Strip It Down and Build It Up.

After neglecting the motorcycle for quite sometime I decided to do some fixing up on her. I went out got the most needed parts to start of with.

The motorbike got pretty beat up from driving wildly off-road. Myself and a friend of mine regularly go out and about climbing mountain sides, gunning through muddy piles, spinning around on gravel roads. No doubt we do fall every now and then and this is where I will give myself a pat on the back, falling with a motorcycle can either be very dangerous or not at all, falling with a motorcycle has a sort of a fine art tied to it, if you know what the motorcycles want to do you may get out unharmed and unscathed... Keep in mind I'm referring to falling on gravel roads and not tar roads, tar roads has a whole different set of rules and can be very unpredictable because of constant moving traffic. So don't go out trying to practice how to fall😂

This only comes with experience from falling a lot! YES A LOT! I was a newbie in the motorcycle journey and when you are a newbie driving a motorcycle you generally see your ass a couple of times. This is because you feel so powerful and in control behind those bars, or well honestly in my case I did, a young lad getting his first set of wheels, you think you are king.. Until you hit the floor and when you hit the floor your ego gets dragged along and also gets a bruising. 😂

Okay okay enough shit talking!
Lets get to the point.

• New brake shoes for both front and back wheels.
• New brake disc for the front wheel.
• New clutch lever.
• New chain.
• New seals for the shocks. (Not shown in photos)
• Shock oil or fluid.
• Wheel-bearings (Not shown in photos)
• Motor oil (Not shown in photos)

Before commencing any repairs or servicing of the motorcycle I decided to do a full out tear down of it. My goal was to get it to factory standard (Well except for most of the cosmetic damages etc scratches and all those unnecessary things that doesn't affect the mechanics of the motorcycle) So a full tear down it was. Once it was completely stripped I was able to thoroughly clean all of the crooks and cranny's and also to re-grease most of the load bearing parts such as shafts placed between the wheel-bearings.

The new brake disc bolted nicely into place! Notice the worn out lines on the disc, well no use buying new brake shoes if you have a buggered up front disc. This will only cause premature wearing/failure. So if you don't replace both you might as well leave it.

Pulling out the shocks can be quite tricky, I recommend that you have some mechanical background before attempting to strip shocks. Some disassemble easier than others so if you are lucky they will just slide out.

(Make sure you have the correct specs of how much shock oil to add in each shock, also they have to be measure down to the last drop and have to be equal on both sides otherwise the one shock might press harder into the riding surface than the other. This in turn will cause unsafe driving conditions.)

The new shock seals have to be fitted properly as to not damage the seals, they are very sensitive but if handled correctly you will be a for away. What I did was I grabbed a socket which fitted nicely over the outer metal ring of the seal and I gently tapped them into place firmly and evenly all around. If they do not seat at the same height all around and one side stands out a bit more it will add more stress to some parts of the actual seal lip than the other causing premature failure.

A New day ahead of me!

I decided to cut the day off yesterday and leave only the carburetor for me to open and clean today.

I enjoyed a nice and early beautiful sunrise with a cup of coffee before jumping back into the work.

Clean the carburetor with nothing else than petrol. Using diesel or paraffin or any other chemical substance might cause damage or corrosion to the small sensitive parts or screws.

Replace all of the rubber O-rings or seals or inspect if they are still in a working condition. I will re-use mine because I know they will still work perfectly and if any leaks should occur I can simply remove it myself within 5 minutes and have it back up and running within 15 to 20 minutes.

Keep track of where all the small parts are placed and what o-rings go where, placing them back incorrectly can cause major fuel problems even for such a small carburetor.

A Few extras

Taken while on exploration missions with my buddy.

       (Hill top photo of a small part of Bloemfontein)

  (Tempe air field in Bloemfontein after having something to eat.)

Sharing my life experience on the Hive blockchain is a great pleasure for me to do, I have been on the hive blockchain since the days of steemit, I only recently rediscovered this blockchain and I completely forgot what a blast it was sharing my everyday life and its happenings with the blockchain and its community's. I want to give a big thanks to all of the supporters out there making the blockchain great and adding value to it everyday.

Once again your feedback would be highly valued and appreciated.

_{Connecting the people of #HIVE across South Africa. #hive}