I worked on the Silverwing last week; lubed final drive, cleaned brakes, trimmed the left muffler

As I previously mentioned there was a ticking sound from the rear end of the bike that I couldn't trace down. I decided that I might as well take the final drive and the rear brake off to see if something was rattling around.

To get to the final drive the rear drum brake had to come off. I had wanted to check how much brake shoe was left and it was squeaking badly. I was going by the Haynes manual, they said the muffler had to come off. Unfortunately, I didn't find the section in the back on 82's that said the muffler didn't have to come off. They also had a picture of my brake configuration. The one I used for diss-assembly showed the brake rod going to the bottom of the hub; the correct one shows the rod going to the top.

I pulled the muffler, brake and wheel hub off easily, having already done it on the Goldwing. I cleaned everything off, there was a lot of old grease, actually there was a lot of mixed grease. Inside the brake and hub there was dust grit and grime.

I measured the hubs and there seemed to be ample material on the shoe. The worrisome thing is that the material inside the hub that the shoe rubs against seemed a bit on the thin side. I measured another 2mm's left. I don't know what it takes to get a new ring inside the wheel, I imagine you get the correct ring and press it into the wheel.

After the cleaning I greased everything with Honda Moly 60. I put the whole thing back together, it seemed to be smooth.

The one thing I think I discovered is that the left muffler (a Harley replacement) has two nub bolt holes welded on. The one closest to the front of the bike seemed to be very close to the left part of the rear swing arm. I didn't use this hole to attach the muffler, at least not yet. While the muffler was off I trimmed down the nub on the grinding wheel. I also took the shaft of a cold chisel and banged a dent into the side of the muffler where the center stand was supposed to go. It looked like hell but the center stand no goes up all the way, or nearly so. I mounted the muffler and tested the placement with the center stand, it fit well. I used the muffler sealant again and bolted everything up.

The bike was ready for Kari to ride on her first road ride.