Some mock up of the rear today, making sure there are no interferences with the wire loom and brake hoses routing. Looking nice with ole Darmah’s head back on the frame.
It's also good to check there would be no interference between the rear axle & shock mounts and the exhaust mufflers (on both sides) when the swingarm is moving. As can be seen they do run pretty close.
@Andy Bee I had plenty of time to check this when I was working on the swing arm, chain, sprocket, shocks,etc.
Lovely... when I bought mine in the early 80s (yes, I've had it that long) the previous owner had fitted a complete Conti replica Keihan system and this obviously runs much closer. We're talking millimetres when the shocks compress.
Some Darmah SSD news. I went for a 851 road trip a couple weekends ago, when the weather was so nice, which explains why things slowed down over here, in Darmah land. I finally got around to replace the “off” looking tail light. This is how it looked like when I got the bike: I ordered a correct reproduction from Gowie and it looks much better, in my opinion, save, maybe, the satin black rear finish. Chrome versions are all out of stock at this time, whether you ask Gowie, SteinDinse or others. Anyways, you don’t see it with the tail on…
I also started looking at the rear brake and gear selector pedals and associated rods. First, as the bike must have fallen on its right side at some point, the rear brake pedal was broken and quite poorly rewelded. Testing it for the sake of it, it broke in two. That will have to be properly addressed. Second, there is too much play between the two pedals and the foot pegs axis. The main holes have gone oval. These are the late production lowered controls and as such pretty hard to come by. So in an effort to properly refurb them, I dropped them to my beloved machinist to get them bored and re-sleeved. With less play, things should feel more “accurate” when switching gears of using the rear brake. More to follow!
Yeah... the last thing you want is any slop in the linkage(s). On one of these no one has ever said the gear change is like knife through butter.... ho hum
Today is a glorious day!!! The Darmah started. It fired up on the first attempt. That’s the video below. Cold start, no kidding. I am so incredibly happy !!! https://youtube.com/shorts/bKmZUa0dsuU?si=O64DTYFDmwNKaDxq
I can’t wait! First, I still have a couple things I want to do, like synch and tune the carbs, even though everything sounds pretty smooth with a very nice idle and throttle response. But yes, I can’t wait to ride that thing…
When doing the carbs make sure the engine is properly warm and is running at a steady fast(ish) idle. Once complete you can turn the idle down to something more fitting. You may also notice that changes to the mixture screw can take a second or so before an effect on the engine revs is noticed. And as Ducati Paddy has mentioned elsewhere you don't want large turns of the screw but rather small increments of about an 1/8 th of a turn each. Enjoy
Yup, thanks for all this good advice @Andy Bee . On my carbs, the mixture screws « click » every 1/8th of a turn, so it will be easy to adjust incrementally.
