A full weekend getting Atlas #2 ready to take over from Atlas #3. The tax and MOT has expired on Atlas #3 which now needs ‘refreshing’ so that it can act as my touring bike of choice.
Atlas #2 has been waiting in the wings with its MOT since August 2016 but that didn’t mean it was ready to go. The main problem was oil leak from behind the ignition plate and a corroded bolt. Patience and buying the right tool paid off and an extra long allen key with a 3/8th drive put on the end of my impact driver soon had things apart 🙂
The bad news was the removal of the primary case revealed aluminum pieces…I’m ashamed to say I must’ve damaged the crankcases hammering on a final drive sprocket many moons ago 😦 I must have hit things so hard the layshaft cracked the cases where the half ring secures its bearing…I shone a torch in so know this is where the pieces came from.
What an animal but its run like this for some time so it can carry on running until the time comes to strip the engine down and work out how to repair it. As someone once commented the problem with Laverda’s is that they continue to run despite their owners!
On brighter matters I smiled as I put in the new seal supplied some time ago by Dirk at OCT – it was in a pack that he threw in for good measure with one of my orders 🙂
Chastened by the crankcases I decided to try and play being an engineer and spent some time cleaning up the exhaust stud threads – two of the studs came out with the nuts.
The original collector was already useless and I originally planned to put on the new front pipes and collector supplied by Malcolm Cox. In the end I decided to just use the new collector and respray the old rotting exhausts – I figured that I might as well carry on using these rather than put shiny pipes on something that is far from sparkling! It’s a credit to Malcolm that his collector works with the original exhausts.
I touched up the engine paint (very badly) just to protect the alloy popped the tank on and bingo she runs (after quite a bit of cranking)!
Atlas #2 is running chunky off road tyres and has a rear suspension unit with damping so the bike sits higher than Atlas #3. First impression on the road is that the tyres make for a harsher ride – too harsh + I don’t trust them to grip the road – so they will be replaced with road biased items soon (no really).All the gears work (tho’ there is a noise in the case…) and the hydraulic clutch feels lighter albeit in need of bleeding I think.
All in all a success in terms of buying time while I sort out Atlas #3.
Nick 🙂
Bent screwdrivers, big hammers and old Laverdas 