Commando centre stand pivots

Tony,

There is also some wear in the centre stand holes, but Im sure I can deal with that.

I don't know why I have wear in the gearbox cradle holes but my Commando has done a lot of miles, including about 25 years of commuting between Morpeth and Newcastle all year round, so I would guess that road salt corrosion may have lead to the bushes becoming lose in the gearbox cradle and starting to turn when putting the bike on the stand. Once the bushes start to turn the wear is going to be shared between the stand and the gearbox cradle.

Bob

Hello Richard,

Good to hear from you. You've got a good memory. I think it was at about 70,000 miles when the cam bushes went. Now I'm up to something like 260,000 miles, so I suppose my Mk3 is pretty well used (although I'm sure there will be others that have done much more!)

Certainly the outer right hand side of the gearbox cradle has been worn thinner by the stand chafing against it and the washer on the inside of the left hand side has worn that away quite notably. I think its just a consequence of using the bike.

Thanks for the offer to measure up your knackered cradle if no one else comes along with anything better, but lets wait and see if anyone else come up with something better in the next week or so.

Bob

Gino,

Thanks for your offer. Having seen the cost of a new gearbox cradle, I'd prefer to repair and reuse my existing cradle.

I'll send you and email once I've spoken to the guy who will do the work.

Bob

Patrick,

thanks for your message. I'm pretty sure the holes must be in the same place on all Commandos whete the centre stand is mounted on the gearbox cradle. I think the only significant differences are that the pre Mk3 models had a slot rather than a hole for the top gearbox mounting bolt and that it also had the cotter pins to locate the swing arm spindle. The latest stand fits all.

If you could send me your measurements that would be much appreciated.

Bob

Previously patrick_hook wrote:

OK - I've just taken these numbers off my CAD drawing which are based on the measurements I got from my MkIIA and Fastback cradles:

Centre stand hole to bottom gearbox mounting hole (centre to centre) = 1.600â

Centre stand hole to lower front engine mounting hole (centre to centre) = 7.313â

Centre stand hole to swing arm pivot hole (centre to centre) = 6.100â

Centre stand hole to isolastic hole (centre to centre) = 10.254â

Centre stand hole to upper engine mounting hole (centre to centre) = 9.365â

Please note that it's is very hard to be precise when you're measuring a badly worn hole, so I would strongly advise that you double-check these to make sure they match up with your bike!

Patrick,

Thanks for those measurements. I've measured them out on my gearbox cradle and all five arcs cross in the same place. That must be a testament to the accuracy of your measurements.

For the benefit of anyone else who may want to establish the correct position of their centre stand pivot bolt hole in the future I'll destribe how I measured the position on my gearbox cradle (which is of course 3 dimensional unlike your 2 dimensional drawing). Firstly I reduced each of the measuements you provided by half the diameter of the holes you were measuring from. This enabled me to measure from the inner edge of the holes which is much more accurate than trying to guess where the centre is. The only difficulty which then remained was how to measure from the Isolastic mount. For that I measured the height of the Isolastic tube above the plane of the gearbox cradle side plate, and then used Pythagoras' rule to determine the actual distance from inner circumference at the end of the tube to centre of the stand pivot hole.

Thanks once again for your help.

Bob