Friday, January 30, 2009

Steering column lock

Here is the new steering column lock.  It is a far cry from where I found it...Not there.
Below is the original condition of the column lock and surrounding area.  I think it is a great improvement but it was not without struggle.  Refer to the next image.

So here is the story.  The hole on the right is supposed to be there the whole on the left...not so much.  I had already finished assembling the front fork and head casing and done all the cables and wiring when I realized that to do the steering column lock you have to have the fork out.  So i had to undo the headset and lower the fork to get it in.  Now mind you I have had to take on and off the headset what feels like 100 times, to get all of the wires in correct since they were not in there correctly when I got it.  And also I didnt take any pictures of how it was so when I put it back together from memory I did what looked familiar and then i realized it was not right so on and off on and off etc.  Anyhow I got the front fork off and slipped in the cam into the small pipe in the picture above.  I went to put in the column lock on the inside of the vespa and the spring it comes with is a little bit of a riddle and I cant figure it out.  Here is where I got stupid.  I put in the tumbler to see if it would even work.  I learn after hearing a little click that the tumbler is supposed to go in ONLY ONCE.  it has a little tab that slides in then clicks into place.  So now the tumbler is stuck without its housing and I cant get it out.  I thought no big deal I can just pull out the cam push the button and slide it out but I cant since I cant push out the cam with out getting the fork out and I cant get the fork out with the cam in.. grrrr.  
So I ended up drilling a hole in the pipe so I could reach in with a needle file and depress the button and slip out the tumbler.  It took about 1 and 1/2 hours to do it all.  So if you ever have questions about one of these locks let me know.  I have spent the time with it.  Everyone one I called didnt know how to install these and where does the spring go (not the coil spring, the sheet spring).  I learned my lesson on this one.

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