Relining Brake Shoes

The brake linings on the front of the DeLuxe are practically shot.  The rear aren't so bad, so I'll let those go for a while.  I didn't want to pay to send my brake shoes back to England for relining, so I talked to some of the local antique car guys.  I was recommended to get some "green gripper" Semi-Metallic Woven brake lining material from McMaster-Carr.  The catalog number is 6224K115.  It comes in 1 inch strips and is available in 3/16 inch thick rolls.  It came the NEXT day.  McMaster-Carr is amazing.

The next trick is to remove the old brake lining and take some measurements.  The brass rivets drill out nicely with a 1/8" drill bit.  Once seperated I used a depth gauge and subtracted that from the total thickness to arrive at a 0.057" thickness to leave at the bottom.

To create a counterbore tool.  I took a 1/4" cheapo twist drill bit and mounted it in the lathe.  I strapped my trusty Dremel to the tool post with a grinding wheel.  I slowly removed half the thickness of the tip of the drill.  I was mindful to keep the 1/4" step nice and sharp.

I mounted the counterbore bit into the drill press, and set the depth limit jam nuts to that 0.057 inch limit using some feeler gauges.  Placing the new lining carefully around the shoe,  I marked the first two holes... made a pilot hole with the tip of the counterbore bit, from the back of the shoe.  Then flipping the new lining over to the drum side, I counterbored it.  The rivets will drop into the counterbore the same as the stock rivets and can be set in place from the rear of the shoe.

What would be nice would be a kleko that I could hold the shoe in place at the end while working toward the other end.  The excess 1/8" of the brake lining can be easily removed by grinder to obtain the same 7/8" width of the shoe.

I'll likely epoxy the new lining to the shoe for added security.

Its beer 'oclock... I deserve it.

I can't drive 55

I can't drive at all with a blown crank bearing...

The old XS650 was designed for a slower pace.  With 17-32 sprockets, 5th is still revving a bit high.  While its apart I'll drop one of MikeXS 5th overdrive gears in.



The new crank has less than 1thou runout.  The original had over 5thou... no wonder it gooned the bearing.

It should be all back together sometime next week.

S7 work on hold - something else is broken

The S7 engine work is temporarily on hold.  The crank went to the local NAPA machine shop last week.

I'll be trying to put a new main bearing (probably a new crank) in my Yamaha XS650 and get that cleaned up before I continue with the S7.  This will give me some extra time to consider how to place an o-ring in the head gasket to insure a good seal between block and head.  My initial thought is to widen the hole in the copper gasket to make room for the o-ring.  After that I can countersink the hole in the block until I get the needed crush on the o-ring.  More to come on this subject.

Shining new rear main

Behold the glory of a new rear main bearing -0.020"

Many thanks again to David and his wife at Stewart Engineering.  I wouldn't have been able to get this far without them.

Now that I know the exact measurements of the bearings, the crank will go off to the machine shop.  First I'll have to find one who can do a good job.

In the meantime, I have lots to do.  I have to make new brake linings for the front shoes... and probably the back as well.

During all this my poor XS650 has thrown a crank bearing, and is torn completely apart.

Speedometer

If anyone wants to know, the bezel of the speedometer screws on and off of the casing.  I bruised my hands trying to loosen it, but it finally came off after prying at the case to try to get the threads loose.

I stripped off the odometer and trip odometer numbers so I could blast the rest clean with solvent.  Its filthy with crud on the inside, and simply wouldn't work properly.  The trip odometer went back together easily.  The main odometer will go back together tonight.  Its an interesting mechanism, not at all like a car speedometer.  It actually samples the speed and holds it until the next sampling cog comes around.

Rear main pressed out / wheel bearings cleaned

Pressing out the rear main wasn't a big deal.  The hydraulic press at Tiger Tom's made short work of it.

I took this photo to remind me the orientation of the oil holes in relation to the pump housing plate.

Its off in the mail to Stewart Engineering to be swapped out for a 20 thou under bearing.

In the mean time I began tinkering around with other things.  The seat could go back on, nothing holding that process up, so I put that on.  The odometer was really stiff turning, so I cleaned the right-angle gearbox for that.  It still turns stiffly, and I'm not happy about it.  I also couldn't figure out how to disassemble the speedometer.  I know its sticking, because I used a stub of the old speedo cable in the drill to turn it.  It stuck at 20mph.  Its going to need cleaned out.  Work for another day.

The next thing is to tear into the wheel bearings.  The rear came apart easily, and the grease looked good in there.  There was no ingress of dirt, so I cleaned it up and re-packed it.

The front wheel bearing on the otherhand did NOT want to budge.  It took three days soaking in PBlaster before it would even move.  I kept striking it with a tool I had made to back it out.  The left-handed thread was a bit awkward, but finally it started to move.  I was glad the rear moved easily, because I didn't realize it was left-handed.  I was surprised that once it started moving it came out rather easily.  I found those bearings to be in good shape as well.  Cleaned the old grease out and put new grease in.

I proceeded to clean the wheels.  The front is in nice shape.  The paint is good and there is very little rust.  The rear on the other hand looks like it was used excessively for braking, because the paint looked overheated and there isn't much left.  What to do, what to do...  I hate to paint it, but its just bear rusted metal on the brake drum.

I drained some of the old gas out of the tank into the lawnmower.  It burned just fine.  Next will be to clean out the gas tank really well.  The one petcock (newer one) leaks a little, the original one, doesn't leak at all.

Dizzy Reconditioning

The distributor needed tearing down to put the new oil seal in, so I figured it was a good time to just recondition the whole unit.  The pin holding the dog to the distributor shaft turned out to be a broken off tap.  It seems to be nice and tight, so it shouldn't be a problem.  The points seem to be in good shape as well.  The problem came when I noticed that the advance plate wasn't securely fastened to the shaft.  This could cause all kinds of inconsistent firing, so that had to be fixed.  It seemed to be simply pressed together without much mechanical resilence left in it.  The easiest thing to do was to get out the mig welder and put a few tack welds to hold it in place.  I seemed to get a good weld, and ground it all down nicely.  With that repaired, I noticed that the springs on the centrifugal weights were mismatched.  I checked the resistance of the springs and found them to be pretty much the same.  That was good, but the one spring was longer than the other.  That wasn't good.  There was enough slack to allow one spring to be floppy when the other was tight.  I bent the longer one so it was roughly the same length as the other one.  I suppose that will do for now.  Its not hard to tear it apart again if it gives me trouble later on.

I foolishly didn't notice that there was a center punch mark on the point cam, when I took it apart.  I couldn't find a diagram of the distributor on how it was supposed to be assembled.  I assumed that the center punch mark goes on the same side as the center punch mark on the end of the shaft (toward the engine).  That makes sense, but if it turns out I'm wrong, its an easy fix.

I repacked the top bearing, and put the new oil seal in.  The old oil seal was like all the other ones on the bike, completely petrified.  I noticed that there were some makeshift shim washers in the assembly, so I put them back in the way they came out, with a bit of grease on them.  It USED TO work, so it should work again.  It turns freely and the points are nearly the same opening on both cam lobes.  I set the gap and put it all back together.

Well, almost back together.  The one insulating top hat washer on the point spring was damaged.  I'll either repair it with some epoxy or find a suitable replacement.  All the TO-3 transistor top hat washers I had were all too small.  I'll have to poke around and see what else I can find.  Once again an easy fix later.