The design of the centre stand fitted to the swinging arm bikes is one of the few weak areas of the last aerial frame design. It's not very strong - legs are often a little bent, the holes wear oval, the stops deform, and the feet drag along the ground and wear away quickly. It's easy to use but it's faults are not helped by people starting the bike on the stand.
When restoring a frame it's one of the first things to look at. The stand stops on the frame are likely to be deformed and you want to build them up with weld before you paint the frame. Feet are readily available from Draganfly for you to repair your own stand, and Draganfly have replacement centre stands if you don't fancy doing the welding.
Geometrically then, it's a pretty good design let down by details. The stops aren't big enough, and the single sided foot pressings are just... bad.
Stand repair is something I don't look forward to, or didn't until someone came up with a new method. Personally I've never had much success trying to lever the stand around to get the pins in, and I've hitherto resorted to the old method of pushing pennies, washers or wire into the open coils to get the springs off.
Until this method came along. Setting the scene: the bike is on a scissor lift under the frame rails and the centre stand is in the raised position - I've actually got the front wheel clamped and a cargo strap holding it upright as well.
The first step is to remove the outer circlip and washer from each side - I find it easier to push the pins into the middle.
Next I've secured two cargo straps to the ramp, each one looped around one of the stand feet. If you were doing this without a ramp, you could secure the straps to something heavy in the workshop or perhaps to the rear wheel of the bike.
The next step is to put a bit of tension on the straps - it doesn't take much, just enough to let you feel the pins go loose so you can push them out.
Getting the stand back on is almost as easy. Once you have the straps around the feet and the springs in, you can tension the straps and align the stand eyes with the holes in the frame. You'll have to manoeuvre the eyes to get them to line up, but the cargo straps take the strain and allow you to get the pins inserted without having to hurry.
To repair the stops is easy - if you can weld, or know a man who can. You don't need to add much to the stops - the stand legs are about 8" long and the stops are located 1" away from the centre of the pins, so if you add 1/8" to the stop you can move the leg about 1". Depending on the angle of your stand, that will give you maybe 3/8" of lift.
These eyes appear to be steel castings - they seem to weld very easily.
Wear aside, my stand issues are partly of my own making. When I ordered the shocks, someone suggested that I opt for a bit more length in the shock to give a bit more travel at the rear. Looking back, if I had realised I would need additional lift from the centre stand to accommodate the longer shocks I don't think I would have done it.
No comments:
Post a Comment