when is straight not straight?

I saw a post on here about a bent frame and made the mistake of looking at my Kinlon kbr 200! By eye it is two inches out and back wheel placement skewed in the assembly to correct that ... well it does feel a bit weird in the back end but the path of wheels through mud shows a straightish line. As I have had a few bolts fall off (the old joke about chinese bikes but unfortunately true) I will disassemble the bike in a couple of months which will be winter here and 'get to know it better'.
What is the best way to measure a frame to check for straightness? I can have the wheels out when I do it. Is it a simple case of diagonal measuring?
And does anyone know of a standard for strength of automotive nuts and bolts in Australia or is it just a case of materials used? The local hardware store looked at me blankly when I asked about tensile strength of the products they have available.

Just a grumble, I have found four bolts missing so far, luckily none are immediately dangerous. I thought the joke about them was just that, a joke, but it isn't. These chinese manufacturers HAVE to improve on such things and on back up/response to queries. Maybe a central call center for all china bikes funded by a consortium of them to start with, a couple of chinese/english speaking engineering graduates with proper manuals and parts lists and a computer setup for ordering parts would be all they need! Japanese bikes now own the world market because they backed up, Hyundai cars did that too and within a couple of years were winning 'car of year' awards. I wish Kinlon would do the same ...

I'm not a professional frame dude but I'd guess some simple measurements would show any gross discrepencies. Maybe someone else can offer more details.

Regarding nuts-n-bolts, Forchetto and ChinaV had a decent discussion on bolts/screws a while back. Hopefully it will shed some light.

http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/sh...gqi-QM200GY-BA

I'm sure there are professional bolt/screw/nut/fastener distributors in Oz that can get you what you need. If I'm looking for that stuff here, I usually go straight to McMasterCarr...

http://www.mcmaster.com/#

CC

For all manner of nuts, bolts and screws try Tasty Nuts. They deal worldwide. For their Oz website click here.

Someone posted info on the strength on bolts in the now defunct 'The Chinese Bike Forum' - I think possibly forchetto - click here.

The strength of a bolt and its grade is marked on the head, but the codes vary for the standard used e.g SAE, BSI etc. It's a Google job for a specific mark.

A nice explanation is in the first chapter of the Honda Common Service Manual. For free download pdf click here.

Keep ya nuts tight...but not too tight! :lol8:

Thanks David and CC - I am accumulating a gigabyte of saved pdf, threads, websites on this machine and I have only done less than 500 km!
Some very good articles/threads hidden in this forum with good generalised information for beginners like me.
I am a bit too old for getting 'enthusiastic' about bikes all over again but it would do me and it good to get it into bits and back together again.
Not a lot of info about Kinlons yet even in the depths of Google search pages. I just wish the manufacturers/importers would reply to emails!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrr.

I was going to suggest to whoever has an ear with the manufactuers of these bikes, try using assembly grease on the nuts and bolts as stripping my bike, I have lost count of how many bolts and captive nuts have sheared due to being rusted in. Also, the bolts used do seem to be a bit soft, anyway, I am slowly replacing the nuts and bolts with A2 stainless steel, smeared in copper grease, perhaps expensive, but this thing has got to last, and be relatively trouble free for the next two years at least.

Oh, and the number of sheared bolts has given me plenty of scope to try out new methods of removing the stuck portions, my latest and most successful, is to centre drill the broken bolt, then bang a torx bit into the drilled hole, apply penetrating oil, or mini blowtorch, depending on where the problem is, then get a spanner on the hex shank of the torx bit and turn, it has worked so far. An idea gained from the Snap on extractor set I used to have, it used sort of torx rods and slide on torx nuts that one could turn with a spanner, the best extractor set I ever had, pity the ex sold it along with £4k of my snap on tools.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sprocket

An idea gained from the Snap on extractor set I used to have, it used sort of torx rods and slide on torx nuts that one could turn with a spanner, the best extractor set I ever had, pity the ex sold it along with £4k of my snap on tools.

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:eekers::taz: DOH! At least you learned some good tricks while you had them though! :icon10:

Also, why copper grease and not white lithium?

CC