Odd and Sods
An assortment of things that don't have a home yet !
Spoked Wheel Rebuilding
If you search the web, you will find quite a few articles on how to go about re-spoking and then truing a wheel. This is one that I found to be useful.
Battery Cross Reference
A useful series of charts listing different manufacturers parts numbers for motorcycle batteries published by Power Sonic.
NGK Cap Decode
Curious about what the numbers mean on the NGK spark plug caps ? This information sheet used to be on their site, but I wasn't able to find it recently.
The Resistive Plug Debate
You see lots of back and forth about the use or avoidance of use of resistive components in the ignition systems of older bikes, most of which generally is opinion rather than actual fact. A good site to visit is Mike Nixon's site found here. One of the many interesting pages he has posted is this one which is worth a read.
Cheap Soda Blaster
I have actually used this - it works ! Makes one hell of a mess, so try this totally at your own risk (I accept absolutely no liability for any problems) when your neighbours are away for a few days and just before it is forecast to rain. Be very sure to wear proper eye protection ! Works especially well for carburettor bodies and castings.The 'how to build it' info can be downloaded here (it is a PDF file, so a PDF reader is required to open it).
Fork Tubes Sizes
For the owners who like to mix and match front ends, the folks on the Ohio Cafe Racer's have posted two very useful lists. The first is of fork tube sizes and the models they are fitted to. The link to the original site is here. At the same location they also have a list of steering stem sizes at the same location, but I'll repeat their caution that the steering stem hieght has to be considered also. You can also download from the original location by clicking here for the tube data, and here for the steering head data.
Oil, Damping, etc.
Related to the previous item, is the topic of fork damping. If you search the web, you will find an infinite number of opinions on this, but only really a few fact based information sources. One useful link is to Peter Verdone's wiki site, where he has a few useful bits of information. This is his page on Damping. He has also compiled a very useful list of fork oils and their realitive weights which you can find here.
Related to that is a chart comparing oil viscosities against different standard measurement scales which can be found here. This is useful as a guide for deciding what grade of gear oil to try in place of engine oil. And remember for the gearbox or engine if shared with the gearbox (injector oils are another discuission entirely), you are looking to buy JASO MA rated oils.
