Alrighty, a couple of posts back I was talking about a planned tyre change that didn't happen, yet another example of why I hate relying on other people. The fact you're paying for it is just salt in the mental wound so I just try and be as self sufficient as I can.
So I was ("happy" is definitely the wrong word!)....I was ok with throwing the tyres in my trailer and sorting it myself. One of the things in that storage unit I was clearing, which I collected on the way home, was a "No-Mar Tire Changer", because with a new shed I finally had to room to set it up again.
So, boots off:
And this is how it works:
My unit is much the same as that one at +12years old, they've been updated and improved since then and there's now quite the range. It's not electro/pneumatic tyre machine easy, but it's a fraction of the price, needs no power or air, is super easy on your rims and is perfect for my lil' busted arse home workshop. You could easily set it up in/on your trailer at the track if you had a hankering.
The following is a pretty schmick balancing unit but I make do with a simpler/cheaper setup, just the spindle and roller components mounted on a rear stand in place of the bobbin hooks. But you get the idea, and this is about as comprehensive an explanation as you'll find, not just "what" but "why", worth a watch:
Oh well, enough procrasturbating, as per the headline that someone who needed a hug was me, brace yourself 'cos things are about to "hugly"....
I’ve been looking for ages for an affordable set of carbon Testastretta belt covers for the 749R/999RS project, and it has been a source of constant frustration that said covers go for what seems like crazy money.
Well, it seemed crazy right up until I decided to have a crack at making a carbon hugger. Why make such a thing? Because my Febur swingarm is “right way up”, that is to say braced on top vs the under braced “upside down” 749/999 ‘arm (I give up…I don’t know what to call a conventional version of an unconventional thing!). Bottom line? The Febur ‘arm is a complete mung-bean, no-one makes an off the shelf hugger to suit…and the idea of the rebuilt 749R Ohlins shock and linear linkage being subject to Passchendaele-type shrapnel had my teeth gritting just thinking about it.
But where the hell do you start on such an awkward shape? At first it seemed fortuitous that a carbon hugger for a 749/999 grey/cast swingarm appeared locally for dirt cheap. You bewdy! It wasn’t ideal, it had a flattened sort of “chopper-ish” profile and an indent for the rear header:
But surely some of it would be usable?
Yeah…nah. I spent an afternoon cutting off bits and pieces, trialling shapes and offering it up, until I got the complete shits and literally threw it in a corner in disgust.
Some months later and faced with the idea of working on something even more unpleasant (electrics!) I reluctantly dragged the fuggin’ thing out into the daylight again….
…and a plan gradually emerged from the depths of several beers.
The shape was just wrong, badly wrong, I don’t know why I even bought the bloody thing cheap or not. But a length of fuel hose arced over/around it guided a paint pen, and a more pleasing profile emerged. And that “flat” had to go, a half tin of filler achieving just that.
I couldn’t think of any other option than to cast the shape of the swingarm interface in fibreglass, then bond the shaped remnant of the original bunky carbon hugger to it with what remained of my tin of filler:
Hmmmmm, it looks half decent...but that’s just the plug sorted, I now need to make a mold of that plug. I’ll spare you my inept drama but eventually we’re looking at something from the Pleistocene era:
But that's a lot of complex curves jammed into a fairly small area.....and I only have stone age tools/intellect, not vacuum bagging gear or the smarts to use it.
My stone age solution was sand-filled plastic zip-lock bags to weight the carbon cloth in place…..
…..aaaaaand it pretty much worked save for a few very small easily repaired areas.
The question is not if alcohol was involved but how much alcohol was involved prior to drilling into a perfectly good swingarm in highly visible places. Rivnuts installed, hugger mounted and I can finally release the breathe I've been holding for a good 25 minutes:
I'm not claiming professional quality (some of those lil' repairs are sub-24hrs old so this is not quite the final finish but the low sheen is deliberate, we don't do gloss on race bikes remember?) but it weighs about the same as a piece of A4 paper, and it’s a track bike after all:
Gawd, I don't even want to think what this bloody thing cost in man hours, even allowing for a 50% idjit discount….but at least now I know why those fuggin’ belt covers cost what they do (sigh).
Even the workshop supervisor was impressed, stopping in to buy me a beer afterwards. Thanks boss!
