Odd fettling events

I gave the V11 some extra TLC today.

New brake pads at the front; they went in without drama.

I'd also noticed the other week that the rear wheel bearings had a
tiny bit of slack in them and felt it was best to replace them early
rather than too late.

The old ones came out OK, better than I expected, though it could have
turned nasty because one bearing outer had split all the way round the
edge

New bearings went in OK though initially the first one went a bit
wonky until I changed around the press took I had improvised.

Then th weird bit: getting the axle pin back in. It really, really
wouldn't go through the bevel box. I could feel the end just poking
out of the wheel side of the bevel box but it wouldn'r budge any
further.

After fifteen minutes of fruitless pushing, twisting and tapping, I
pulled it out and had a look. All OK. I was sure I hadn't done anythig
silly, just that the bevel box didn't quite line up with the swingarm
hole. When I tried to push the bevel box forward, it resisted and
sprang back. "Oh dear, what is the matter with the blessed thing" I
thought, but not in so many words.

After a bit of thought, I recalled that when I greased the splines
last month, the shaft had extended slightly. So I undid the grease
nipple and there was a brief sharp hiss. On the next attempt, the pin
went in without further difficulty. Weird; never seen that before.

As I was in a fettling mood and the valves had been sounding very
tappety of late, I had a look at the valve clearances too. Worryingly,
seeing as I only did them two thousand mile ago, they were way, way
out. I'm now thinking about camshafts and oil delivery systems and not
in a happy way.

 

Sounds like a fun way to spend an evening to me

 

I was going to play a straight bat there but thought it might get
misconstrued.