Not so common ETS 250

[dirtsurfer]

Maybe - if you can. It might get a bit messy.

As an alternative, consider making a makeshift clamp from a 1cm/0.5'' thick piece of wood (say 3"/8cm wide, or more). First drill a hole in it with the size of the stanchion OD (~32mm). Then drill 2 holes for bolts, along the width of the wood, close to the big hole, and finally saw the piece of wood lengthwise. With the bolts in, you have a clamp that goes above the spring. You compress that spring first, to make sufficient space, and you use the clamp to keep the spring down. Then you can grasp the stanchion by it & manoeuvre it in place.

Clamp.jpg

Not necessarily quite like that, maybe a bit thinner & longer, just to show the idea.

Not tried, never worked on an ES/TS/ETS. I do not know what rubber pads there are inside that lamp holder, maybe they need guiding from above during the fitting. The clamp would only solve the problem of gripping the stanchion.
Beware of the damage this makeshift tool will cause, so that successful repairs will not be ensured...

Edit: the other approach could be to first fit the forks without those lamp holders, then support them at the bottom, take the top triple clamp off & fit those lamp holders, and finally re-fit the top triple clamp.

Hi all
I have been a bit tied up with returning to work ( ordered back to the office for 4 days the orderred to work from home again) and a coiple of weddings ; one in Adelaide and another in Hobart . Which has kept me out of the garage over these few weeks. The external springs hindered the use of a construction as you suggest. They're pretty strong and the wooden blocks would have to be much thicker to keep the spings compressed, then I run into the issue of the thickness of the wood simply replacing the the space previously occupied by the uncompressed springs.

Setting the cups , cones and balls in place in the steering head was difficult enough (for me) without the forks in place, I am reluctant to disassemble again the top clamp again but I may have to go that way.

I have made a visit to the same man who turned down the the stearing head top nut and asked if he could make a tool with a 27 X 2 external thread on one end and M12 internal thread ( to accommodate my slide hammer) on the other end. In the back of the MZ manuals there is technical drawings for these tools. So I took the drawing along to give the impression that I at least vaguely had an idea of what I was talking about. I also watched a number of thread cutting videos such as this https://youtu.be/Lb_BURLuI70 as homework

He is a lathe guy and devotes his waking hours to engineering fiddly stuff that I prefer to avoid if possible. I was pretty awestruck by the setup he has in his work shop. I'll see what he comes up with.
I am still waiting on fork gators to come from China

[Puffs]

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[dirtsurfer]

Hi, welcome back!

Uhm... Are these springs stronger than on the Jawa 634, which is a 350 twin? I'd guess such a single weighs at the most some 150kg, with less than half of that on the F wheel, so say 70kg at the F. This is carried by 2 springs (at a static sag, without rider, of typically 2cm or more) so 35kg each. Maximum. That is easily held by such a clamp.

To be clear: the idea is you press the springs down with the wooden clamp loosely over the guide tube (so not over the spring, but on top of the spring - the ID of the clamp is that of the guide tube, some 31-32mm), then hold the lot down with 1 hand, while tightening those clamp's screws with the other. The clamp then sits on the guide tube, holding the spring down (with a maximum force of 35kgf). Here you see half of the clamp shown earlier on the 634:

Clamp above spring (clamp too big, only half).jpg

This 31mm thick clamp is way too big for this fork, and I don't want to remove my horn, so I only inserted half of it, but it should give an idea. If really required, ask a friendly assistant for an extra hand when installing.

But OK, lacking a stationary drill, suitable hole saw or other woodworking tools, making a decent hole of 31.5mm can be a bit bit of a challenge, and I appreciate that would be a reason to try something else. But it's what I would do, with my background, and these tools in the drawer:

Make 31.5mm hole.jpg

And it would cost me just a few minutes, and 0 money.

On the 2nd alternative, the top cone is normally loose & just held by the top triple clamp, the cups stay in place in the frame, and the balls should be held by grease. The bottom bearing stays assembled, but the top might indeed give a bit of bother.

But if it's easy & cheap for you to have a more or less official tool made, that seems a sensible route. You won't use the tool often though.
Good luck!

Thanks mate for the time, effort and thought that you have put into this. The frame is sitting on a milk crate at the moment with no front wheel. I suspect that if I had a front wheel in situ, it would make the wooden block clamp a little easier. I do like the hole saw that you have pictured against the jaws of the vernier

As it turned out [pun intended] my lathe guy whipped up a tool which works just fine.
I stood by and waited as he worked his magic , as fascinating as it was I wasnt game to venture into his milling workshop without his voluntary invitation. He is obviously a craftsman and a skilled machinist but doesnt talk much



The end result


Yep, I wont be using the tool much. After this it will share a drawer with my many other single use tools. Still waiting on those Chinese gaitors; I hope they're gonna fit

I had dropped in to see the old bloke who sold me the bike before I went away. He needed a hand to get some parts down from a shelf in his container full of old bikes. I asked him how he managed this fork tube feeding issue , but he couldnt remember. The part he wanted was pretty heavy ; an velocette engine still in the frame and parked on a shelf above the two ISDT machines.

He spends his days restoring old bikes, this one a velocette mac



I'll be interested to see how it has progressed , next time I see him.

[Puffs]

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[Blurredman]

Looking good!!!

[dirtsurfer]

It has been raining here for a few weeks. There is a small stream running through my garage. I got the front end in and organised now. So more assembly to continue

[Blurredman]

Looking good! Progress is coming!

I'm curious- are you able to measure up for me the dimensions of the upper bracket for the left hand side cover, please? My ES's one is missing and I need to fabricate another....

[Puffs]

That bike shows all the signs of becoming a very nice one! Thanks for that pic.

I'm surprised to see the bend/ depth offset in the top crown plate (triple clamp). Gives something like a DDR-style ace bar.
Those gaiters might be slightly long for this bike?
Even in this cradle style of frame, they don't seem to use the fixation point at the front side of the engine. Very long gear shift lever!

[dirtsurfer]

Looking good! Progress is coming!

I'm curious- are you able to measure up for me the dimensions of the upper bracket for the left hand side cover, please? My ES's one is missing and I need to fabricate another....

about 100mm

X
40 mm

X


The frame looks pretty rough , when I look at high res pictures with my glasses on. A lot of the welds look like they were created by someone of my skill level

[dirtsurfer]

That bike shows all the signs of becoming a very nice one! Thanks for that pic.

I'm surprised to see the bend/ depth offset in the top crown plate (triple clamp). Gives something like a DDR-style ace bar.
Those gaiters might be slightly long for this bike?
Even in this cradle style of frame, they don't seem to use the fixation point at the front side of the engine. Very long gear shift lever!

I have made these observations about the styling also. Simillarly curious is the the rear portion of the frame ending under the seat and not forming a loop around behind the seat like many other motorcycles of that era. Theyre a cute but akward little jigger really. It kind of feels like something is missing with no front engine mount . Its got a home made sort of look about it with so many of the parts being inherited from the ES 250 ;I hope it will turn out alright. It has been a very slow process with this one. Yes, the bike when assembled does have cafe racer styling and so far I have most of the original parts so it should be a reasonable specimen of that model. I took a punt on some gaitors from china which I found on ebay. They are not a perfect fit but will suffice for this phase of the project
Oz2Rad has some original patern https://www.ost2rad.com/MZ-Spare-Parts/Suspension-Telescopic-front-fork/Bellows-MZ-ETS-125-150-250.html but I will wait to see how the bike looks closer to completion before I fork out more $$$. Shipping from Germany via DHL (only choice) costs me an absurd amout of money.

[Puffs]

Yes, now that you mention it, the way those rear shocks are mounted seems odd too, without the side covers. I figured there must be a cross beam somewhere, in that rear sub frame, but maybe they're just relying on a heavy-duty rear mudguard between the 2 sides.
To refresh the picture (you linked to yourself earlier):

Which seems to have a shorter gear shift lever.
Good luck!

[Blurredman]

Thank you for the dimensions. I finally managed to make my own bracket.

[Blurredman]

How's this going Dirtsurfer?

[dirtsurfer]

How's this going Dirtsurfer?

Slow! I must admit , I have too many projects on the go. I did a small amount of assembly on this one today and hope to put some serious time and energy into it over the next few weeks.

[dirtsurfer]

Two years later and no progress. Over the last few days , I did 2500klm trip on one of my other projects


and on my way home I dropped in the old bloke I purchased it from. We had a chuckle as he has got no further with his Velocette either. Anyway he is 18 years older than me and not so spritely. So Im going to make an effort to get this one one the road in the next few months and hopefully ride it down to his place so he can appreciate it.