So, dealing with the wheels turned out to be more of a hassle than I thought- as it always happens with the Monster Project. I got the runaround from different shops about how much getting my wheels stripped would be… no one would just tell me where they take their wheels to get stripped in Portland. A couple people told me they shipped them out of the city. Wtf? Finally, after going to a place that said they could do it… a kind gentleman that worked there told me I should save myself the time and go straight to the source. American Metal Cleaning on Vancouver Ave. It was that easy.
So then came the task of pulling my bearings (another thing I neglected to realize). Yes, I am obviously totally new to this. But hey! I did it!
So, after work I grabbed my wheels and took them in the shop at MotoCorsa. Jarrod was still there, so I asked him to show me how to pull my bearings since Hannah was still busy. He broke it down for me, showed me the tools… got it all up in there and whatnot.
Pulled hard on the weight slide hammer a couple times, and bam… it popped out. He definitely made it look easy (it’s like he does things like this for a living or something… weird.)
Tools used, bearing pulled out.
Took off all the crap from the outside of the other and took a photo of the order so I can reference it later. (I highly suggest doing this.)
Time to attack the front wheel.
I was definitely not as smooth at removal- I had to use my legs as leverage to hold the wheel down while violenting ripping upwards with the weighted thingy (yeah I spaced on all the technical terminology) slide hammer… I’m sure it was a really amusing sight. But ta-da, there it is.
Prepare to be chemically stripped of all your powder coat, Mr. Wheel.
I couldn’t get the bearing off the puller, so Hannah put it in the vice grips and whacked the crap out of it with a hammer. It eventually worked.
By the way this is an ingenious way to make a stand for putting wheels on.
Got all my crap labeled and in little baggies to make my life easier later, packed up and packed it in…
…and washed my hands to get as much of the grease off as I could. Eh, it was halfway clean.
And today, I picked them up. So fresh and so clean, clean!
Dropped them beauties off at Bridge City Cycles and soon enough, I will have gold wheels and move on to the next major step… reassembly. Dun dun dunnn!
Vasilisa Komarova took a dream motorcycle road trip. Camping in Bolivia she was attacked by three men with machetes, raped, and left for dead. “We have to stand up to the abuse and never lose hope.” Read the story and find out how to help.
Posted on May 26, 2012 in Blog, Motorcycles by Alicia Mariah Elfving