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Seat and Wheels

Baby powder and learning to sew was important for this part!!

Wheels and Tyres
The Michelin tyres already on the bike were in good nick with heaps of tread. It's only the spare that needs to be replaced.
The wheels were powdercoated metallic silver and came up great except for the spare wheel. For some reason the powdercoaters stuffed it up and it came back a bit warped. 
Reassembley is fairly easy, tricks are to put baby powder between the tube and tyre and I also vaselined the nuts and washers slightly so that wouldn't rust onto the wheel.

Seat Restoration
I've spent quite a bit of time on this seat. I wanted to keep as many of the original parts so I resisted the urge to replace it. I do need to purchase a buddy seat, as I didn't get one with the bike.

I had the seat frame and bracket powdercoated and it all went fairly easy although you have to be careful with the threads on some of the frame bolts. Its a tight squeeze getting the frame back into the leather/vinyl (?) seat and some of the stiching at the back came apart. The bolt inside the spring is hard to do up, you need to stop it from turning by jamming the little tab on the bolt while you tighten the nut. Don't forgot to add the choke bar, I did.

The main surround stitching on the seat was old and decaying, so I decided to restitch. In the end, I did it myself after receiving good advice and the right colour thread off Gary Blackman, a trimmer in Richmond.

Using a little knife and tweezers, I unpicked sections of the old stitching. Any stubborn tufts of thread was tucked back into the hole.

With two needles on each end of a length of thread, I criss-crossed in and out of the old holes so that the stiching remains tight. Using two needles also means you only tie off at one end. A metal thimble is essential and also a girlfriend experienced in crossstitch helps.

Once I got the hang of it, it took about 6 hours all up to complete. 
 
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