I have found myself wanting to post for a week now, at each interval something else requires my attention more immediately. For that, I humbly apologize. In short, I am working every day running a small business, restoring bikes and spending time with the family. To add to this, I am working on a novel!
On to the catch up;
I received a second set of Bridgestone rear shocks that had much less play and much better chrome than the ones I had to work with. I started to strip them and clean them, this is what I came up with;
There is a little hole in the back of the shroud that let in some moisture over the years. I suspect this was from a low mileage bike as the shocks were barely broken in. The main spring was rusty, which bothered me. I looked around my shelf and decided to leave them to soak in this:
After a couple days, I hung them up and let the excess oil fall into a bucket which was then properly disposed of. That should keep the springs in decent shape for a few more years!
I have a confession to make. I said that I would make a seat cover for this project and I meant it. I really did. That was until I found a new cover for less than $50.00 with shipping. For the price, I decided the DIY seat will have to wait until next time. Of course I did say that a few bikes ago now....
The old foam was absolutely ridiculous to get off.
I soaked it in hot water over night in the hopes that some of it would come off. Some of it did, however most remained. As I write this, it is covered with paint stripper, which seems to be the only thing that works!
These seats are quite a pain compared to a British bike of the same era. As you can see, the seat has a sprung saddle (the Japanese seemed to love these in the 60's) rather than foam which one would have thought would be more economical. Foam surrounded the sides and back and a piece of molded plastic sat atop the springs, atop which more foam. The seat trim is also interesting. Rather than a simple piece of molded strip around the bottom, they instead chose a strip of chrome that slid over the ends of loose bolts. These bolts are attached on the inside of the frame. I can't see any practical way of reusing this or getting it to look right without tremendous difficulty. The DIY aspect may play a role in how this seat goes back together. My thought right now is to use my handy cutting tool (as seen in the last post) and cut off the little bolts as the nuts are seized on them. I think some rivet replacements would keep the seat cover tight to the frame and give it a good look. I plan on tackling that this weekend.
Sometimes I truly love Canadian Tire...key word sometimes. Today however was one of those sometimes days. While looking for rivets this item happened to catch my eye.
Cool idea, right? I was intrigued.....
At $4.99, even more intriguing! In theory, this should save a lot of time and prove invaluable with stripping and restoring bikes. So yes, I picked it up and will give an in depth review in the future.
As I made my way to the cash I saw this;
Apparently walking 30 feet entitled me to a further $3.00 discount! It boggles the mind how an item that was $39.99 is now less than $2.00. This is why I NEVER pay full price at this store, because I come back three weeks later and the item is almost always deeply discounted. I am very eager to try this thing out now..
If you didn't already know that Thailand has the best postal service in the world, here is the evidence.
This is the padded envelope that my NOS carb cover came in. This colourful fellow seems to be thanking me for my patronage, when was the last time your local post office did that for you? Oh well, sometimes in life you just have to say Phuket!
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