ROLLOVER DAY

  I’ve fully dismantled the ride-on / seat assembly. The two piece roller came apart easily and after more degreasing I’ve painted the inside with black Hammerite.  I’ve been experimenting with ways to clean the rusted and pitted face back to clean bare steel. More on this later because a few weeks back  I also spent a long time trying to figure out how the machines rear drive roller comes apart and I thought I would have one more attempt this week.

Very rarely do I concede defeat but dismantling the rear roller into it’s component parts has beaten me and I’ve spent a whole day in my failed attempt. Not that anything needs mending as it works perfectly but I want to take it apart to properly de-rust, clean up and repaint.  My advice from fellow enthusiasts is that the centre cog/ratchet pulls off the shaft. Fine in theory but without a cog puller and no luck trying to lever off with screwdrivers it will have to stay put. Furthermore the cams were also impossible to remove from the chainwheel pawl pins. The nuts on the inside of the chainwheel can be locked but the slots in the cams/screws are too narrow for an ordinary  screwdriver to get a firm hold. Doubtless there’s a special tool with more leverage to do this job but I’ll not bother. Or maybe I will make one on a rainy day, I’ll decide later.

 For weeks I’ve been deliberating on how to clean the very rusty and pitted face of the rear rollers. I’ve come up with all sorts of possibilities and even contemplated having a few thou milled off on a lathe. I need not have worried. Taking one of the rollers off the ride-on attachment I wedged this on the floor and then simply used a power sander with a very course grit oxide sanding sheet and sanded about a 15 degree segment at a time. The metal came up like new, even some of the pitting disappeared. On first attempt and despite the roller being ridiculously heavy the force of the sander shot the roller over the wedges and onto my toe. Golly gosh I exclaimed as I limped off to construct a safer jig !  

 Anyway I’m satisfied with the results of my efforts, old and restored in photo.

Sods law. Some of the painted parts were temporarily put outside whilst I was working on the roller inside the garage. Whilst distracted there was a sudden downpour and the fresh paint finish was pitted and ruined. I will now have to wait weeks till the paint is fully dry before rubbing down and painting again.  The machine may be green but air was blue !