Isetta - Chain Case & Rear Brake

The first thing I'm going to work on is the rear brake and chain case. At this point the only thing I have removed are the rear wheels.

The brake drum has been removed exposing the rear brake. The pads are not in bad shape but the brake lines and brake cylinder are another story. The brake cylinders will be rebuilt, I'll replace the pads and hoses so that every thing is new and fresh again.

I found these illustrations in an old motorcycle repair book I have. I thought the advice of clamping a punch in a vise was a great tip for setting the rivets on the Isetta's break shoes.

Passenger and driver side view of the chain case with the brake and hubs removed.

The wheels, brake, hubs and fenders have been removed giving a little better view of the engine compartment.

The Isetta's Achilles heel - rubber drive couplings. Even If my Isetta was running when I bought it, I doubt it would make it to far on these rotted drive couplings. You can see some battle scars on the chain case. The damage is minor and looks more like loose bolts hitting the case than a full fledged drive coupling blow-out. I used a product called "Lab Metal" to fill the gouges. It worked really well, they are virtually invisible now. The adjoining transmission case also has some minor damage I'll show in the next post.

Chain case removed.

The leaf springs have been removed and disassembled. They'll be bead blasted and powder coated before being reassembled.

Despite being covered in grime, when I opened up the chain case, it all looked in pretty good inside. All the splines were in good shape. No internal damage. The chain looked good. The one problem I did find, was the threads in the case for the oil drain plug were severely stripped. There were virtually no threads left.

The stripped drain plug was repaired with a steel "Time Sert" threaded insert.

New bearings, seals, and gaskets throughout.

Reassembled chain case.

Rear brake with new pads, rebuilt brake cylinder, new hose, and new paint.

In addition to replacing all the gaskets, seals, and bearings, the silent blocks have been replaced in the link brace. The newly assembled cases were rubbed out with Wizards Metal Polish. The coupling flange, intermediate shaft and hubs have been bead blasted and painted, and misc. hardware was nickel plated.

Next up, the transmission.