question to the reliant experts -my oil seal was a leather thing, can I just fit a std oil seal? Assuming there is one that fits of course.
All the best,
Huw

[minimutly]

some progress today.
Welded the frame up, moved the brake master cylinder up half an inch (every bit helps when things are tight).
The axle is together, but the spares shop have ordered bearings and lips seal so they won't be here until Tuesday night.
Bolted the axle on, started putting together the brakes (new min back plates), but I could do with a drum if anyone has a decent spare? Can you still buy these things?
I've given up on the srad can I bought on eBay and went an bought another one, so hopefully by the end of the week I can weld that up.
All the best,
Huw

[Manky Monkey]

Srad can?
Can we have some photos to look at please!

[minimutly]

Suzuki 1200 I think? Scotch mist more like it, since I'm still waiting....
I'm putting it on its wheels Tuesday/weds so I'll take some pics then. Nothing more depressing than a one wheeled trike in the summer.
Huw

[minimutly]

This is the can I bought while waiting for the one bought a month and a half ago:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

spot the mistake:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

On the positive side, the weekend was spent sorting out my new backplates, redrilling hubs and metro drums and trial fitting everything. I had ordered bearings locally, but gave up after a week and ordered them from reliant spares.

Boring drum and hub together:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

The finished article - no more bent studs here:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

On the way not everything was smooth going, the new backplates, bought from a major mini parts retailer up north, were a pile of poo, pattern items that had been downgraded, with a resulting built in flaw:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

can you spot it? yes the shoe is not perpedicular to the axle! talk about not impressed...
The answer was to remove and reweld the adjuster end:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

This made things look a little better:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

The nex job, once the bearings have arrived and I've built up the axle, is to temporarily mount the can and pipe it up. I'm thinking I'll knock out the cat, anyone have any thoughts on this? The engine can't use it, since its an 83 kawa on carbs, it will probably get gummed up?

Hope the pics come out,
Huw

[minimutly]

Update on my earlier message, the viper can arrived, much better option, it's shorter, lighter and straight through, so that sounds like the one to use.
To explain why I mow have two, the viper can was on ebay as pick up only (which I missed when I bought it), so I paid the seller to package it up an stick a label on it. Hermes were contracted to pick it up and deliver it.
To say their service was poor is an understatement. They took a month of complaining to tell me the label was out of date!
I tried other carriers, ups being one of them, but their web page account was impossible to fathom out. I ended up with transglobal express - a sort of broker for couriers. The courier of choice? Ups! Anyway, 2 days later the box turned up.
So if you want fast, easy service, transglobal is your provider, the less said about the other the better.
The new can is on, waiting for someone to pipe it up.
All the best,
Huw

[Manky Monkey]

You know I'm a Postman don't you? Bloomin' cowboy courier companies! 

[minimutly]

Lol, it's hard to believe how bad they were. Also, although I admit to not searching too hard, how difficult it was to find a courier willing to pick up. You're going to tell me now that the PO pick up?
I must say that when I sell on ebay my courier is always the local PO, 2nd class with compensation works well for me.
All the best,
Huw

[andyrennison]

Boring drum and hub together:

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

Kawasaki 750 hard tail (was rear end ratios)

Hi Huw

How did you ensure the drum was central on the hub before you rebored the hub through the drum (it looks like you did that, right??)

Did yo open the existing stud holes in the hub, or create new ones??

Cheers

Andy

[minimutly]

The metro drum has a smaller locating bore than the lip reliant machined onto face of the hub. I set up the drum in the lathe, bored it out to suit this lip then and just clamped the two together with some 10mm bolts. (I also had to machine the hub/drum face (on the inside of the drum) to allow for the slightly larger diameter of the hub).
Bore the first two through the drum and the existing stud holes, then transfer the bolts one at a time to the new holes, rotate the assembly on the miller, centre the holes to be drilled using the drum holes and bore away.
I used some old rover studs and a 1/2 inch slot drill.
Once finished i tried the whole lot up using one of the spare shaft ends I had, it was pretty close, but always nice to check.
All in all a fair bit of faf, but I had everything I needed, and the metro drums are a lot beefier than the reliant ones, plus I would have ended to buy one or possibly two new reliant drums.
Huw

[andyrennison]

Thanks for the explanation Huw