Insanely tight… No, sadly I’m not referring to a type of niche pornography… I’m talking about just how ludicrously secure the right fork top-nut was fastened. After hurling considerable verbal profanity and calling in a favour from Lou Ferrigno, she came loose.
Fork Top-Nut Removal
The left fork top-nut and steering stem top-nut both loosened with ease which was a relief considering the right fork top-nut incurred a small amount of cosmetic damage during its removal (fortunately I was able to utilise the grinding wheel, linisher and wire wheel to clean up the evidence of this struggled removal).
Triple Clamps Looking Haggard
With the top-clamp freed I was able to get on with cleaning it up. I sandblasted back the paint, dirt and age-old grit; I then got to polishing up the sandblasted part on the wire wheel to bring it up to a dull shine. Prior to re-installing the top-clamp, I intend to bring it up to a higher level shine, but for now I decided to leave the top-clamp at that.
Top Clamp Clean Up
While the top-nuts were all out I decided to polish those up and before long I had the top-clamp and accompanying top-nuts all tidied up a great deal.
Triple Clamp Parts Cleaned Up
I decided to throw the parts back on the forks for the time being so as to prevent myself from losing them (as I inevitably do!) and to get a better idea of how the top-clamp will look moving forward.
Cleaner Looking Triple Clamp
For shits’n’giggles, I took a photo of the freshly painted black risers in their approximate mounting positions to see how the combination of polished metal and satin black would look – so far, I like what I see. That said, I have a completely different, brand new steering-stem top-nut coming with my MotorWorks order; so the appearance of the current steering-stem top-bolt isn’t really important.
Triple Clamp Mock-Up
Very soon I’ll be removing the heads and drive-shaft/transmission in preparation for the motor’s removal from the frame. I’ve decided to go for a satin black finish on most of the motor (I blame Tony Todorovski’s incredible 1986 BMW R65).