Project Pickle - Get shafted (part 3)

Shaft drives are awesome until the universal joints need doing. Then its a bit of work and once fixed, they are awesome again. The very last UJ next to the rear diff was really, really f*cked.

The stock M8 nuts are 12mm size, which means a deep-wall socket fits nicely over the UJ. It doesn't work when someone lost them or rounded them off and swapped them for 13mm (DIN standard size) nuts.

Aside from that - easy peasy. 

Quick witness mark to make sure it goes back in the same orientation. (spoiler alert, you can't reassemble those 180 degrees out, so as long as the the UJs are in the same plane you've assembled the shaft correctly!)

Generally there's two types of UJs: the ones with clips on the outside and on the inside. The latter is normally found on LARGE trucks. (With UJ-sizes to match.) Disassembly works the same either way: There's a retaining clip that prevents the caps from falling out and keeps everything in place.

To say that this UJ was completely dead is a bit of a mild understatement.

And neither lube/grease nor a single needle inside those two worn bearing cups. 

Easiest way to install new cups is to press them in on the vice, install one of the clips and then preload everything either in a press or the vice

Would have been rude not to get the version with the grease nipples, right?

... and even more rude, if one were not put them to good use.

Fun fact: the mounts of the transfer case are so worn out, that you can push it towards the front by greasing up the splined section of the shaft. 😅

Dre-XT-Stück - sidestand

I have to admit, that lately it seemed as if the old girl had a bit more of a "sporty" lean to her and knowing fair well that those sidestands are known to bend (and eventually break) I thought a bit of bending it back and maybe bracing it was all it would take. But the sidestand's not the main culprit. 

 With the old girl leaned onto the little pickle...

 

I wanted to unbolt the sidestand, which was substantially easier than planned. 

So the assumption that something had given in, wasn't fundamentally wrong, it was just that it was the clevis that had bent because the pivot bolt snapped. The shank is 12mm and there was a sufficiently long M12-bolt in stock.

These bolts are widely available (even new from Yamaha), but should you find yourself in a pickle and have to machine one yourself and maybe lost some of the fragments, these are measurements mine had.

Depending on how worn the hole in your frame is, the 12.0mm might range from T-I-G-H-T to rather sloppy. I repaired that one, when painting the frame, so I had to take a bit off as things got very sticky.

SR500 - lights out

Very sneakily the SR500 sidecar has made its way towards becoming a veritable and reliable daily. Until about two weeks ago, when very suddenly the headlight started to fail, which together with admittedly rather improved weather conditions meant that the old Dre-XT-Stück was pressed back into service. 

After a bit of wiggling, especially on the blue cable coming down from the right hand side switch cluster, the light worked again.

A slight bit of pulling then made everything fall apart permanently.

Luckily after some rummaging in my parts stash I found an even more knackered right handlebar switch from a XV750SE and borrowed a new plug. (Yes I know, you can buy those plugs from Kedo, they don't actually cost a fortune... but I wanted to fix it now.)

Whilst I was at it, it was really about time to reposition the front right pin holding down the sidecar cover as over the last two years the cover had stretched quite a bit. As is indicated by the fact that this is now the third time to reposition the pin. (I should really patch up the old holes...)

And last but not least - the turn signal indicator - the bulb had simply burnt out. Now it works - doesn't work - works - doesn't work - works ... 😉

So next in the cards is a proper big 30k service with oil-change and adjusting the valves and then we're probably even ready for the upcoming MOT.

Project Pickle - brakes (part 2)

So the little pickle runs and not too bad actually, but out of four brakes, only one somewhat worked. And as at least two wheels were stuck, which meant moving it around in the yard would be no fun at all this instantly increased the priority to deal with the brakes. 

As the little pickle is already a late 1983 model, it came standard with disks at the front, which are absolutely no big deal at all, as the very same brakes are installed at least up to the penultimate generation of the Jimny, so all I had to do was get a pair of new calipers, pads, disks and rubber lines. The drums on the rear are a bit of a different story. 

As the two M8 nuts reveal, it is the very first version with manual adjustment of the brake shoes and 56mm brake cylinders. Luckily this is the same version as can still be found in the Indian Army Maruti Gypsy (not the Gypsy KING as that's 1.3L or SJ413 based). Regardless of which, in order to get the drums off, unlike on the Lada, a puller has to be fabricated, which pushes against the axle. (And no the althread is not bent, but that was due to some weird lens angle / lens distortion.)

Inside the drum, everything looked a bit crusty, but quite alright and nothing obviously mangled. (The adjusters were obviously seized, but nothing a bit of penetrating oil couldn't solve.)

So on the left side it was quite literally just a new wheel cylidner, copious amounts of anti-seize on the adjuster, new pads and hardware and call it good enough. 

But then again, the left side was the easy side, because even though the wheel didn't brake, it also didn't lock up. The right side on the other hand... 

Didn't quite look that bad after removing what was left of the pads.

In order to get the old wheel cylinder out the brake line had to be cut as on the right both brake line nuts are staggered on top of each other with not even remotely enough room to open them with proper tool without rounding them off... 

Just like on the left, after brushing the loose rust off, two coatings with hammerite should keep rust at bay for a few more years and also hopefully impress the mechanic, who will have to do the inspection.

Unfortunately the nut on the brake line wasn't the only one that put up a good fight. One of the M8 bolts of the wear adjuster snapped when undoing the nut. To me huge surprise, these are actually cast in, so the usual trick with welding a nut on the stud didn't work at all.

So drilling it out and then attempting to remove the remnants with an EZ-out, was my next step. Surprisingly without braking the tool as I found out a the right time that it was cast in.

Suited me just fine, drilled 6.5mm and tapped to M8 and with a bit of M8-allthread it was just as good as stock.

... how much anti-seize is enough? Yes.

This left me with making two new hard brake lines from scratch. New brake lines are made from CuNiFeR, a copper nickel steel alloy, which is actually TÜV approved. About twice as expensive as steel, but rust proof and much easier to work with. 

As should be obvious: absolutely doable with even the cheapest brake line flaring tool with absolutely no drama whatsoever.

Might be a bit hard to tell 😏, but the new line is on the right.

Even though the Maruti Gypsy is a very faithful continuation of the SJ410, when it comes to brake lines, somewhere in the last 38 or 39 years, it went from rubber lines with a locknut to a more modern clip style for retention. As it turns out, these are exactly the same clips as can be found for example on a Volkswagen Golf II (Rabbit for you Americans) and as such is a standard 25x13 clip. (In other words no need to buy the expensive clips from Suzuki dealers.)

Which at this point meant, I could run one brake line across the axle and the other one to the flexible line coming down from the chassis and install the new wheel cylinder. 

And then finally fill the other drum up with "goodness".

Only thing that was a bit of a let down (again - all of this was quite the roller coaster): The right drum was well and truly scarred on the inside and those new long-life pads? Well the long-life didn't refer to the compound, but the fact that there was substantially more meat on them... 

 Quick test-fit without wheel studs.

Which are M12x1.25 and when they are out, it is sort of the best moment possible run a die down that thread to make bolting on those wheels a lot easier in the future.

The studs are just a simple press fit, so nothing a hammer and a bit of dedication won't be able to fix.

The front brakes? Considerably easier. 

Even though I have to admit, this level of brake pad destruction is new to me.

Two very convenient M8 threads to push the disks off the hubs - even though they need a quick clean up.

Again the dustshields and brake caliper mounts where cleaned and painted and then literally just slap everything together with a bit of strategically placed anti-seize between hub and rotor to make disassembly just that little bit easier next time. 

And that was that whole thing with the brakes (aside from bleeding them). But there was one more thing: The ridiculous bull bar at the front: first of all, even though it was most likely a factory accessory I wouldn't be able to pass inspection with it installed and quite frankly I didn't like it all. 

Ironically the hardest part of the whole endeavour was to reinstall the front bumper alone, as it just wouldn't want to stay in place.