SPRING IN THE AIR?

I experienced an ‘oops!’ moment as you’ll see from the pics. Whilst reassembling the clutch on my Honda CX500, I bolted the thrust plate into the clutch centre, compressing the springs on the way. As the bolts reached the nearly-home point, I heard an ominous clunk. On stripping it down, I found three of the alloy lugs had pulled out of the back plate, hence the ‘oops!’ moment. I then looked in the manual and found I had put the pressure plate the wrong way round. What a dozy dora!

Next, I needed to lock the crankshaft on the CX to remove a part from the clutch. After scratching my head and thinking outside the box a bit, and as the cylinder head was off anyway, I came up with the method seen in the picture.

Here’s another idea for how to refit a spring on a centrestand. I was trying to replace the centrestand on my CX. After bending a piece of threaded rod at a right angle so that one end went through the foot of the stand, at the other end I used an L-shaped piece of metal drilled for the rod and spring hook. I then wound a nut down the rod until it pulled the spring down enough to catch on the hooking point for the stand. A very good idea, much safer than molegrips, pliers or screwdrivers. It saves lots of cursing and skinned knuckles! Bob Harris, member 9748 Stand springs can be a real pain! Having spent ages trying to fit the mainstand spring to Rowena’s B25SS, in the end I unbolted the stand itself, fitted the spring to stand and frame and then levered the pivot holes in the stand and the frame into alignment. It was really … easy. I’ll have forgotten this next time of course! Frank W