All work & little play

 

Being busy at work means I haven’t been as busy in the garage, but I still managed to get out and do a few more little jobs.

Sunday was a milestone, where stuff started going back on Daysie. Don’t get too excited though. The plan was to change the oil filter, refit the water pump and alternator, put the shiny new oil lines on and the oil cooler and put the air box back on.

I achieved most of this, refitting the water pump, alternator, air box and oil filter, but that's about it. The oil cooler & lines are still on the bench.

There was a real manky looking cover attached to the left side of the engine, part of the cooling system, I think it's called the coolant outlet/inlet cover and even before I touched it, it wasn't looking pretty, with all the paint having flaked off and the remains of dried coolant all over it. I dug out my endoscope & had a good look inside the water jacket and any other water channels I could find and all looks good. Once I've flushed everything through, I don't see the cooling will be a problem.

Undoing the bolts and carefully prising the cover off, I could see pink gunk everywhere and the remains of a gasket, but only a very small piece. it had been removed at some point in the past and in the absence of a replacement gasket, silicone sealer had been used. Unfortunately, the gasket is no longer available so I have two choices, use silicone sealer or do it the old-fashioned way, buy a gasket sheet and make my own.

It's now cleaned up and has been resprayed, 1 coat of etching primer & 3 coats of HT black paint I had left over from Tabitha's build.

I refitted the IACV and all the vac hoses have also been replaced with some 7mm silicone vac hose. I ordered 2m although I didn't need that much. It's left me with enough to change Tallulah's vac hoses next time I have the tank off - she's still running on the original corrugated hoses, even after 67000 miles.

I've refitted the airbox, which surprisingly wasn't too problematic. The application of some silicone spray around the rubbers helped to slide it on to the air intakes and seat the box correctly.

Finally now Daysie is tied down, jacked up, strapped to a beam and sitting on a wooden block,  I could remove the paddock stand. I've also loosened off all the swing arm bolts and rear shock bolts. In fact, the only thing to undo is the retaining nut for the final drive. There's a collar on the nut which has been peened to hold it in place & stop it undoing. the nut itself, a 46mm one, should be torqued to 146Nm. So, I suspect the air torque gun will come out again for that.

One final point, I took a good look at the shock when I loosened off the bolts holding it to the rear end and I don't think I'll even embarrass myself by sending it off to get refurbished. By the time the unit has been refurbed and a new spring attached, the overall cost won't be much less than a new YSS unit, so I'll just go for that instead. I have a YSS shock on Tabitha & I'm happy with it.