Look
Mum! No Teeth!
The
other Monday I had a plan to head off to the Museum on the Valiant.
It was at the front of the garage and ready to go, as I thought. This
didn't happen as when I tried to start it the engine would not turn
over. I was left with the sound of teeth knocking each other but not
engaging then the mechanism locking up only to be released by
selecting a gear and wheeling the bike backwards. The delights of
trying to use a 59 year old bike.
My project for the week was to fix
it. I have a stock of LE spares and found a serviceable quadrant in a
box and in another box a brand new oil seal. I had not planned to
replace this but I had an oil leak around the clutch area and need to
cure that. It didn't take too long to split the engine from the
gearbox and get it out of the frame. The starter quadrant is located
within the engine casing and it was easy to see why things were not
working. I also discovered that the oil leak was from the starter
shaft. The oil seal was loose in the housing.
No leaks visible from
the clutch or gearbox shafts. I did fish out the bits of teeth from
the sump with a magnet on a stick and change the oil. Everything back
together in a day but on the test ride the clutch was slipping. The
new gaskit fitted was thinner than before with no adjustment left on
the cable I had to adjust the eccentric bolt on the fulcrum at the
back of the gearbox. Easy enough to do on the bench, not so easy with
swing arm in the way. It required loosening the lock nut, turn the
bolt a fraction to create more play to have some adjustment on the
clutch cable. I did this laying the ground and working upwards,
fiddly and awkward. Lastly, lock up the nut and ready to go. It now
starts much better now having a quarter of a turn on the kick starter
rather that a tenth. I know Velocettes never have enough travel to
give it a “good kick” but this had gone too far!
Out
on the Sunday with a “Back by one run” with the club on the
Sunday morning. All this on the Kawasaki ER6F, now I have heated
handlebar grips on it. Off to the Museum on the Monday on the LE with
some interest from the visitors for it. Chris had brought in a French
Motorcycle magazine Moto Revue Classic March-April 2016 that has done a six page feature on the Museum.
It was a good article with some good photos too that I have taken the
liberty to show you.
If you have visited the Museum you will have seen all of this but not in French!
It is great to know how other people see us. I do hope we get more visitors from France.
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