Sunbeam S7 spit as polish

The brightwork on KYL95 certainly has lots of patina. I thought perhaps too much. Some of the rust on the handlebars is just surface rust. Yes there is pitting, but its not bad. The headlight surround is also ugly, but not really bad.

I was searching for methods of chrome cleaning that won't marr the surface and came across some discussions involving aluminum foil and water. It sounded reasonable. The aluminum is soft and won't scratch steel or chrome. The water provides slight Aluminum Oxide to build up, which provides the slight chemical reaction and mild abrasive action.

Mothers polish is just too abrasive.

I tried it on an inconspicuous spot and was pleased with the results. Working upside-down the water tended to run off, so I spit on it. That worked even better than water.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but it looks so much better maintaining a level of patina without the rust layer.

Clutch and push rod

Since I don't have any copper washers in my workshop to fit the sump pan, I started working on the clutch.

The thrower seems to work good, so I put the flywheel back on.  The clutch lining was full of oil and grease, so I tried to wash that out as best I could with brake cleaner.

The big project was creating the new push rod.  My workmate Mike had already made the pushrod receiver that I tack welded to the square hole in the pressure plate.   I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to come out and get jammed in the shaft somehow, hence the tack weld.  It shouldn't, but I didn't want to chance it, and I didn't want it to start turning either, since the shaft into the pressure plate is round instead of square.

I took Wilhelm's full length measurement (225mm) from the surface of the pressure plate to the end of the rod and cut the 1/4" drill rod that had bought to fit.  I squared up the ends in the lathe, gave them a slight chamfer and then polished them up to a high shine.  Drill rod (aka silver steel) is fairly hard so that took a while.  I test fit it in the gearbox and it looks right.  I can drop the rod in after the gearbox is mated to the engine.

I decieded against a ball bearing at the clutch end for now.  I can always cut the drill rod more and fit the ball bearing later if I think its not working right.

The next fun part will be to compress the clutch springs enough to put the nuts on.  I guess a few clamps around the flywheel and pressure plate may do the trick?