YAMAHA C3SC
It is reassembly time and things are going suspiciously rather well!
Scoop reckons it’s on its way!
I’ve now reached the stage in any rebuild where, hopefully at least, the positives have begun to outweigh the negatives. The bike is slowly being reassembled or at least I’m building sub-assemblies ready to reinstall. Everyone has their own sequence of rebuilding but mine generally commences as follows. Install the centrestand with its associated fittings i.e. the spring, the C-shaped centre stand link, and, if applicable, the rear brake arm. Over the years I’ve been frittering away my life on old bikes it’s become obvious that if the stand and its gubbins don’t go on first they’ll be a pig to do later. It’s almost as if the bike is built around it, not unlike a French car of the 1970s where the entire vehicle is constructed around the cigarette lighter… if you’ve been there you’ll know exactly what I mean! The original centrestand pin wasn’t in the best of health when I first looked at it and the percussive persuasion needed to evict it didn’t help. My NOS and recycled spares yielded several likely pins but they were all too thin; the CS3C’S pin is unique to the pre-1972 bikes and, of course, is no longer available. The groove that locates the retaining E-clip didn’t look healthy so it should have been either a replacement, or re-manufacture job but my mate Bob came up with an effective and ingenious repair which I think does the job fine. The remains of the retaining shoulder were machined off, a 6mm hole drilled and tapped then a stainless steel penny washer machined to suit as a retainer; I seriously doubt it’ll stand out once the bike is back together. Next up was the suspension, both ends having been cosmetically refreshed and/or rebuilt. The fork legs unfortunately yet predictably bore Stilson scars (other pipe wrenches are also available) so they went off to A M Philpots for fresh hard chrome. The rear shocks were variously rusty and covered in rattle can silver so they were stripped, re-chromed and rebuilt. The most labour intensive part was fettling the grey inner shrouds that supposedly protect the damper rod and seal when the bike is ridden off-road… yeah, right! Hideously scarred and spectacularly stained with rust from the springs, a whole afternoon was squandered on two plastic tubes. Sand paper, wet ‘n’ dry, kitchen cleaner and plastic headlight polish finally got them back to being reasonably tidy.
The bottom yoke received a full complement of consumables, bearing races, balls, top nut and cover courtesy of Yambits, ready to receive the fork legs. Swingarm back in place with new bushes the shocks were similarly rehomed, finally giving the bike some semblance of order. Of course there had to be a curveball or it wouldn’t be one of my projects. The rubber fork gaiters are supported and centralised at the top by a device called spring retainer, upper or some such moniker. When the bike arrived from Canada the entire front-end was already off but I recall a pair of wickedly lethal steel pressings sitting in the gaiters. Of course these had vaporised into thin air come rebuild time which caused some consternation. However, despite the parts book diagram indicating something vaguely similar and sharp the images of said items on ebay were totally different and clearly moulded plastic discs. On the basis that the latter looked correct, Bob and his lathe were once again pressganged to knock up something similar. Still naively telling myself that this is not a full restoration, the brake hubs received some attention courtesy of my dwindling stock of old-style (read: actually works) paint stripper. The original lacquer on the brake plates was stripped off and the bare alloy buffed up to an acceptable level but not overly blinged; note to self, don’t wear decent clothes next time you get the polishing stuff out. Despite checking them before and pronouncing them okay, I found the wheel bearings were now notchy so some new bearings were installed. I chose to use the double shielded type as they are literally only pennies more than the single shielded versions but infinitely better protected. And of course while I was dealing with brake plates and wheels it would have been foolish in the extreme not to have fitted new brake shoes. I know I bang on about this far too often but you really shouldn’t be assuming a set of linings are okay after almost 50 years. There’s a well-documented issue whereby, over time, the adhesives used to bond the friction material to the alloy casting begins to fail. At best your brake will suddenly come on as the liner fractures and breaks up. At worst you may find yourself dumped on your ear as one or both wheels locks up. For that reason if no other the OEM shoes were dumped in favour of EBC’S finest which fitted like dream.
Moving away from the chassis I’d notice the tacho or speedo had some gravel rash to its case. Fearing the worst in terms of internal damage, I connected it to my cordless drill and via a square drive adapter span the gauge up using the anti-clockwise setting. Amazingly, the needle rotated as it should and didn’t flutter. The cracked mounting pin’s base was sorted with some Supa-fix and the scars filled in with some plastic metal. Thankfully the CS3C runs painted clock cases so there was no need to get these replated. Some judicious masking and a few crafty coats of crackle black had both gauges back almost like new… result and no stupidly expensive outlay either! Fitting the rebuilt forks should be a straightforward task but with external springs you have to push or pull the whole assembled leg up through the lower yoke to fit the newly painted headlamp brackets. With the forks nipped up at the lower yoke, and various collars, damper rubbers, painted parts, top yoke, fork nuts and washers loosely in place everything is then lined up. Gently slackening the lower yoke pinch bolts sees the fork springs pull the whole assembly into place ready to be tweaked and tightened later. And I didn’t even manage to mark the paint! Moving ahead, all of my chrome plating is back and although it’s never cheap it’s great to be able to tick another key task off the list. Knowing how rare guards are for the street scrambler I’ll be applying some serious protection to their undersides by way of an insurance policy. The front blade bolts to its tubular cradle via four U-clips that carry no Yamaha part number utilising no fewer that 14 bolts, 14 spring washers and 14 nuts… now what could possibly go wrong?