For those of you who take the time to periodically peruse my ramblings, one of the recent recurring themes has been my adventures in the land of motorcycle wheel bearings. i do believe that I mentioned that the back wheel is finally complete and ready for it's tire to be mounted.
As matters happened to fall out, I do have a matching front rim, alloy, made in Japan back in the late 70's, but with no guts. That was not an issue because it is one of a pair. The principal difference is finish, one being left as a raw, as cast finish with only the spoke faces being machined and polished, and the other receiving a black finish and again having the spoke faces cut flat and polished.
So I pulled the internals out of the raw casting and set them on my bearing endplay measurement jig deck so that they could be loaded into the black unit. And because this model/style of rim uses a predetermined internal sleeve that sets the bearing endplay, and the length of this sleeve can vary from rim to rim, I elected to set up the bearing jig with a set of checking bearings so that I could do a quick tug check to see if any endplay was present. NOPE. Nary a thousandth. Wheel spun easily and quietly but nothing by way of useful tolerance.
But, along with everything else, I happen to have an evil mind and it occurred to me to consider whether the checking bearings were identical to the service bearings. So apart came the wheel and out came my 0-1 micrometer. The first thing I looked at was the source and the checkers were f*g units Made in Germany. I miked them out to .6522 and .6540 wide respectively.
The service or running bearings were Timken and Made in USA. They miked out to .6550 and .6545. The difference, while amounting to a mere .0023 in terms of variation in total width, still works out to enough that when the service bearings were stacked into position on the spindle and the same spacer added, I found appreciable endplay. Not much, only a few thousandths, on the order of .002 or so but that is as much as I want or need for this exercise.
The plan now is to set up the dial indicator and get an actual reading of what I have. Meantime the rim sits peacefully on the spindle of my bearing jig; its erstwhile partner has gone back to the garage/shop for storage.
The balance of the day got given over to domestic chores. The sidewalks got swept so that I could save and recycle the sand. Checked on the ice elimination progress out on the main door ramp and found the fence gate to be free and able to open. Gave some thought to dismounting the snow blower barrier that acts as a wall to keep snow from the front drive from getting tossed onto the sidewalk during blowr operation in the driver pit. Decided against it simply because there is still snow sitting in the location where it gets stored so no point in going through the exercise if there is no where to move it to.
Did do some serious re-arranging of a bunch of stuff to get enough room to lift the bike and move it out and away from the back of the Monte. Apart from getting room for the bike, this gives me room to slide under the car and move on with hanging the back pipes on the exhaust and tweaking the mufflers to sit flat. Hey, Lemons and Lemonade.
Nick
As matters happened to fall out, I do have a matching front rim, alloy, made in Japan back in the late 70's, but with no guts. That was not an issue because it is one of a pair. The principal difference is finish, one being left as a raw, as cast finish with only the spoke faces being machined and polished, and the other receiving a black finish and again having the spoke faces cut flat and polished.
So I pulled the internals out of the raw casting and set them on my bearing endplay measurement jig deck so that they could be loaded into the black unit. And because this model/style of rim uses a predetermined internal sleeve that sets the bearing endplay, and the length of this sleeve can vary from rim to rim, I elected to set up the bearing jig with a set of checking bearings so that I could do a quick tug check to see if any endplay was present. NOPE. Nary a thousandth. Wheel spun easily and quietly but nothing by way of useful tolerance.
But, along with everything else, I happen to have an evil mind and it occurred to me to consider whether the checking bearings were identical to the service bearings. So apart came the wheel and out came my 0-1 micrometer. The first thing I looked at was the source and the checkers were f*g units Made in Germany. I miked them out to .6522 and .6540 wide respectively.
The service or running bearings were Timken and Made in USA. They miked out to .6550 and .6545. The difference, while amounting to a mere .0023 in terms of variation in total width, still works out to enough that when the service bearings were stacked into position on the spindle and the same spacer added, I found appreciable endplay. Not much, only a few thousandths, on the order of .002 or so but that is as much as I want or need for this exercise.
The plan now is to set up the dial indicator and get an actual reading of what I have. Meantime the rim sits peacefully on the spindle of my bearing jig; its erstwhile partner has gone back to the garage/shop for storage.
The balance of the day got given over to domestic chores. The sidewalks got swept so that I could save and recycle the sand. Checked on the ice elimination progress out on the main door ramp and found the fence gate to be free and able to open. Gave some thought to dismounting the snow blower barrier that acts as a wall to keep snow from the front drive from getting tossed onto the sidewalk during blowr operation in the driver pit. Decided against it simply because there is still snow sitting in the location where it gets stored so no point in going through the exercise if there is no where to move it to.
Did do some serious re-arranging of a bunch of stuff to get enough room to lift the bike and move it out and away from the back of the Monte. Apart from getting room for the bike, this gives me room to slide under the car and move on with hanging the back pipes on the exhaust and tweaking the mufflers to sit flat. Hey, Lemons and Lemonade.
Nick
