And We're Off

The first session of the Kids Cafe had the students working on the front end of the bike.  When it was purchased, the forks were weeping damping oil fairly badly.  It turns out the slider tubes were pitted severely, which likely caused the seals to tear and the oil to escape.  Step one was the disassemble the forks to see what was salvageable.

As two lads worked on one of the fork sliders, another student tackled the front brake.  The original rotor was pretty hefty, small, and was not vented.  In the recesses of Mr. Sheppard's dusty brain, he recalled that the bolt pattern for Yamaha front brake rotors went unchanged for many years... he also remembered that Ducati brake rotors were quite similar to Yamahas.  Acting on a hunch, he brough along an old Ducati brake rotor from his days racing the Italian bikes, just to check if it would fit...

While we compared brake rotors, the work continued on the front forks.  After draining the oil, the damper rod piston needed to be removed from the lower slider.  The kids learned a bit about leverage: the allen wrench could be flipped to fit into the deep recess of the fork leg; but that left very little on the other end to twist the allen bolt.  Using an old mechanic's trick and the principle of leverage (in the form of a 19mm box end wrench), the end of the allen wrench was extended, and the stubborn allen bolts loosened.

The forks were then completely disassembled, and bagged into component parts.  The seals were shot as well, as well as the dust boots.
At this point, the good news is the Ducati rotor fits!  The end result, with a better caliper, some spacers and a fabricated adapter, should be much better front brakes.
The bad news is it might not be financially feasible to rebuild the stock front forks.  Mr. Sheppard has some feelers out, and has discovered via some eBay trolling that used forks in overall better shape are likely a cheaper option.
As we wrapped up, we took a look at the ignition system.  It appears to be a new aftermarket system, but we are unsure about the make... and no installation or hookup instructions were included with the bike.  Hopefully posting this picture to a forum might help us solve this mystery.  If it is a new aftermarket piece, it is quite pricey and we want to be sure to use it.

Next cafe session is October 9.  We'll starting looking at the front brake situation in more detail.  Mr. Sheppard has a few calipers at home that could be rebuilt to work with the front rotor.  We'll be utilizing some vernier calipers and taking some accurate measurements to get the specs to fabricate a spacer to get the correct front rotor offset.