W/E 20th December 2015

Hawkwind at 1865.com, Southampton

Hawkwind were great and memories from 30 years ago came flooding back.

Riding back from Southampton at 1.30 in the morning on the Atlas was excellent. The bike was running well and we made the entire journey at a steady 70/75 mph without being overtaken by another vehicle. Don’t you just love the feeling that it’s you and your bike punching through the night?

I’d ridden down earlier in the day to do some Christmas shopping – took the bike to avoid traffic hassle and that proved the right decision, ahhh the benefits of biking. However this bliss wasn’t the full story of the week as the morning had been spent with a hammer and reluctant sprocket!

Errrr shouldn’t the teeth be all pointy?

The ride to work on Friday was interrupted 10 miles from home as the chain started to jump the sprocket – funny enough the chain has been losing tension rapidly which I’d put down to it being non o ring but there was obviously more going on. A disappointment but the prototype sprocket had only been case hardened via a blow torch and quenching in oil so not really a surprise. The biggest disappointment came however when I realised that despite the sprocket being a very tight fit on the splines these have been whittled away somewhat. So even a tight sprocket doesn’t solve the problem of the chocolate mainshaft. The only upside is the the revised arrangement with a boss on the back of the sprocket does prevent the side play of the original – small consolation but I’ll take it…

Blow job

Anyway I have a box of these bespoke sprockets so I set to fitting a new one – well although it didn’t solve the ‘whittling’ problem it was no worse than a standard sprocket so what the hell! Despite putting heat into the sprocket it wouldn’t go all the way home so I ended up with the dremmel grinding it to a tight fit and even then the lock washer wouldn’t go on. To get round this I’ve put a noose of lock wire in the lock washer groove which should prevent the sprocket moving (which it shouldn’t because it’s on damn tight) but I guess I’ll monitor over the next week to see what happens.

Nick 🙂

W/E 13th December 2015

No work this weekend due to Christmas preparations. To make amends I’ve added the Laverda Atlas Rally report in the Trips section https://alcocknick.wordpress.com/trips/ .

12 days left….

Nick 🙂

W/E 6th December 2015

Busted rear sub-frame

So no big advances this week just routine maintenance to keep the Atlas on the road. Decided to fit the new sub-frame only to find that the frame fitted to a Series 1 or 2 is different to the third series – grrrrrr! So with no local Laverda dealer and it being Sunday I had to repair the old unit. I don’t have a welder so I cut down an M8 bolt to act as a splint and araldited inside the hollow tube. Fingers crossed but thinking about it even if it cracks again the bolts will hold it in place. Job done!

Having the rear apart gave me a good chance to look into the rear seat fixture which seemed not quite right. The problem is that the thread in the frame on the near side isn’t present as it is on the off side. A couple of bolts later and that’s fixed.

I noticed that the silencer took a hit when the bike fell over a few weeks ago – the sidepanel put a crease in it – suppose this type of ‘ding’ is inevitable and just down to riding the bike.

I examined the ignition box and found one of the wires coming loose – easy fix with a mini-screwdriver. Put in half a litre of oil which after 1,000 miles is okay.

Fitted the recovered seat – it’s too light a red and the stitching ruins the line but it has no splits, cost me nothing in the end and won’t give me a wet arse when it rains.

Finally another turn on the chain adjuster – the non o ring chain is almost finished but with just two weeks to Christmas that can wait.

Started the bike and let it warm through so it could tick over…sweet.

Nick 🙂