Well, it sure has been an interesting few weeks or ups and downs. But, everything happens for a reason and everything seems to have worked out okay.

Suspension. The switcheroo I did between the 883 and the 1200 was not working at all. The original 883 shocks have given up the ghost and have zero movement left in them, making for a very uncomfortable ride. So a plan had to made. After a load of searching I found a nice set of second hand shocks from a V-Rod that fit the 1200 perfectly. They are a little stiff, but I am sure they will settle in fine and handle the future bumps and ditches with ease.

Next on the list were tyres. I want adventure tyres. No point planning all these gravel road adventures and not having the tyres to handle them. But of course there is an issue. The rear wheel on the 1200 has a 16″ rim. South Africa only seems to stock 17″ tyres and above. Sigh.

I hunted around and found a the tyres I want and made sure that there was a 16″ option. Then it was off to the various bike shops to see if anyone could maybe get their hands on the tyre. Alas not. None of their supplies have and the only possible route I could have tried was a direct import, which would just be an absolute nightmare.

So it was time to search for a new wheel. And luckily enough I found one almost straight away. A lovely spoked 17″ rim at a price I couldn’t say no to. It has the tiniest ding in it, but I am sure it will hammer out fine.

A break in the weather meant I had one day to get some painting done. So I pulled off the kick stand, chucked it in some vinegar and then added all the elbow grease I could to get it nice and shiny again. Then I hit it with some 2K clear to ensure the copper doesn’t tarnish again.

While that we making its way through the coats I pulled out the exhaust bracket / balance pipe to paint too. This, unfortunately, had decided to rust. Honestly I am not that surprised, we do live at the coast and raw metal has a tendency to rust quickly. So it was back to the wire wheel and after a quick clean up it was time for paint. This time with a heat resistant clear coat.

I also decided to get the handle bars sorted, so they got coated in paint stripper and wrapped up to sit and stew for a few days.

Will the new back wheel fit? Only one way to check, remove the current wheel. Easy? Right? Apparently not. It has been many years since that wheel has been removed and apparently the nut was a smidge on the tight side.

It’s okay, it came lose after this little bend. And this also now means I can finally buy a new socket set, since I managed to mangle the socket ratchet before bending this bar.

Once the wheel was off I checked the axle to see if the diameter was right for the new wheel, and thankfully it was. I was not keen on spending more money to get the wheel set up, it has already eaten into the tyre fund a bit too much.

It turns out the wheel removal was the easy part, the pulley and the brake disc fought back. Not matter how much I tried, they just wouldn’t come lose. And yes, I did check if they were lefthand threads, which the pulley ones are. I sat and pondered for a while and finally reached out to buddy to see what they had in their tool box to help. Impact driver to the rescue! Lets see how that works in the future.

In between all this chaos I did play around a little bit. I am still wondering what to do from a tank design point of view. Below is the latest idea, but I think I need to get the buddies around with a couple of brewskies and have them bash out some design ideas, I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

And then to top everything off, I became a tumble dryer mechanic too. Fun times, never a dull moment in this house.