Almost forgot that I found some stainless roll pins that are the exact size of the retaining pins for the airbox lid clips, so I swapped the rusty ones out for rustless ones.
Also discovered that one wasn't the proper pin at all, but a piece of brass rod that was too small and dropped out. I suspect this is the work of Harrison when he last serviced the valves. unbeknown to him, the last work he will do for me!
My proudest achievement so far is to finally, after so many years, fit the centre stand.
It's been a bit of a battle and I had to get rid of the floating rear brake and part of the Sie extended lower mudguard.
First job was to grind out the cross brace to give the tyre more room. I re-plated this for strength and added a small extra brace close to the pivots as a precaution. (See post #80)
My cousin has a really good chap at his vehicle repair garage who is ace with the company MIG and he did a great job of the welding.
He did forget to move the assistor arm out by 15mm as I asked, but I forgave him.
I got it hot enough to bend at home with a large propane torch I have. but each little bend revealed the need for another in a different place. Long story short it ended up looking like a sad liquorice twist and had compromised the ground clearance unacceptably, so I cut it off.
I figured that a straight arm ending just in front of the silencer would put the foot pedal exactly where I wanted it and be completely out of the way.
I found a piece of tube and splatted it on with my stick welder, but it made it impossible to get the bike on the stand at all. A study of the geometry made it obvious what I had done wrong and how it needed to be to work.
I found a great place in Cumbria who will put a bend of any angle in a 300mm piece of tube, with various diameters available.
https://www.vpengineering.net/
So I made a cardboard template to ascertain the angle and ordered up for less than a tenner.
With the actual tube in hand it soon became obvious that I'd got it wrong, but I'm learning and it's now much easier to see what I need to do.
So after another cardboard pattern I made another order with a 27degree bend and this was much more successful. I tacked this with my stick welder and let the good guy finish it properly.
It now comes up just behind the chamfer of the silencer and I don't think I'll be getting down that far with my riding style at my age!
The action to get it on the stand is so easy now. A revelation.
The trick is to get the end of the arm as close to the ground as possible when the stand is down.
You can see the arm through the stand, about 5mm from the ground.
Whilst playing with the stand it occurred to me that I could possibly contrive a way to lock it down and I came up with two brackets that align when the stand is down. Kindly welded on for me again by my new mate.
It will lock down with any disc lock, but I bought an alarm lock for the purpose.
That'll give the thieving scrotes something to think about while I load and aim!!
I'm really pleased with my work and consider it 2.6kg well worth carrying. The disc lock is nearly another half kilo too, but well worth it if I get to keep my bike.
As it happens I have another ST2 stand which I intend to modify in the same way for a Monster.. So if anyone's interested..
