[Albie]

As I said last night will be working from the back end from now and tonight was the turn of the rear axle and brakes etc.

It actually started when I moved my bikes about as I wanted more room to do things and also wanted to hear it running outside in the open. Sadly it wouldn't start presuming the battery was getting tired. I know she will go but in the meantime its time to clean stuff up.


Removed the axle nuts which are good enough to use and only the righthand side one shows more wear than the other. Cleaned up ok though. The chain adjuster plates were quite grubby but look really good now and no bad marks or gouges to be seen.

The adjuster bolts which are about 100mm long were removed and covered in grime inside and once I wire wheeled and ran an M8 die down it they are good as new. The gold backplates were cleaned and the left hand one is the worst but not bad considering its age. Just a few scars but the colour is al good.

I will wait and do the axle and brake guide plate when the bike gets stripped down but I did the brake rotor bolts and they all look great condition as do the brake caliper bolts too after a brush down.

I could take the suspension hoop mount bolts out without the wheel coming out so again will wait but did the outside nuts.

I took the left hand hanger off to clean the rest of the bolts up and I need one or possibly two rubber inserts as one has split in two. Whilst off the chain swingarm guide was removed for cleaning and again the 3 dome bolts were good to come out and cleaned and prepped. The sprocket cover was then removed and same again and whilst removed I checked the front sprocket locking washer for getting the 2 bolts out. Yes results with no problem at all.

Whilst there I removed the 4 rubber plugs from the frame engine mounts. Full of grease which may have been when this frame was changed by a dealer years ago and someone had the hindsight to grease the bolts for the future removal instead of them corroding inside the engine casings. They both undid easily and nipped back up. I thought the would have been hexagon bolts but were allen head bolts.

It looks like the exhaust studs will also be easy as there is copperslip on them too but left them alone for now.

Whilst inspecting the swingarm there is damage which tbh I always expect on these alloy ones as they always seem to suffer exhaust mount bolts causing scrapes up the side where the bolts on the hangers seem to flex too much or they are possibly too long. I will dress it up as much as possible when I remove it.

I drilled out a broken bolt from one of the hugger mounts on the chain side. I re tapped it M6 and refitted the hugger with the cleaned up bolts to give it a good clean in place. It looks much better now but I still have to try and clean up some scrapes in the plastic on the right hand side if I can without ruining the overall finish.

Given a it a good clean as I go and is becoming tidy already prior to getting totally stripped and refinished.

Oh and I now realise how I broke that hanger bolt. It had a 12mm nut on the rear not really visible clamping an earth to the frame DOH !

So I have this odd bolt with an m8 thread with large allen key hole. It will work but its the only one that's odd. I also need one or two hanger rubber that go in the holes if anyone has any spare.