Honda-SOHC

PS thats not rust, its patina.

You lucky man, 'Patina'  can add hundreds to the value of a bike!

Now, I am sure you are all aware of the the "voluntary excess" type, let's say, 'money making exercise', that goes on when trying to insure a bike.

 I have just recently bought a modern bike, a 2017 BMW F800r, having a classics policy with RH I will just add it to that at a not too unreasonable price, but I thought I would shop around to see prices elsewhere. Nine times out of ten when you look at the quote it has added some sort of varying scale of voluntary excess, as I always take no voluntary excess when getting a quote for my car or bike, I take it off and the price may just rise by a few pounds.

 Yesterday I got a quote from BeMoto for £465 for a single bike which was bad enough, and with a total excess of £500, made up of £300 compulsory and £200 voluntary, when informed I did not want the voluntary, the young lady sounded a bit shocked and said she would have to go and speak to someone, she then came back and asked me to confirm I did not want voluntary excess, I confirmed and she then said ok, 'without voluntary the price is now £465!', the exact same as with the £200 voluntary, I asked her why it was the same and she couldn't explain it, granted it is not the young lady's fault but it's totally ridiculous.

If I had been inexperienced, or not savvy enough to not want voluntary excess, should I have had an accident I would have ended up £200 out of pocket for taking the £200 voluntary excess for absolutely no benefit to me in reduction of premium at all.

 By all means if you have a low excess of say £50 or £100 and you think bringing it up to maybe £250 is fine and you're getting a good bit off your premium, do it, but check how much you are going to pay extra by not taking voluntary excess, possibly just a couple of quid, or in my case, absolutely zero.

I too was with Peter James, but for some reason the premiums hiked up, I spoke to RH insurance and they will cover both classic and modern, like a lot of classic policies there is no NCB but the premiums tend to be more realistic.
Not only that you get to talk to a human type person and the is no charge for amendments, which some companies charge up to £50 just to type in something different, another money making con, excess is £50, and you can retain salvage should you have the unfortunate luck to have an accident.

https://www.rhspecialistinsurance.co.uk/

Everyone I've seen has a flat and a spring washer at the front bolt, plain washer on first, then flat. The flat washer is the same diameter as the step on the bolt, the spring the same as the bolts thread which is normally 8mm.

As for the brake plate end, large, thick rubber washer same diameter as the step, then the torque arm goes on and that should cover the rest of the step if the rubber washer is thick enough, the idea being that the nut and plain washer on the thread should crush the rubber washer slightly so that acts like a spring washer keeping tension on the nut and also acts as an isolator for vibrations.

I was going to make some of those rubber washers but as most of them are already crushed I'd need the thickness of a new one so I could source the correct thickness rubber sheet to make them with Anyone has dimensions of a new one, OD, ID and thickness I'd be obliged.

Thank you Oddjob, much appreciated, could you please clarify something for me, the piece highlighted in your reply ?, should it read 'flat washer first, then spring?', or am I getting mixed up with plain and flat?

Also how tight should it be?, especially the brake plate end as I would imagine that 'too tight' would negate the effect of isolation and tension given by a rubber washer.

Thanks again.

Yes, possibly, but on the end bolt with the protrusions pointing down as previously suggested, there is no way to adjust the angle due to the protrusions touching the breather box.
It is indeed a strange one.

I am just going to leave my own as it is as I prefer the run of the cable.

It's meant to sit the other way up with the flanges of the ring facing down, this then stops the ring rotating and keeps it in the correct orientation. In which case the end bolt is probably the only one it would fit.

Honda wouldn't have put the flanges on the ring unless they had a use.

That does make sense and is probably correct.

I will leave mine as it is just now as I am content with it and would need to disconnect the cable to take the guide off and turn it the other way round. Once I take the cable off I will try it in the location suggested by Oddjob.

Here is a picture of mine, as Oddjob states it is fitted to breather cover, however mine is fitted to the bolt at the back of the cover, it seems to run smoothly enough and without fouling the tank, and with the raised edges on the bracket where it bolts to the cover it can only go the one way up, although, I suppose if it was to be fitted onto the end bolt as Oddjobb says it could go either way as the raised edges would clear the cover at the bolt.

Just checked for clearance, it is a clear 3/4" from the breather box top and, although it doesn't look like from the angle of the pic, a good 1 3/4" to 2" clearance from the rocker cover.

And to continue the story, customer comes back complaining of No4 pipe being way out of line, asks to see the fitter but of course "Elvis has left the building". 

Typical TV program, make it out to be really hard to do when in fact it's childs play if you know you're stuff and especially if you have the contacts.

So very true, having contacts and knowing knowledgeable people can make life at lot easier  when the bike you have lusted  after for ages is not all what you were told it was.