Two steps forward, one step back, lather, rinse, repeat
Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 3:15 pm
In the never-ending quest of returning my Paso to road duty, I've made some advances, only to find the the next stumbling block. My latest tribulations:
The original problem this year, was the clutch slave/cover. After getting my original cover sleeved with a steel sleeve (to fix the piston bore, which got 'widened' when a bearing grenaded and the piston itself went orbital in the bore), it turned out that some cracks were introduced in the fluid veins in the case. Instead of fixing it, I found a relatively new one, which also had the over-engineered piston (with two bearings). I opted to rebuild and use this piston instead of the original, with the single bearing and mushroom pin. Bled the clutch up, fired the bike up and before I even went 50m ... realized the chain was exceptionally loose.
Loosened the axle eccentrics to adjust the chain - looks like the chain has had it, alternating tight and loose. That wasn't the problem though: the problem was with the 8mm bolts that hold the brackets that hold the eccentrics. Brake-side, the lower bolt was really stuck. Once it finally broke free though, every time I'd turn it with the wrench - it would turn itself back a little. I've seen plenty of stuck bolts, but I've never seen a bolt that would try to screw itself back into its hole after you turned it. Long story short, at some point in the bike's past, that hole must've been stripped, and someone put a heli-coil in it, and now the heli-coil has failed. I wound up pulling the whole thing out.
So this is where I sit: new sprockets should arrive tomorrow, and hopefully my local shop can re-heli-coil this bolt hole. I suspect the same hole on the other side of the swing was similarly "fixed".
The upshot? I knew I'd had a 530 chain on the bike, but now I'm dialing it back to a 520 after reading through Ian Falloon's notes on Paso. I always thought the 530 was overkill, so I'm pleased about that. Provided I don't need to find a new swingarm or anything drastic. (If that's the case, I may just look into updating the bike to ride on 17" rims.)
Someday ...
The original problem this year, was the clutch slave/cover. After getting my original cover sleeved with a steel sleeve (to fix the piston bore, which got 'widened' when a bearing grenaded and the piston itself went orbital in the bore), it turned out that some cracks were introduced in the fluid veins in the case. Instead of fixing it, I found a relatively new one, which also had the over-engineered piston (with two bearings). I opted to rebuild and use this piston instead of the original, with the single bearing and mushroom pin. Bled the clutch up, fired the bike up and before I even went 50m ... realized the chain was exceptionally loose.
Loosened the axle eccentrics to adjust the chain - looks like the chain has had it, alternating tight and loose. That wasn't the problem though: the problem was with the 8mm bolts that hold the brackets that hold the eccentrics. Brake-side, the lower bolt was really stuck. Once it finally broke free though, every time I'd turn it with the wrench - it would turn itself back a little. I've seen plenty of stuck bolts, but I've never seen a bolt that would try to screw itself back into its hole after you turned it. Long story short, at some point in the bike's past, that hole must've been stripped, and someone put a heli-coil in it, and now the heli-coil has failed. I wound up pulling the whole thing out.
So this is where I sit: new sprockets should arrive tomorrow, and hopefully my local shop can re-heli-coil this bolt hole. I suspect the same hole on the other side of the swing was similarly "fixed".
The upshot? I knew I'd had a 530 chain on the bike, but now I'm dialing it back to a 520 after reading through Ian Falloon's notes on Paso. I always thought the 530 was overkill, so I'm pleased about that. Provided I don't need to find a new swingarm or anything drastic. (If that's the case, I may just look into updating the bike to ride on 17" rims.)
Someday ...