Thursday, February 23, 2012

Engine and suspension mounting plates

The rear engine mounts are anchored to the T300 frame by two forged steel 'linkage carrier' brackets. The brackets are located by the swingarm spindle which passes through the frame's outriggers, immediately to the rear of the engine cases.

View of the steel castings which bolt to the
rear engine mounting points and rear suspension drag link,
frame outriggers to the left and right. 

Linkage carriers, top mounting holes to the right
and bottom mounts to the left

The brackets are slim cadmium plated components.  Each include five bolt holes and a small lug with an anchor point for centre stand retraction spring. 

The top bolt hole is for the top engine mount (M12 x 81mm), the second down is for the swingarm spindle, the central hole is for the lower engine mount (M12 x 119mm left, M12 x 130mm right), the fourth is for the forward drag link bolt. The lowest bolt hole is for the centre stand (M10 x 65mm countersunk). 




The area to the rear of the engine gets a tough time: it is splattered with chain grease and road muck from the rear wheel.

Hung up to dry last summer with
a couple of ally castings

The effect of that combination of grime was that the cadmium plate was fine at the top of the brackets but corroded away at the lower end, especially around the centre stand mounting holes. The condition of the centre stand was very poor so no surprise there really. They degreased and cleaned up nicely. I decided to paint them in Smoothrite gold over my fav zinc primer.

Brackets after gunking off
I bought a secondhand swingarm complete with linkage and carrier plates from a 1994 1200: it was a decent deal that included the drag link. This was because a clamp on one side of my original drag link was split. I gave the linkage bracket from that the same treatment. If you are eagle-eyed, you'll see that the design of these later linkage carriers is slightly different though the holes are identically located. They do not include depressions as in the original forgings.


The finished brackets are very tidy I think, though the gold is a darker shade than the cadmium plating. The rear of the engine cases cleaned up beautifully too.


1 comment:

bostik said...

Cleaning the rear of the motor. That's dedication to a level I cannot attain ;-)

You should see my old CBR6 after 4 months of winter and loads of fs365/acf50 to keep the salt at bay. It would bring you out in a cold sweat and is very unlikely to be this clean ever again.