Morini Kanguro Rebuild

Still running

I took the Kanguro on a 100km round trip to the Staffordshire moorlands area yesterday. I'd seen an interesting-looking ridge road on the map and it seemed like a perfect length to check the ignition and carb balance a bit more. Close to Longnor the bike felt rough and cut out a second or so later. What's the problem? I'd run out of petrol! Well I still had 'reserve' but was the next petrol station in range? Well it was, I put 9.3 litres into a quoted 10 litre tank so I had a maximum of 10 miles or so left. In England the petrol stations are closing down as customers search out bargains to fill their tanks at petrol stations. That's fine with a car but not great on an enduro bike with a maximum range of 160 miles.

Book to be published

Thank you for your kind comments during what I have come to call 'the cancer debacle'. My short book will be published very soon and is detailed on my publishing website: Cava Cadavers.

Rear wheel bearings

The rewound alternator saga is still ongoing...however on my return from a test ride today I wobbled the rear wheel. Why? I don't know. Anyway it was obvious that there was play in the rear wheel bearing on the drum brake side. I should have renewed them when I did the rebuild but they have been fine until now so why bother?

The quick release hub worked a treat and I had the wheel on a soft wood stool I keep just for this purpose in a few minutes. The left bearing and oil seal were easily drifted out whilst shifting the spacer. The right hand, brake side, wouldn't budge. Luckily before I did any damage I carefully levered out the oil seal and found that the bearing is retained with a circlip. Note that the circlip is not shown on the Morini parts diagram. Once the clip was out the bearing could be drifted out with difficulty, after heating the hub with a blow torch. It turned the edge of my Facom drift! The parts needed:

• 2 x 2504 oil seal
• 2 x 3203 bearing

were easily obtained from City Seals and Bearings at the surprising cost of £42. On questioning the price, I was told that the bearings are double row designed to resist high radial load.

I popped the bearings in the freezer while I ate lunch and fitting was fairly straightforward. The only problem is that now I can tell that there is a tiny amount of play in the swingarm.

The drift was squared off with an angle grinder to restore its sharp edge.