Time For Another Update: Forks and Steering Reassembly:
The frame is all painted and I have acquired all the parts for the steering assembly from Draganfly and others. I had very little to go on in terms of assembly, as very little was there when I acquired the bike. However Draganfly's excellent exploded diagram and much help from the AOMCC technical forum acted as my guide. I'm detailing it here in case others pass this way...
I had already fitted the lower bearing to the lower yoke – helped by putting the yoke in the freezer and the bearing in the warming oven. I’m using taper bearings – generally thought to be an improvement on the original loose balls. I fitted the cups for these to the frame, again eased by popping them in the freezer overnight before gently tapping in with a wooden block. It occurs to me that these will be very difficult to remove if I ever need to, as the inner diameter is smaller than the orifice in the frame – I would probably need to weld a piece of steel across them and knock them out using that.
In a similar way I warmed the upper bearing and, having inserted the steering head through the frame, tapped it down then pressed it in using the dust cover and steering head nut. I then loosened the nut and retightened it, as advised In the Owners’ Handbook, to the point where no vertical free play was apparent and another 1/6 of a turn before tightening down the second locking steering nut.
The (all new) steering damper mechanism then went in quite easily. There had been some debate on the forum about whether the anchor plate goes between the friction plates or beneath them but I opted for the logical approach
The next bit was a bit of a battle. Fork legs, Upper part of steering yoke and headlamp brackets – but in what order. Lots of trial and error ensued, not helped by the fact that the new stanchions are a much tighter fit in the yoke than the old ones and I needed to prize the fitting in order to adjust the stanchions.
In the end I think the process should be:
1. Fit Top Yoke to steering head.
2. Insert Stanchion up through lower yoke until it fits snuggly under upper yoke.
3. Tighten bolts that fix stanchions to upper yoke
4. Tighten pinch bolts to fix stanchions in place.
5. Remove all three bolts now securing top yoke and remove.
6. Place headlamp holders over stanchions.
7. Reapply upper yoke and fix down to steering head.
8. Add 1/3 pint oil to each stanchion and tighten upper bolts
This all went OKish, although frustratingly resulted in some chips to the new paint and was complicated as the headlamp holders didn’t seem to fit well, so I had to repeat several times with adjustments each time until I got it right. The whole process was not helped by the fact that the adaptor in the upper end of the left stanchion has a very dodgy thread. I have ordered some more from Draganfly and will replace them when available. I’m also not sure why the headlamp holders don’t slide properly into the top yoke with a bit of overlap to allow for this. In the end I had to leave out the washers that are depicted between these and the anti-rattle rubber fittings – I can’t see what purpose they serve...
If I've done anything majorly wrong please tell me!
P.S. Does anyone know how to stop the forum rotating images...?
