1948 Airone - restoration

[Canuck750]

More mucking around with oil lines, the main supply cable with the rubber section in the middle is age cracked, not surprising given its 74 years old!



I took the hose to my local specialty hose shop, they make any size hose up to 16" diameter high pressure, brake lines, hydraulic hoses etc and have been very helpful to me with my strange requests over the years. Unfortunatley they were at a loss to deal with this one, the rubber hose is 8mm I.D. and the metal lines are non barbed, no ridge in them etc, just a compression steel crimp end at each end of the rubber hose. I was able to pull the steel lines out of the crimp fitting with little effort,



given this is a gravity feed supply line, probably near zero pressure I suppose this slip on type fitting is sufficient.

The shop did find me 8mm I.D. semi rigid plastic line and a rubber hose 1/2" O.D., the plastic line 'just' slides into the rubber line and the 8mm I.D. hose is a tight fit over the steel lines.



I used my hand held hydraulic crimp connector, its used for making the bullet ends on battery and starter cables, I bored out one pair of the metal jaws from the jaw hex pattern using a 1/2" end mill in the milling machine to form a round crimp form.





this hydraulic crimper applies up to 10 tons pressure, I got the new hoses fitting as tight as possible to the original steel lines, the original crimp fittings have been compressed a little more, there is now a parting ridge where the compression dies meet



I love the detail that the factory applied to the oil supply tap, quality!




 

[Jorg66]

Hi ,keep it coming ! looks like you progressing quite nice. Gravity fed hose , ... I'm in Ag here but we do Hydrl. hoses ,... your set up should work just fine .
Once you are done ,you have a nice ' Book' about this Project .

[Canuck750]

Gravity fed hose , ... I'm in Ag here but we do Hydrl. hoses ,... your set up should work just fine .

Thanks Jorg!

The Airone was not equipped with a rear brake light, only a running light bulb. I found a nice reproduction Aprillia two festoon bulb rear lamp that fits perfectly the bolt hole spacing in the rear fender bracket. I added a dedicated ground wire to the rear harness plus a brake lamp switch line.



Reattached the original registration plate frame, I gave it a coat of powder satin black



the Airone came with this Italian license plate, apparently from the Italian Forestry Service



I use new PVC wrapped multistrand wire and PVC harness sheathing from British Wiring

https://www.britishwiring.com/

these folks sell every colour combination of automotive / motorcycle wiring that you can imagine in several gauges and many sizes of PVC harness cover plus auto electrical supplies (connector terminals, switches, fuses etc...) and they sell the wire by the meter and they sell braided covered cable as well. I have used them for years, no order too small and fast international shipping.

I finish the end of the PVC harness wrap with a short section of black heat shrink to 'close' the wrap as the wires leave the sheathing.



Next to fit a brake light switch, I am going to use the standard Japanese style pull for ON type, cheap on Ebay and I am going to partially conceal the switch behind the left rear foot peg bracket using the foot peg bracket anchor bolt

I cut some pieces of mild steel 25mm wide x 3mm strap, the short oiece will hold the brake switch, the large hole is reamed to 16.5mm, the long piece with the small 8mm diamter hole will have the foot rest bracket bolt pass through it.



A quick stab of the MIG welder, the short piece is perpendicular to the vertical strap set 20 degree off vertical so the switch center line meets the junction of the rear brake pedal rods at the frame pivot



I will powder coat the bracket then connect the switch and mount it all up.

[Canuck750]

powder coated my little DIY brake light switch bracket



the brake light switch and bracket are hidden behind the left foot rest bracket, I just needed to install a longer bolt to take in the added thickness of the new bracket



It all fits nicely in the limited space available and no new holes drilled, the end of the curved steel rod is clipped to the eye of a cotter pin that joins the brake pedal control arms at the pivot. Dedicated brake switch power lead connected inside the headlight shell junction panel, the brake light comes on as soon as the rear brake pedal is depressed, a win in my book!



I removed a bunch of frame nuts and filed the flange faces smooth, re-blackened them and when I reinstalled the lower front fork clamp nut it split while I was torquing it down.



I have stripped a lot of nuts and bolts but never seen one split before, I will have to make a new one, I have the M12 x 1.0 tap and will mill a new nut.

[Canuck750]

I got the gas tank on today along with the tank/seat pad. The gas tank is a reproduction I got from Valemti years ago, it is the correct style for the 1948 Airone, when I got the bike it came with a later style all painted tank, I find this chrome / painted style much more attractive.



My painter did a lovey job applying the paint to the gas tank and the pinstriper folowed through with clean hand painted stripes





There is something elegant about these red agricultural like simple machines



I can't start it until I source the two missing oil lines plus I need a new front brake cable and a few small details to attend to.

I am kicking myself today .... the leg shields I got from Italy were advertized as Moto Guzzi Airone / Astorino but they don;t fit, the upper mounting tabs are probably for a GTV or Astore and if I choose to use them I will need to modify the brackets and repaint them, there is no cutout for the small oil feed line that serves the intake rocker. I was so stupid to have not fitted them prior to painting them.

Valenti has used sets for 200 Euros, I may be better off to just buy anotehr set and have them painted.

[Jorg66]

Finding myself zooming in and out of the pics  .Very nice work on all the details.

[Canuck750]

the local hydraulic hose shop showed me a nice copper / alloy line I could try out for replacing damaged oil lines. This product is called "Easy-Flex", it is 5/16", a bit smaller than the 8mm O.D. copper line that was original. I used a lenght of aluminum welding rod to make a pattern, then coppied the thin rod with the new tube.



I sweated out the brass fittings off each end of the original line and cut a section of the Easy-Flex. silver soldered the old fittings to the new line. This product is great, it bends without too much effort and it polished up to look like stainless using a buffer wheel and some rouge polish.



new polished line crossing over from left side of oil tank down to the oil pump



Bottom front line is a new replacement I made up, the thin line above is an original I had chrome plated.



The thick line heading off to the rear right is a new replacement



Four lines meet here at the oil pump, in total there are six external oil lines, two thin and four thicker, one has a rubber section in the middle

[Canuck750]

I made up a new M12 x 1.25 nut (plus a couple spares) using a little tool I got on Ebay, a collet block for an ER 32 collet, 22mm collet in this case to hold the 7/8" diameter steel rod, six sided collet block is simply rotated in the milling machine vise to accuratley index the part, so much simpler than using a large nut to index the cuts. Prior to forming the nut faces I drilled and tapped the center of the rod for M12 x 1.25.

The steel rod is 22mm diameter so to make the nuts to 18mm just subtract the 18mm wrench size from the 22mm rod diamter = 4mm, divide by 2 and thats the depth of cut for the end miil; 2mm in this case.



quick to turn out six faces to accept a 18mm wrench



part off nuts to length, debur and then blacken them, I like how the collet block easly moves from the mill vice to the lathe





and the last nut fitted



Pretty simple to reproduce nuts of most any size and thread pitch with this simple collet block

[Canuck750]

I bit the bullet and tackled the leg shields, first drilling out the rivets securing the original strap steel brackets. Once I had the brackets off I could trial fit the leg shields and confirm they can fit provided I make new upper and lower brackets and figure out how to route the oil line from the oil tank to the intake rocker stud, will probably have to drill large diameter holes in the sides of the shields to pass the lien through.

I am trying to save the hand pin stripe work, these shields were painted with base clear so there is a good cover of clear on the parts. Hopefuly my painter can blend in the red abd then re-clear coat the leg shields.




I reused part of the lower bracket and welded the tab to a new base strap





My plan is to send the new brackets and leg shields back to the painter with a handful of new steel rivets. Once the base coat is on the painter can set the rivets and then give the rivet heads a coat of paint.



Hopefuly I have learned my lesson and will check fit everything before I send parts off for painting.

[Canuck750]

I finished the brackets, gave them a shot of powder coat bright red as a good primer for the finish paint, etch primed the areas of the leg shileds to be repainted.



I plan on riviting the brackets to the leg shields, I have several lengths of 6mm diamter round head steel rivets and tried several lengths in sample sections of 1/2" strap and sheet metal to flatten the stud, I am using a 10 ton press and am struggling to get the rivet stud to flatten nicely. I tried drilling a small hole down the center of the steel rivet in the lathe, better results but not great.

Anyone have experience / tips on flattenting the hard steel rivet stud?

[Canuck750]

I made a new oil line for the intake rocker, again I was able to purchase 'Easyflex' 3/16" diameter copper / alloy line and silver solder it to the original ends, polished up real nice.



I Youtubed flattening steel rivets and after another half dozen test pieces I ended up placing the rivet into poiston, domed head down on a solid steel surface, with the help of a friend holding the leg shield I used my very fine tip oxy/accet to apply direct gheat to the exposed shaft of the rivet, my friend held a large diamrter washer over the rivet to protect the surrounding metal, (I welded a steel rod to the washer so my friend could quickly pull the washer away) and then with my other hand I hit the top of the red hot shaft with an air riviter with a concave tool head,



it worked great. The steel brackets are now rigidly affixed to the leg shield, now off to repaint

[Canuck750]

Its off to the show tomorrow for the Airone, accompanied by my 1974 750S. Following on the success of last years two month long shopping mall show our local chapter of the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Group is displaying 40 vintage motorcycles inside an empty store inside a shopping mall. I got the last parcel from Retro this morning and fitted the fuel line pieces so it appears to be 'finished', of course I expect plenty of fiddling with the running in once the show is over at the end of April. Unfortunately I have not gotten the leg shields repainted yet so the bike will be on display `naked`.



The all metal fuel line components really finish off the look IMHO. All of these pieces were missing from the bike when I got it so I m glad they are reproduced and/or still available, the petcocks have the typical vertical fuel filters that extend into the gas tank and in addition the pipe that joins the two petcocks has a removable gauze filter section in it as well. No rubber fuel lines to rot out!



On display at Londonderry Mall in Edmonton, Alberta until May 22



Sharing window space along with this Ariel (and many more motorcycles inside the store space

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

 

[Huzo]

You don’t need validation from me and probably don’t welcome it Canuck..
But I sometimes drop in on your build threads and am constantly amazed at your broad spread of knowlege and infinite patience. I don’t have anything approaching your spectrum of skills.
I know there are others out here who do similar work, but there can be no better as I see it.
A beacon of skill in your own field.
Another Roper, Kiwi Roy, Luap, Beetle, Meinolf....etc
I hope I haven’t embarrassed you or the others above, but I’m moved to ponder how marvellous it would be as a young restorer, to work under your tutelage as an apprentice.

Just a comment from an admirer...

[Canuck750]

Thank you Huzo, very kind words, I am grateful. I keep meeting enthusiasts who do amazing work, as we were setting up our show a fellow vintage enthusiast brought his 1929 Indian 101 Scout with factory side car that has been restored from a rusted wreck that was missing many parts, I hope to get to his level one day, sheet metal, paint etc is the best I have seen.



What I love about this motorcycle addiction is between riding and wrenching I am never bored.

[Jorg66]

I just stared at your Airone for several minutes again . Beauty ! 

[Canuck750]

I just stared at your Airone for several minutes again . Beauty ! 

Thanks Jorg! I am looking forward to riding it this summer.
Cheers

Jim

[Jorg66]

Top Jim, I only had a Falcone [Nouvo] ,but them Singles are good fun.

[Dave Swanson]

I just got caught up on this thread, and have just returned from throwing rocks at all my restorations.   

[Canuck750]

I just got caught up on this thread, and have just returned from throwing rocks at all my restorations.   

Your work is top notch Dave, thanks for following the build

Cheers

Jim

[mauriceetjeannine]

Beautiful bike, great job!!!!!