Engine Stand Mounting Thingamijig

I bought a Harbor Freight engine stand, for the princely sum of $39.99 with a coupon or two ;-) Just the thing to hold the engine during its rebuild! The only problem is what to hold the engine by. In the end, I used the engine-gearbox mounting bolts, like so:

It would be ideal to have the center of the mounting post along the center of rotation of the engine, but the philosopher Jagger tells us that 'you can't always get what you want'. So, slightly offset it is:

M8 studding is inserted into the engine/gearbox holes, and is supported by multiple nuts and a bearing shell that bulks the M8 stud up to the inner diameter of the mounting stems. Only three mounting stems are rigidly connected, the fourth rests in a slot so as not to stress the engine castings too much.  

It floats!

It seems to work just fine, but in case you're thinking of doing something similar, I suggest you remove the engine from the stand when you're not working on it, so that the castings are not under continual load. Also, I intend to support the engine when its in the stand so that not all the weight is being taken by the casting threads. That's fine while you're moving the engine around in the stand, but you want to minimize the load on the casings as much as possible.

Fuel Tank Shenanigans

Dave Ashenbrener at Legendary Motorcycles send me the base of one of his "Continental" tanks to see how it would fit the V50's frame. Warning: some of the most intimate photographs of the underside of a gas tank mating with a Guzzi frame you have ever seen follow...

The tank has a range of position is can come to rest in. Here's the furthest back:

and the furthest forward:

Here's the original tank, and Dave's base, side by side 

Remember this is just the base piece of Dave's tank!

The original tank sits much lower, which is A Good Thing...

Upskirt shot of the original tank

Front Fork Strip-Down

This is all pretty straightforward.There is a single Allen bold that holds the front suspension units into the fork. It's not accessible unless the axle is removed. There's a simple nut and bold to tighten up the axle in the fork.

There's a drain plug that allows fork oil to be removed without stripping the forks or any such tomfoolery

Here's the stripped forks laid out so you can see what's going on:

I don't know what the bare aluminum bit is called, but it provides preload to the fork strings:

Just remove this circlip to access the fork springs

If you push up from below, the circlip comes clear of the base of the fork leg and can be easily removed. Not enough hands to photograph it, sadly.