All coming together.... almost

Its time to start assembling things.  All the parts are painted after-all so presumably its now just a case of bolting it all together right?  Well, almost.
Over the past few months I've been scouring the web for all the bits that were missing from my bike, and  I've been excited (and lucky?) to discover them from all sorts of places and sellers.  I have quite a large box now of 'parts'.  It all feels a bit Johnny Cash


However, now as I start to put bits together, Im discovering that things are not all as simple as I had hoped.  For instance;

From 4 different sources;

• one wheel,
• one set of forks,
• one speedo cable,
• one speedo drive

...... and guess what?  It doesn't all quite fit!

I'm not sure if its the speedo cable that is too short or if I've got the wrong style of speedo drive?





And then at the other end;




I've had not one, but two good-as-new spare rear brake cables in my parts box for months now, and a replacement rear wheel ready to go, but its only been this weekend when I've tried to marry them together..... and guess what?  it doesn't quite fit!

I have the old cable from my bike as a pattern so I can confirm that the lengths of my new cables are correct, and so are the ends, and I even thought the adjuster end was the same until, i went to screw it into the brake back plate.  It would appear that the thread on my new adjusters are finer than the thread on my original adjuster and the back plate - unfortunately the cables have soldered/crimped ends so I cant simply disassemble and swap the adjusters





So what have I learnt?  well, nothing really.  I've known for ages now that DKW and Manurhin clearly didn't have a master collaboration plan!  They were either extremely relaxed in their standards offices, or fabulously creative on the shop floor.  Either way, we can never assume that any part is compatible with another.