Well, to be accurate, Cherry is fine; she’s minutes from MOTable. It’s taken about 5 and a half hours of work (including the 30 minutes of me storming around the garage cursing the crosshead-screwdriver stealing pixies. I think they’re in the yellow bag. Where the yellow bag is I’m yet to find out. But it means I’m now down to a pathetic one, non hardened screwdriver).
Also I ended up going and buying a new fork seal. Somewhere in my garage is another fork seal. I am slightly concerned that the other fork is probably leaking, and I’ve done nothing to fix it, but the evil ex-MZ dealer only had one fork seal. This is because they remain the only shop that sells Fork Seals in ones.
At any rate, the fork was actually not too bad once I’d got it apart. It was, however, full of shit. I spent several hours attempting to clean it out. I *hope* it’s okay, but hey, we’ll find out tomorrow. If there’s a huge pool of oil in the garage then the answer is ‘no’.
While I was there I also bought a brake switch. I’m a little unclear as to whether she needs one, which is lucky, because it a: didn’t fit (wrong thread), and b: broke (it was plastic so I was hoping I could just cross thread it, but sadly it was too brittle). This means that there’s now a chunk of plastic in the hole where it’s meant to go :(
I also ended up swapping the entire brake system over from Claire to Cherry, because as I was looking at it I noticed that the brake hose had almost worn through and the calliper on Cherry really, really needs a service. Despite my best efforts I have been unable to successfully bleed the brakes on Cherry. Hopefully it’ll firm up over night.
And the oil that came out from the gearbox, not much of it, and very thin. Suspciously thin. It’s possible that the crank case seals have gone, so I’ll have to keep an eye on that. It may be that the good engine’ll have to go in. But she sounds supringly okay. She runs okay, the gearbox feels okay so far (not tried third),
Nikki popped round and found the hand protectors and the decent mirrors, so they’ve gone on. The 40 Watt club sticker’s been ductaped to the front mudguard, and much ductape is covering the holes in the very worn chain gaiters. The chain’s been greased. Err. Yeah. I also discovered the sidelight bulb had blown – so I thought ‘I’ll pinch the one from Claire’. Great plan, only it’s blown. Of course I realised after I’d put the bulb in, put the headlamp back together, wiggled various connectors… Bleh. Never mind :-)
She goes Ring-ning-ning-clatter-clatter-Riiiiiing-ning-ning. She’s red. She’s gonna be good. Yeah.
So, jobs for pre MOT: Adjust mirrors, fit sidelight bulb, faff with brakes some more. Pray that the brake switch isn’t necessary. Let’s hope I can get an MOT tomorrow so.
