Blimey, there are times when you have to realise you're kidding yourself, and there are times when you'd be much better off if you didn't kid yourself in the first place. I must be a proper cocky little fkr, always preferring to do as much as I can myself. I look at whatever the task is, and think to myself, if others can do it, I'll manage . . . tools etc or not
To be honest, I've been procrastinating over building of the double uj after having such a difficult time just fitting one of the uj crosses to the first yoke, having managed to get a needle lie down, and then, due to the cups being such an extraordinarily tight fit, and after having tried every way feasible to disassemble again without causing damage, I had to chisel the cup off of the yoke, destroying it completely.
I got it fitted eventually, but wasn't altogether happy with it, it was as stiff as hell after pushing the cross in so much to get the standard circlips installed. Then thinning some circlips down for an easier fit I got it freed off and moving, I could still sense the a slight grating needle feel to part of its travel. Maybe from having put too much pressure on the end of the cups to fit the original, I'm not sure.
So yesterday I set about building the UJ, and went through the fitting procedure joining the driveshaft end yoke to the central double yoke. This time, being ultra careful to ensure that all of the needles all stayed in place. I pressed the first cap in using the vice, and everything was fine, I pushed the new cross into it and gave it a good squeeze to ensure the seal would compress, ensuring that the needles were all where they should be. I fitted a thinned circlip and then put the second cap in place, pressed it in a little way, and slid the cross over to this side to check there was no hang up with the needles, and then pressed it home.
I could see the seal on this side compress, so I knew there were no needles lying down, but I couldn't get even the thinned circlip to fit on the second cup, the groove not being exposed enough, even though it was pressed in as far as it would go. Imagine my dismay when examining the problem to find that on the first end I'd pressed in, the seal was not and would not compress! Feck, Feck, Feck!!!
So I can only assume that when I slid the cross to the otherside to check all was going in smoothly, it must have travelled far enough to allow for at least one needle to fall or be pulled out of place, and lie down in the end of the cup
. . . . So here I am in the same place I was in on my first aborted attempt, despite focusing specifically on trying to ensure this very thing did not happen ... again
To say I'm feeling frustrated and down hearted is a bit of an understatement.
Either I'm not having enough respect for the job and the skills involved, or the Guzzi crosses are just extremely difficult, or the holes in my yokes have bent themselves out of true, making the cups an excessively tight fit. I don't even know if the latter is even possible.
The principles behind a uj refurb really don't seem like rocket science to me though, supposedly designed to be a relatively easy to service. I watched countless videos on how to install uj's, but they're all on bigger vehicles, land Rovers, Jeeps, SUV's etc, all of which I'd feel confident in tackling, because there's a lot more room for manoeuvre, where as with the compact Guzzi uj, there's virtually none, and from what I could see, if they have a needle go over, it's an easy enough job to disassemble and correct the needles and simply reassemble again, without fkn the caps up leaving a new cross unuseable.
I'd love to see a video of someone refurbishing a Guzzi uj, but I haven't found one. I'd get an idea if mine was more of a struggle than the norm, which due to my lack of experience in dealing with them, I've nothing to really gauge it on.
On these bigger uj's it seems that when you press through from one side, there's enough of the opposite side cup pushed through that you can easily get the full jaws of a pair of mole grips on the cap, and with a bit of twisting, just pull them out. Where as with the Guzzi cross, you get between an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch through, and even clamped in a strong vice and tapped with a hammer, or trying to twist it, won't see that sucker budge. The only way I could get mine off was with many, many hammer blows on a chisel, which does the cup no good at all. I am referring to a new one here, after the yoke orifices had been deburred and had a light sanding with a dremel sanding post to cut through any crap that could interfere with the proceedings.
Should the Guzzi fit really be as tight as gnat's chuff, ie. impossibly tight. I'd really class at least my particular uj as being virtually impossible to extract the cups from without causing irreparable damage to the cross.
This is why the angle grinder was deployed when removing the old crosses, and this only after a good amount of effort had been exerted in the attempt to remove them, resulting only in a good long stint of hammer and chiselling just to remove the first cup. It feels to me that they're beyond ridiculously tight. I really don't see how any one could physically remove a new fitted cup from my uj if a needle was in error and laying at the end of the cup. As regards a needle lying down, I ran all the checks, kept every movement smooth and made sure everything was aligned.
I know there was no needle lying down when I first pushed the cross into the first pressed in cap, as I could squeeze it in by hand and compress the seal, which wouldn't compress if a needle was preventing the cup from being fully seated, so the only time the needle could have fallen, is when I moved the cross as far to the opposite side as possible when trying and ensure the opposite cup accepted the cross trunnion as I pressed it in. Either way I'd done it though, there'd be an equal chance of a needle falling over.
I'm guessing that when pushing the cross over from one side to the other, the suction and the grease has probably pulled a needle, or needles with it. But still, needles falling over when fitting a uj can happen to the best apparently, even if very occasionally, and disassembly and reassembly should surely be a workable out.
The crosses, supposedly the ones Guzzi have used, cost me just shy of 130 euros, a couple of needles going over is one hell of an expensive mistake to make. I can't help but think it's unreasonable to accept that, seeing as it's such a simple and well known error, well known because it's a common enough fault. But here I am having to suck lemons.
I'll just have to write the 130 euros off that I spent on the crosses, and the hours I've put into prepping the uj etc. I still have a single unused cross, but a fat lot of good that'll do for me, as I've just forked out £175 for a new complete uj, and take it as a life lesson as I vowed to myself that I'll never attempt to refurbish a Guzzi uj for the rest of my sodding days
I've also decided that I'm going to take the UJ and swing arm to an engineering company to get the uj set in the carrier bearing. I don't want to risk fkn that up at this stage.
Also, regards the pinion shaft carrier. I gave the box some real sturdy blows with a rubber mallet but nothing has shifted there either. However, I've now decided to scrap that job. The reason I was advised to do so in the first place, was because the fear that water, gunk and corrosion had made it down there and polluted the bevel drive reservoir and, as a result, possibly caused damage to the gears and bearings, but it's clear that the corrosion only affected the pinion shaft where the coupler was attached, then nothing between the shaft circlip and the bearings/bevel housing, and the oil that seeped out was translucent like honey, which would indicate that there has been no water contamination.
It also feels totally smooth to turn the gears for enough full rotations to cover the whole of the large gear wheel by hand, so taking all of this into account, there really is nothing at all, to suggest that there's any issue with the rear drive, there is no in and out play on the shaft, and the movement in direction of rotation, I can't actually discern a distance measurement on the shaft backlash, but can feel that there is a slight amount, through the sense of touch, which at a guess might be a mm or so at the actual gears, which seems to be the norm, as far as I can tell, certainly nothing to raise concerns. Of course if there are any lumps of metal when I remove the drain plug, it'll be a different matter, but I have no particular reason to suspect that there will be any.
The last thing I need right now is to take on unnecessary tasks for no particular reason. I hope to get my bike in the back room for a month or two this winter, so that's something I can do then if I want to.
The hammer and drift shifted the stubborn wheel bearing ok.
It wasn't stuck fast due to the bearing rusting after all, it had some sort of really solid and effective bearing retaining glue. The circlip groove being filled with the stuff explains why the circlip needed bending out of shape to remove too. So I think I can bring that bearing out of the freezer, because if anything, it's going to be a sloppy fit. One of my front bearings was also a loose fit, but 4 pings with a punch has been enough to grip, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get the angle with the punch to get into the rear wheel hub housing. I do have some bearing retainer though.
Is there any distinct preference for an effective protective treatment for coating the inside wall of the driveshaft tunnel of the swing arm?
I assume a long lasting, heavy duty spray grease, but is any particular type favoured. I don't seem to be able to find Red n Tacky spray grease in the UK.
Cheers, Mart
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