AJS & Matchless Owners Club

How old do you need to be to stop making the mistakes of youth , before the mistakes of old age start creeping in ?
just planning some maintenance before westward Ho on the G11
Ive been planning to rebuild the wheels with new stainless ones for a couple of years , and last summer had a rear puncture due to the condition of the rim
Roy do you want some period rims , just right for one of your restorations !

wheel off tonight , back in the kitchen/workshop and realised that a cold tyre is so much harder to remove than a new or warm tyre
Had to turn the heating on to make the tyre removal easier , or at least hoping so !

forgotten how difficult it can be at the side of the road , and that was only 5 months ago

usually leave preparation until the few days before the start . at least i'm planning ahead this year


who else is planning on doing Westward Ho , or is it just Bob Piper and me ¬

Planning to. yes.
Have Vesta's engine completely stripped down. yes
5 weeks to the WWHo. About as ready as usual. yes
Riding the rally. I can dream, can't I?

Many thanks Peter but I have enough rusty rims to last me out, now if they had the hubs and new shoes that would be a different matter

now the question is how noisy can a bearing be before I fit a new one I think I will do the rim first no point using up NOS front bearings

Some time ago, before the change to no requirement for MoT, tester said the front wheel bearings had some roughness and would pass but needed seeing to.

This was before the ride to Celles sur Belle, Denmark, Germany. There's still no additional play other than the just perceptible rim rock. Cleaning out, re-grease and adjust was all that was required.

I'll keep these going as long as I can as I don't have your stock.

I applaud you brave souls doing the Westward Ho.

Johnny B

56G80S wrote:I applaud you brave souls doing the Westward Ho.

We can't need to be very brave. I ride to the WWHo* but I trailer my bike to rallies.

Sometimes it's even working well enough for me to ride it home again.

I had a new M o T man comment I had noisy front hub bearings also they were worn. I replied, they are new. They are also adjustable. The free play felt is as manufacturers recommend. The bearings are rollers, not balls which have less metal to metal contact. He grunted and said they sound worn to me. He then said Steering bearings are loose, this shocked me. The nut was only finger tight. No wonder I was getting vibration. I never had a spanner to fit, he only had metric. He went to engineers next door and got an adjustable. The wheel bearings passed without comment at my regular old bike M o T in following years. I would add. I have had noisy bearings that should have sounded OK. On inspection I found bearings had started to rust a little???? This was on my trailer that had been standing a year. The top part of the bearings were dry, the bottom still greased. This was on the inner bearing, the outer OK. So watch your trailer bearings, turn wheels perhaps yearly dismantle and swap inner and outer. So check those trailer bearings before you need to use the trailer. You are sure to find grease has been thrown outwards. Just taking off the hub cap shows plenty of grease seeping out, but the inner could be dry.

Just bought a second hand "new to me" trailer and the , now I was going to say 'old boy' but I think he was only a little older than myself (dammit), the old boy had drilled the hubs and fitted grease nipples which is the sort of thing I would be prone to do! Old school, can't beat it.
Dave

All my trailer hubs have already had grease nipples. Do not rely on them to grease all bearings. Do it, then just take off the one nut to remove the wheel and see where the grease has gone. Do not forget to replace the clevis pin. Or nut will loosen wheel could come off.

Update: Riding the rally - no. My engine has a few complications which are being sorted for me. I don't want to infringe the advertising rules here so I won't tell who is doing it for me but he advertises in the Jampot. I've been told that when it's all done I will no longer be able to start it from standing next to the bike whilst wearing soft sandals but will have to stand on the Kickstart and give it my full weight, wearing boots.

Although it is a month away, I have decided not to rush the rebuild and subsequent running in/test rides to take away my stress in the event that it won't be fully ready. It could take me a week just to put the engine back in the frame. Having patience is preferable to risking any doing any further damage. I know, some of you would use the 700 miles round trip as a road test, but I like my little bike and don't want to break it again for want of a little restraint.