The Damage is done!!!

Well, a bad day at work turned into an even worse day in the garage.

This was the top of the bench the bike was resting on. This is what happens when you're in a bad mood and wrap your knuckles around a 3lb. sledge hammer. This also happened the turn the 2x4 underneath it into splinters. Unfortunately that 2x4 was contained the hold down ring that was holding the bike up right.

The bike fell a good 2.5 feet off of the table and landed nearly upside down. Besides some minor scraps on bolts and such that can be replaced I got this beauty on the tank. Needless to say it was time to take a break afterwards.

The break turned into about 2 weeks of not working on the bike. During that time I completely revamped my my garage. Added another full sized work bench (Thanks to Mom and Dad for lending a hand), purchased an actual bike lift, and cleaned up a lot of junk that was in the way.

Here's the bike on it's new lift. A whole hell of a lot more room to work around/on the bike. In addition the bike is now movable so I can get it out of the way for other projects that spring up from time to time.

Aside from more, and yet MORE work on the carbs (love hate relationship there) I worked on the rear swing arm a bit. I noticed a while back that something just seemed "off" with the swing arm. So, with a lack of any proper alignment tools I employed some of my backyard engineering know how.

2x4 at the bottom of the picture is straight and held in place by a couple of Vise-grip Clamps (love those damn things. Best $20 ever). Then took a framers square and drew 2 parallel lines perpendicular to the 2x4. These lines were spaced as far apart as the swing arm axle plates were. Here's a close up of what I found.

Hope that's clear in the actual post. No way of previewing it. Anyways....What should be readily apparent is that while the axle plates were "close" to parallel with one another they were nearly 1/2" out of square with the pivot shaft of the swing arm!!!

Sorry I didn't take any pictures before, but I was covered in axle grease and swinging another sledge hammer, constructively this time. I did manage to get the axle plates square with the pivot shaft, but this introduced another problem....problems seem endless with these older, previous owner modified, bikes.

I caused a crack in the weld joint of the axle plate to the swing arm. Seen here at the base of the shock mount. This picture was after I took the Dremel and carved out the crack so I can re-weld it and not loose my axle down the road.

After getting the axle plates squared up I noticed this gap between the axle/wheel assembly and the axle plate. Now how did THAT happen? I did some investigation. It turns out the previous owner had some difficulty in getting the wheel, dust seals, and caliper bracket between the axle plates. Gee, I wonder why THAT was!!! So instead of figuring out WHY he was having difficulty he decided to take a file and file down the mounting hub of the caliber body to make it all fit together!!! Seriously, what is wrong with people!?!?!?! Now I need to get the front and rear sprockets lined up and find some shims of the appropriate size to take up this nearly 1/4" gap.

Well, that's it for now. Time to enjoy my morning coffee before going at it again. Ride safe everyone.