Aprilia Diary

[simonandjuliet]

Brian, I tried to clean it up but cannot get my arm down the tunnel, so yes it is black-waxoyled !

Everything else has been cleaned and painted ready to re-assemble, just waiting to sort out the sleeve on the diff. spider. I have cleaned up the front of the diff but really need to take it all to pieces to clean properly, so it will have to wait ......

All the spiders and bearing clamps have got stamped numbers all over them. Apart from the numbers on the spiders (1,3,7 & which I presume correspond to the bearing caps (although the caps are not numbered !) the others don't appear to correspond to anything else, maybe batch numbers ? For example one is marked 39 another 0 and another 58.

The spiders have date stamps, 1938 and 1945 but I can't read the stamp on the shaft itself. I haven't taken the balls out of the shaft because it moves very freely and has no play, so it seems prudent to leave alone ! I will regrease and re-assemble

I have added a picture of a special spanner bought from Harry years ago, specifically adapted for removing the castle-ated nuts from the stub-axle and the centre drum nuts. These 30mm nuts can be very tight, especially the outer ones which get wet and seize. The split pins rust and disintegrate etc etc. The "spanner-surface" is quite narrow and the nuts easily round off.

The spanner is nearly 18" long, has a ground face and is nearly straight, with no offset, so you get maximum contact and purchase ! The other end is 27mm which is useful as well !

Finally, how do you know when you are spending too much time in the garage ?

Your 8 yr old daughter draws a picture of your car in bits and your wife bringing you another cup of tea ......

[Parisien]

Very smart.......love the pic.....your families talents knows no ends!


P

[DavidLaver]

What did you use to cut the conveyor belting?

David

[fay66]

What did you use to cut the conveyor belting?

David

David,
I would have thought a fine bladed electric jigsaw would work quite well.


Brian
8227

[simonandjuliet]

David, the shape was cut using a new Stanley knife blade against a steel ruler and the the holes were made with leather punches. A fine jigsaw may work as well

[simonandjuliet]

Have been waiting for some bits to arrive so I can finish the "service" - a new oil seal and shaft repair sleeve. I had not come across "speedi-sleeves" before, but Martin Cliffe told me about them, so it arrived yesterday along with a new seal. The big advantage is that the sleeve is so thin you use the same sized seal.
 
The notes that come with the sleeves recommend that you fill the groove with plastic-metal ,or similar and fit the seal before it sets, then you cut off the  flange , et voila ! Seems to work because once it was all refitted and a few miles test drive and it doesn't leak ......

I am very happy with the central prop-bearing support, a road test showed much , much less vibration (at 110kph). It remains to see whether it lasts another 66 years ....

The road test also showed up the improved steering following the replacement metalastic joints and straightened steering arms - the steering wheel is centred again - I'll have to get used to that ! No knocks from the suspension but one front brake back plate is touching on LH bends, so it means that the new ones will have to be fitted sooner rather than later ...

I also modified a brass slide-on greaser by taking an M10 thread, grinding it down to M8 (ish) and then re-threading it to fit the centre bearing. It is shown along side the greaser given to me by Colin (big thanks - the other went on the drive shaft) that will go on the end of the wire hanger.

The RH driveshaft looks nice, will have to do the other one now !

Bit more bling around the place, all the bolts have been replaced with the correct length HT bolts with new ny-locks. Finished off by draining the diff , filling with new oil and then greasing the driveshafts

All that's left is to take the back wheels off, grease the rest of the suspension and take off the shock absorbers and clean them up and refill with new oil

[simonandjuliet]

I have just taken a spare drive shaft to pieces for one of our number .....

So for the record, there are 54 ball bearings, of 7mm diametre, running in 6 channels - therefore 9 per channel. This one is a bit tired but still works !

[davidwheeler]

"Brake back plate touching on left hand bends" suggests to me some slack in the bearings or even between the bearing and the shaft rather than the need to replace the plate - unless it is flapping loose of course.   Some of my spare stub axles have been knurled in the distant past to take up the play...

[simonandjuliet]

I think there is a tiny bit of movement in the bearing . The main problem is that the backplate has been damaged over the years and is quite deformed and is too close to the drum. The lip of the plate has been flattened and no longer fits into the groove on the drum. I have sourced a brand new set of backplates which I hope to fit during the winter.

I took her for good run a couple of days ago and she took an age to warm up - it was very cold but dry and sunny, so it is not a surprise ! I needed full choke for a while, if not she kept coughing. So the other job is to tidy up the thermostat housing and fit the new 'stat as well.

[simonandjuliet]

Firstly, a happy and healthy New Year to everyone !

Warm and dry here today so I took the Aprilia out for a spin, lovely as always. Following the service/steering overhaul, there is more wheel wobble at about 50mph. I think that I have taken all the play out of the tired silent blocks and put thicker oil in the suspension, so the wobble is more easily felt - will have to have another go at balancing the (bent) front wheels .....

Then into the garage for the backplate replacement. It all came to pieces reasonably well except for a couple of the screws holding the backplate on. There are 6 in total, 5 around the stub axle and a 6th hidden between the shoe pivots. They had all been damaged at some time in the past and 2 were impossible to move so they had to be drilled out and a tap run through to clean up the threads.

The only other difficulty was removing the adjusting cams. The cams and nuts are drilled and pinned, but try as I might the pins wouldn't budge, so I had to drill those out as well. I will replace the pins with 3mm roll pins. You cannot use split pins because you need to be able to fit a spanner across the flats to adjust them

Interestingly, the Tavola shows the backplate in 2 pieces, the flat bit and a conical bit which collects any oil drips from the bearing. In reality it a single piece because the 2 are spot-welded together and the bottom edge of the cone looks to have been soldered to seal it. I have had to separate these because my new backplates consist of just the flat bits

The old backplate is badly deformed, the rim being completely flattened at the bottom, letting suspension oil and dirt creep around the edge .....

Just need to clean it all up, paint and refit - maybe tomorrow

[simonandjuliet]

Better late than never - pruning has taken preference this week. We have about 4,500 vines to do and we do not have electric secateurs - it's done the old fashioned way (by hand with traditional secateurs ) and each vine probably takes 1 1/2 minutes .....

This side is back together and just needs the brake-flexi refitting and then bleeding. Small correction to the last post, I have found another tavola that shows the backplate as a single piece instead of the plate plus conical bit - it comes from a second series book, so hence the difference.

On the same tavola, it shows a slightly different arrangement for the adjusters as well. On my car, the washer was on the inside of the drum, thus providing a reduced-friction surface. I have replaced the original fabric washer with a copper one. But on the tavola, the washer is on the outside , under the spring. I am sure my adjusters have not been taken to pieces before, there was no marking to suggest the pins had been removed before. So who knows ?

Bit of brake-bling - painting the wheel cylinders, daft maybe but, I know it's there ! A couple of other pictures showing it going back together.

I had to tap out the edges of the drum so that it didn't touch the new backplate and also there were a couple of cracks in the cooling fins where they had been bent. So I cut a "V" in the crack and added a bit of plastic-metal and repainted the drums in high temp paint.

[simonandjuliet]

Brake-flexi fitted and brakes bled. I like the coil spring that protects the pipe from potential abrasion, but it does make checking the condition of the pipes more difficult.

Bleeding the brakes is very much a one-man job on an Aprilia, so long as you haven't let the reservoir run dry. I tend to hold the plunger up during any work (using a clamp on the stem) and then put a rubber cap on the end of the copper pipe once it has been disconnected from the flexi. Then once it all goes back together, I use the plunger/piston to push the brake fluid back through the system - collecting it via a tube inserted into the bleed-valve, so as not to get fluid on your nicely painted backplates !

Quick sanity check with the brake pedal, adjust the shoes and all done !

Prompted by Brian's post on "the Aprilia Project" I replaced one of the front bumper rubbers (from Mic, thanks !). The repro rubbers are slightly different from the originals not sure if it is the same with those from Cavalitto, but the end sections are of a different section and are glued on. The inside of one needs trimming to fit the asymmetric frame. Otherwise they look very nice !

[simonandjuliet]

Couple of local LCF events coming up, so will be great to get the Aprilia out of the garage and do more than 30 miles.

22nd March local sortie and then another in the middle of May (date TBC) .Should be good shake-downs for our Italy trip in July. Not a Lancia do, but a week around Luca/Pisa having fun ! Jules is a bit worried about the heat .......

[the.cern]

Simon, please reassure Jules that everything will be fine, Aprilias were designed and built to cope with the heat .......


                              Andy

[Parisien]

Couple of local LCF events coming up, so will be great to get the Aprilia out of the garage and do more than 30 miles.

22nd March local sortie and then another in the middle of May (date TBC) .Should be good shake-downs for our Italy trip in July. Not a Lancia do, but a week around Luca/Pisa having fun ! Jules is a bit worried about the heat .......

We'll be over in Lucca/Pisa in April....but obviously not by vehicle....I must read over all your threads again Simon lots of nuggets, great pics and advice, thank you


P