Back rubber side down (for now)

After finally getting the suspension bushes sorted I got them refitted and I think they look pretty good (ok this photo only shows one fitted but you'll have to trust that I fitted both, or scroll down)

Before I could get the wheel back in, I needed to refit the mudguard but before I could do that I needed to address the cracks in the guard at one of the rack mounting points. I didn't want to mess with the paint, so I decided to drill the ends of the cracks with a 1.5mm drill to stop them spreading and then a template was made for a piece of stainless. 

Rear suspension top out bushes

As I have mentioned before, the rear suspension top out bushes have been causing quite a lot of pain. Obviously there are no spares available for this bike and sourcing something appropriate was proving quite difficult. The bushes are made of rubber and are 50mm OD, 32mm ID and 25mm tall (some of you may recognise those numbers as metric conversions of 2", 1 1/4" and 1"). I managed to find some large bushes that are 50mm OD, 23mm ID and 50mm tall. Plenty of material for me to make mistakes and I also had to order 5 so I've got plenty to make replacements in the future. 

Here's one compared to the better of the originals

Rear mudguard repair

The back section of the rear mudguard hinges open to allow you to remove the rear wheel, well that's what's meant to happen but the hinge was basically non existent when I got the bike. The rear section is a different colour so I'd always thought it wasn't original to the bike (although I had assumed it was the correct one) but on closer inspection the profile is completely different (look at the beading in these two pictures - top one is the main guard, bottom one is the removable section) and the 'new' bit is also a lot rustier on the inside. I don't think I'll find the correct one that easily so I'll work with what I've got.

It's been a while.....

Sorry it's been so long since the last post but for a while I wasn't making any progress so had nothing to write about but that's all changed now! The last post was about stripping the rear suspension down to sort the perished rubbers, they've been a real headache as spares for this bike are non existent. After a lot of searching and headscratching I came up with a few possible solutions such as casting new ones, making them up out of sheets stacked on top of each other (worried they'd separate and get mangled) and I even had an offer of 3D printing them but that came to nothing. In the end I've found some bushes that are the correct outside diameter and the inner diameter is too small so I'm going to have to enlarge the bore, probably using a grinding wheel mounted in a dremel mounted on the toolpost of the lathe. They're also too long but that should be easy to sort with a large knife. They have just been ordered so the project can start moving forward again.

I have made some progress with a few other bits whilst I've been thinking about this though.