Friday, November 19, 2010

Mounting Pressures



While I'm tearing things down to the bone, I am trying to address every, little weak point that these bikes have. One has been, for many, the top mounts. Some have reported manifold leaks due to the original mounts being bolted to the intake manifold. I have noticed that I need to tighten mine fairly often. They now reside in the used parts bucket. Whenever I go to my favorite metal supply, I grab a hand full of mounting tabs (I used them for my tank mounts)and triangular gussets. They always seem to come in handy for various projects. With just a tiny bit of trimming and one hole each the gussets were perfectly sized to make these new mounts. The left side bolts flat to the head and the right side uses a spacer because of the offset cylinder head. Clean and simple. I was, initially, going to use just one mount on the left side. The two banks of the engine cannot move independently of one another, so one would probably do. I just couldn't stand the asymmetry. Additionally, this will quiet the naysayers who will warn of catastrophic failure, such as, "The bike will rip itself in half the first time you get on it hard."
I will need to redo the radiator mounts since they went away with the factory motor mounts. I imagine a couple of the aforementioned tabs will do nicely.

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