Last night was a good night. Received the original fork neck bearings cups and races back from the machine shop. The shop “skimmed” the ball bearing surfaces back to a mirror smooth finish. The races had pitted from sitting for 65+ years with the old ball bearings.
So new ball bearings were installed along with a nice coating of grease.
Then the top adjusting cone was installed and tightened down.
The front wheel was put back on after this. There should be no reason the front end has to come off in the future.
Now moving to the rear brake. After initial rear hub rebuild, as I was getting the bike ready for three shows, I most likely did not fully understand the workings of the Muscleman rear brake. After I initially installed a few months ago I had a rear brake, however “lost it” after a few tries. So last night we pulled the rear wheel off and disassembled the hub. All looked good. This time we “set” the chain sprocket a bit different. Difficult to explain but the sprocket has a wide threaded portion that goes into a mechanism to activate the brake when the pedals are rotated in a backwards manner. Anyway after reassembly the wheel was installed back in the bike and chain adjusted. Rear brake now operates AOK!
Next will be getting a new belt. I’ll leave that story for the next post.
Cannonball, Chase, 1911 Excelsior, 1923 Harley J tales 