Least favourite things

[groily]

Reading G/F Dave's pithy to the point remarks about getting dynamos on and off As made me think about my least favourite things, on bikes in my shed and elsewhere. . .

25 things I dislike include, but in no particular order of hatred
* steering head adjustment on Beesas (compared to some of the competent alternatives which don't involve castellated fasteners which have usually been attacked with blunt instruments)
* rocker re-assembly on As (of course)
* tappet adjustment on Bs and all other singles that don't take account of the fact that most of us only have 2 hands
* rear chain adjustment on all machines which don't have snail cams keyed to the axle
* primary adjustment where you can't easily get to the gearbox securing nut/bolts
* chaincases which have to come off to adjust clutches
* forks with damper tubes that rotate when you try to do up the screws that retain them to the slider and then won't come undone again either without stripping the whole leg
* forks where the spring has to be heavily compressed during assembly; and
* forks where the stanchion has to be hauled up by special tooling
* auto-extract devices that don't - like tired ATDs
* QD rear wheels that are just about D but not Q
* fine threads into aluminium, which put you off taking things apart for fear of what might happen next
* oil tanks that don't drain to fully empty
* external oil pipes with banjos etc that screw into alloy
* exhaust pipes that have to be manhandled to get them into the ports, where they rapidly become a loose fit
* carb flanges that bend or cause the slide to seize if you do them up - or fall off if you don't (concentrics mainly)
* fuel taps in general
* bearings with no provision for getting any known extractor up their backside; oil seals too
* thin mating surfaces that encourage misuse of goop and gunge and other yuk and still leak
* 4-bolt mounted fuel tanks where the holes never line up, or the seating rubbers fall out, or a bolt pierces the tank underbody for the want of one measly washer's worth of spacer
* sprockets that are integral with brake drums
* speedo drive cables that try to rotate with the rear wheel
* kickstart shafts that sit lower than the gearbox oil level is meant to be
* clutches whose chain wheel rollers aren't captive so they fall on the floor, where one at least will hide forever
* any fasteners that lack clearance for normal decent tooling.

BSAs actually aren't all that guilty. But every machine has its share of jobs that get put off for fear of what it might lead to.
What's this group's All-Time Least Favourite Job?

[a10 gf]

  excellent !

Apart from all the 'entertaining challenges' mentioned above, the worst here is changing tires or fixing a flat, then awakening to the fact the brand new tube got destroyed in the process.

My A10 speciality: making all kinds of fine adjustments here and there, then locking it tight, just to realize the most difficult and plaguing is to get some final nut or bolt tightened up properly without managing to move things back out of spec. Then when all is fine, the threads let go. lol

[bsa-bill]

The way my Flash exhausts are so not evenly spaced when viewed from the rear, this is due to two factors

1. looking from the rear the left hand silencer is too close, this due to having to tuck it in to avoid the kick start, problem is with the kicksart lever , it's a pattern one with the crank in the wrong place, a better one would cost me £50 or more though - still if it annoys me enough I might go that way ( I'm not that easily annoyed though)

2, the right hand pipe is miles out the other way due to having to avoid the footrest. however there is some hope for a cure, my friend was here today and said he had cured his by putting a spacer in between the front exhaust pipe bracket and the boss on the frame front down tube, this forces the rear of the silencer in towards the wheel.

Will try this tomorrow.

Got the Flash out on the road yesterday after retiming  the magneto, think it must have been out a bit previously as it went so well.
Also think carb might be set a bit rich for starting as it seems to start better without choke, although it has been quite warm here of late.
One or two things to do before it's MOT, but it's looking good despite some of the paintwork crazing.

All the best - Bill