Well a week to come to terms with the RGS rebuild. I’d got the whole mess into perspective by taking the attitude that ‘shit happens’ however looking at a complete, albeit broken, RGS has made me scratch my chin a bit and think hmmmm. Still I haven’t sat still and have a crankshaft box from Keith Nairn waiting in the kitchen for a crank.
I say ‘a’ crank because I will use this opportunity to send the crank I have with the busted off end off to Scotland for repair. I like the idea of using the 120 Jota crank because I believe these have small end bushes unlike the later RGS item which is metal to metal with the small end eye copper coated. Monday I’ll be picking the crank back up from my local guy who’s been dragging his arse on the job and set things in motion. This will buy me time as now I have to focus on the Atlas and the 100.
I picked up a useful tip regarding the Atlas from Alan Bell. Alan advised I make sure the idler gear pin is tight as if it isn’t the gear ‘cocks’ on the shaft and can lock things up. This kind of describes what had been going on the last time I tried to use the bike. I put some loctite on the pin and it is now in there pretty solid.
I did also take the time to check if I could use the longer Zane pin to give even greater rigidity in the case but it is too long to allow the cases to close. I could always get it ground shorter if the loctite fails to stiffen things up. It is now a waiting game for the carb to come back from Dellorto but the other thing I noticed looking around the bikes at the LCF rally was the number using K&N filters. Think this will be the way to go with the Atlas when I go to free up space for the bigger battery.
The other avenue I’m exploring is helping to get some new rubber manifolds made for the Atlas. Patrick in France knows a man who can make these up if he has a pattern and I just happen to have some spare manifolds knocking about. I shall be sending them over and hopefully secure a source of future spares.
I have been trying to track down rings for the 100. No joy so far and I have now mailed a few sources and just asked for a complete 52,4 piston. I think I’m more likely to get a hit if I buy everything rather than just the rings. Time is going away from me on this however but I have a couple more weeks before ideally I close the engine. I did however get success with the engine and rear wheel sprocket work from Nametab engineering.
As you can see a lovely job grafting 420 sprockets onto original centres. These sprockets give high gearing and tomorrow I will be sending them the low gearing options to sort out. They have assured me they can turn it round by the 27th June so plenty of time.
The other area I’m onto is the steering head bearings. Took ’em apart and there is lots of wear to both the ball bearings and cones.
Dean thinks the cones can be tidied up sufficiently so I will check this out tomorrow down at the local engineers.
Finally sent off Atlas and 100 cables to Venhill. I want a fresh set for both bikes – always good to have a spare on the road + the ‘Featherlite’ versions always make the controls lighter.
Lots being done but plenty still to be achieved!
Nick 🙂
Bent screwdrivers, big hammers and old Laverdas 