Here is the finished article. The lock arrangement and keyhole are removed completely, filled and sprayed over leaving a simple screw-in gas cap with a smooth finish on the top. Guaranteed not to fail, because there is no mechanism to fail, it's just a stopper. I concede there is a risk that your ex-wife might sabotage the contents of your petrol tank, or a petrol thief liberate them - but the risk of a standard BMW gas cap failing is far more probable than that. I can do this to your gas cap if you want.
Saviour Machine
Saviour Machine designs and modifies aging motorcycles and motorcycle parts
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Friday, 23 March 2012
The way of Saviour Machine
This is an example of what I do. It is a petrol or gas tank cap from a BMW R65 from the mid-eighties in need of some attention. Caps like these and variants thereof are fitted to many eighties BMW motorcycles. They have a problematic design flaw that afflicts every one of these caps sooner or later if they are used in the way that they were intended, i.e. used without having to worry whether it is going to break every time it is closed. The problem is the ratchet mechanism that activates when the cap is tightened to the required degree and prevents over-tightening. The ratchet mechanism fails, the cap cannot be undone and remains locked in place. |
There are a few possible solutions once yours fails. The first is to buy another, but they are well over a hundred quid new. There are no aftermarket reproductions available (*note to self - design and engineer cheap aftermarket BMW airhead twin gas cap*) so I don't fancy that. You can drill a hole in the top of the cap and insert a screw or bolt so that it permanently connects the upper and lower part of the mechanism, but it looks daft with a screw sticking out of the top.
So I've decided to do away with the lock mechanism altogether, join the upper and lower halves so it operates as a basic screw cap and then re-finish it. First you need to fill the hole where the lock mechanism has been removed. I then bolted the top half to the bottom half with a 45mm long bolt so it is effectively one complete unit. The bolt needs to be recessed slightly into the top of the cap so that filler can be layered on top.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
This is Saviour Machine Motorcycles. Welcome here
Saviour Machine Motorcycles designs and modifies aging motorcycles and motorcycle parts. Its sister project, Automotive Proofreading, is a freelance proofreading and copy editing service for publishers, printers and advertisers (see here: http://saviourmachinemotorcycles.blogspot.com/p/automotive-proofreading.html ).
Saviour Machine works with Japanese, German and Italian motorcycles that their former owners and the rest of the world have forgotten existed. I specialise in machines at the bottom of their price curve: not desirable enough to have stayed in the public consciousness; neither old nor rare enough to stand out as an oddity; but nonetheless a quality item in their day and waiting patiently to be rediscovered and brought up to speed with the modern world.
Saviour Machine is a green endeavour, both in terms of its environmental aspirations and its embryonic stage of life. I use whatever parts I have lying around (plenty) and whatever eBay tells me is "Price - Lowest first", regardless of origin. I don't do this for a living either, yet.
Blogging motorcycle projects is a slow business. Time and patience are in short supply, but spare a little of both as you read these pages and you'll find something, I hope, to inspire.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)