Fork rake

[fogrider]

Encouraged by the "proper" steering, I set to with the badly smoking and misfiring engine ; Interior of resonator part mangled by attempts to remove it, new throttle cable not properly synched to carb slide and oiler, needle in wrong groove. Now its' a fun Canam, revs clean, faint smoke only, running a treat. If only K70's were a sensible price, that would be the finishing touch.
Oh well, good fun as it is, roll on summer.

[lardmarc]

Jan 2 2022

The horrible way this Bombardier steers.

Jan 11 2022

Good fun as it is, roll on summer.

A 9 day turnaround.

Well done.

[fogrider]

Thanks Marc, I found a lot of useful info on the Canam section of this MT350 forum and especially the Canned Ham site - full of VERY helpful tech stuff. I'd have been struggling for ages without the various stuff on Canned Ham.

Back to the rake angle, its 26 and should be 30, it rides OK now but in the summer I shall have time to strip the headstock as a routine service/inspection job and re-set to 30. Wether there will be any difference in the way it rides remains to be seen !

Regards all

[fogrider]

STOP PRESS - I requested a CD from Paul soon after finding this forum - he did say he had a lot on for a couple of weeks, it just arrived !

Can't wait to read through it

Many thanks to Paul, much appreciated.

[fogrider]

Had a fresh look at the steering damper now its' off, it took a pair of pliers on the end of the plunger to free it off, now the clicks can be felt and it adjusts.
Lack of use issue, but its' staying off for now anyway.

[Jacked-Up]

Yes - the CanAm's had a couple of adjustable cones top and bottom taken from the civilan 1974 TNT model upon which the military model is based.

I can't recall if the military has 1 or 2 adjustable cones. 2 would allow 4 different angles whereas just 1 would allow for 2 adjustment angles. Angled in = responsive at low speed and angled out = stability. Also to bear in mind the bikes had steering dampeners, but usually ditched as make the bike restrictive off-road. So best compromise is angled out for safety on the road but remove the dampener for off-road bits

Or set it for the use you plan to use it for

[Jacked-Up]

Also be prepared to give the neck a birthday and dig out the old grease. The majority of bikes, probably Mk2's had grease nipples fitted to the necks. Good for keeping them lubed back in the day (also some people add them to their modern bikes on the swing arms). But dries up hard if left untouched for a couple of decades...

On the topic of grease nipples, also fit one to your speedo drive before it siezes up and shreds the plastic speedo drive disc!