31/01/2011
I collected my new bike on Friday:
It was a very cold ride back from Kenilworth, arriving home at 18:00 in -1 Degrees of cold. I'd gone prepared and taken my velcro heated grips connected to 2m of cable with ring crimps on the end. Before I rode it home I connected the cable to the bike battery and taped it along the fuel tank to the bars, then fitted the grips. As it was my hands were in great pain by the time I got back, if it hadn't been for the heated grips I don't know how I'd have made it.
Sunday morning I decided to show it a trail, so went to Matlock Bath via the steep green lane descent from Darley Moor. It performed very well and I am very happy with it. It wasn't as capable as the DR200 was, but then the DR200 wouldn't sit at 80MPH on the motorway.
Next up is to fit fork gaitors, scott oiler and strip and grease the rear suspension linkage and headstock bearings.
24/01/2011
Long time no update. It's all change in the garage of Bob. Fazer gone, DR650 gone, DR200 gone, Monkey gone - all that's left is the old GS750 with sidecar. I'm in the happy position now of having a wad of cash and needing a bike, the choices are endless. It'll probably end up being a 600 / 650 enduro type thing, this is the sort of bike that suits me best, kind of a 2 wheel Land Rover, a bike that'll do everything. That DR650 would have been ideal except that I didn't like the noises coming from the engine and it was just too damn big!
I finally got my hardened swing arm bushes for the GS750 back, nearly 10 months later - £40 for the pair, I'm happy enough with that.
The GS750 developed a misfire on a ride out last night. Turns out that one of the condensors had gone. A quick call to Manhattan's in Sheffield turned one up, on the shelf. This really is a fantastic bike shop, try phoning one of the big multi-franchise dealers and see if they have a condensor for a 37 year old bike on the shelf!
The DR200 was superb in the snow with the knobblies, but terrible on the road. Top speed was down to 55MPH and it wandered around all over the place. So whatever I get next has got to be able to "do snow". I found these Snow Chains and in light of my experience with the bungee cords I can see it working. So I've ordered 10 cam lock straps and 2m of high tensile chain from the The Ratchet Shop I'll post details of the build when the bits arrive.
Off topic, I've taken up HFT shooting with one of these:
The craftmanship is superb, it's built in Czechoslovakia and they have a long tradition of high quality engineering (especially when it comes to shooters). It's small and light enough to carry on a motorbike and accurate enough to win. Sorted.
12/12/2010
The DR200 was unbelievably good in the snow. The bungee cord option was obviously not a long term solution so I took the bike down to Manhattan Motorcycles and fitted a set of knobbly tyres
These are knobbly like a b*stard, amazingly they are road legal and the performance in the snow is stunning. I'm plowing through 2ft snow and hitting snow drifts laughing like an idiot!
I had a topbox left over from the CG125 I briefly owned so I swatted that on to add a little practicality to the plot
It's the quick removal type so can be whipped off for off road rides.
I've been looking whistfully at Monkey Bikes again, this one turned up on Preloved.co.uk
It's a Skyteam 110 with a "monster" 120 high comp engine fitted. It's very tidy but it had a few issues. The exhaust, whilst very neat was blasting over the top of the right shock and blowing from the front of the silencer. I made up this aluminium plate to shield the shock
This should do the job, also a little fireputty sealed the silencer to the down pipe.
The main problem was the lack of headlights, because the engine is not the original there was some confusion about the wiring loom. It turns out that the engine has a 2-phase alternator (like the original) and a seperate CDI exciter coill and hall effect pick up. Testing with the DVM showed a healthy output from the alternator when tested across the 2 phases but that one of the phases produced no output with respect to earth (the bike frame). Continuity checks showed that there was no connection between the alternator and earth so we must have a ground referenced alternator i.e. one of the phases is coupled to earth via inductance. The solution was to simply swap the phases over, now the earth referenced phase goes through the rectifier to earth and the other powers the lights (direct ac) and the battery.
After being parked out under 2ft of snow the car wouldn't start (battery flat), this made me think that I hadn't run the outfit since I got back from Wales in September. Sure enough it wouldn't start, it ran the battery flat cranking over. Much use of the boost pack saw it running like a turd on 3 cylinders. Oh well, I whipped the carbs off and stripped and cleaned them, I charged the battery, drained the tank and added 20 litres of fresh petrol. Result! It ran like a good 'un again. I took it out for a blast, up and down the dual carriageway at 75 to 80\MPH gave it a good blow through. On returning to town it started spluttering, then cut out. Arse! I hadn't taken any tools with me, luckily it was easy to diagnose the fault because there were no electrics at all. Sure enough the fuse holder had fallen apart. I used my trusty Leatherman to strip back the wires and twisted them together, that got me home.
Under the side panel I set to soldering a new fuse holder in place. Sorted.
01/12/2010
It's snowed then! I pressed the little DR200 into service. A test ride on Tuesday night showed a dissapointing lack of grip from the rear tyre. I stretched a dozen bungee cords round the front and back tyres and tried again - sorted!
Wednesday morning came with even more snow. Not to be deterred I set off for work, here's the front of the office
It was clear this was going to be a non-starter so I locked the place back up and set off home. As I was leaving a colleague turned up in his car. The snow was about 18" deep and it flooded the engine bay and stalled his car. He had to abandon it and walk home.
Out on the roads the only things moving were me and a few Land Rovers, the modern "pretend" 4x4's were doing better than the cars but even they couldn't climb the hills I could.
20/11/2010
It's me 40th birthday next month. I've been struggling to think of something to do that's suitably out of the ordinary. Then I saw an advert for this Wheelie School in MCN - sorted! They use Fazer 600's too - I've got one of those :o)
They have a session on the 4th of December - I'll be there.
17/11/2010
The replacement shock arrived for the Fazer so I went about fitting it. It's necessary to remove the entire suspension linkage mechanism to get it out, but it's a good excuse to grease all the bearings, so that's what I did. Here's the old shock in the box the new one arrived in, just before I threw it in the wheelie bin.
Whilst I was crawling about at the back of the bike I got a shock. I'd been having bit of fun on it recently but I was surprised to find the back tyre looking like this
I can only put this down to the back shock being knackered. This tyre was fine when I set off to Kegworth and the round trip was only 120 miles or so.
The garage is getting a bit full with the arrival of the DR650
15/11/2010
I don't know about you but I find back shock absorbers to be boring and / or an annoyance. It's easy to think that they're not that important, they just sit there gathering crud and then costing you three hundred quid when the bike fails its MOT. Well, I've had an education this week . I'd felt the Fazer's handling going off and a harsh knock had begun to intrude when hitting the bigger bumps. On my ride to Kegworth and Macclesfield the other day I even pulled into a garage to check the tyres weren't flat. On one run the bike set up a weave at high speed (very high speed but I'll leave you to guess). Yesterday I found a puddle of oil under the bike, it turns out the shock has gone. That explains the problem. I wouldn't have believed how nasty the bike turned due to the loss of a couple of hundred cc's of damping oil. Luckily I snapped up one on Ebay for £30 so when that comes it'll be sorted.
14/11/2010
The DR200 cam was finally ready for collection and I've been fancying a change so I combined a run down to Kegworth (for the cam) with a ride over to Macclesfield to test ride a BMW F650GS. It was over 100 miles round trip and I enjoyed every second! Here's the DR cam refaced and ground
Loverly jubberly. It took under and hour to fit the cam and take the bike out for a ride - it sounds a lot quieter now. It took under 40 minutes to re-visit the cam and clamp the tab washer down onto the bolts that hold the sprocket to the camshaft - yes I'd forgotten to do it...
Stuart returned the X7 tank having brazed the hole. I fitted the tap and put a spot of fuel in - it leaked! Not to be deterred I did a spot o research and came up with the idea of silver soldering. All you need is a propane torch and some flux. The problem was how to apply a blow torch to a fuel tank without suffering 3rd degree burns and shrapnel wounds. I concluded that the best way to proceed was to evaporate any remaining fuel and then flush with air. I have a single boiler ring which I use for heating castings to sweat in bearings. Here's the tank on the boiler ring.
There was a white mist coming out of the filler cap, that was petrol vapour - exceedingly dangerous. Next I flushed the tank through using the air line. Shining an LED torch in there showed that the inside was bone dry and the air was clear. Not wanting to take risks I strapped the blow lamp to a long piece of metal.
Then with my (full face) welding mask on I lowered the torch into the filler neck of the tank
This proved the tank was safe to work on. I mixed up my flux and went for it. Silver soldering is really satisfying and when you see the solder flowing over and into the cherry red hot steel it's quite an experience. Here's my first soldering attempt.
You can see that the silver solder is a lighter colour than the surrounding brass. The result of this was that the tank sprung a leak in another place. Three more heat, flush and solder cycles resulted in leaks popping up all over the place. I gave up, the tank is obviously knackered. I resisted the temptation to smash it up with my sledge hammer (which is unusual for me), so maybe in the future I can cut the rotten section out and replace it with new steel. For now I've settled for buying a replacement tank on ebay. We'll see what happens....
07/11/2010
Here's my Fazer 600 and Quecha quick erect tent (both superb bits of kit) at the rally. The Fazer is wearing the Delkevic stubby end can I fitted last week.
Back from the rally, Fazer spare engine No.2 and X7 spare engine No.1 had arrived on the Friday and I was struggling for space. Down to Machine Mart for a set of heavy duty shelves.
Here's GS750 spare engine No.3 on the chain hoist.
Here's the engine on the top shelf. You can see GS750 spare engine No.1, No.2 and No.3 and Fazer 600 spare engine No.1 and No.2
Here's the end result. That's 3 GS750 engines, 2 Fazer 600 engines and an X7 engine. This was no mean feat, the GS750 engines are unbelievably heavy.
While I was at Machine Mart I finally got round to buying a fire extinguisher. It's a foam type and so can be used on all types of fires.
03/11/2010
I've been looking on Evil Bay for a tank for the X7, there's obviously an issue with these. This on had dents but was supposed to be solid, it went for £127 - which to me is a lot of money for a dented tank for an old 250
This one has no bids - I think that the part of the description that says "in need of repair" is something of an understatement!
Seriously, what the hell can you do with that!
Anyway problem solved, fellow club member, experienced fabricator, engineer, welder and all round good egg Stuart has taken the tank away and he's going to braze it back into working order. It helps that he already owns the gas torch and bottles required for the job too.
31/10/2010
I've just booked ferry tickets for next July to go back to France. There should be five of us going if it all pans out as expected - wohoo!
Had a bit of a set-back on the X7, the fuel tank leaks.
There's quite a bit of bronze braizing underneath, which is to be expected since it's had the rear section turned into an oil tank. After draining it the leak was revealed to come from here
Well, it's an opportunity to learn a new skill. The most difficult bit is figuring out how to bring a blowtorch to bear without suffering 3rd dergree burns and shrapnel wounds....
Also I've been looking at the oil filler cap. It has no breather, which means a vacuum will form as oil is drawn from the tank, which means oil will not come from the tank, which means BANG! Another job for the old Southbend Heavy 10 lathe.
Another brief run out has convinced me that the X7 is the way to go so I bought a complete running engine on the Bay...
30/10/2010 - Later the same day
The X7 is nearly done. I've finished the electrics, made a lock to hold the seat shut (it didn't have one) and finished off tidying up the handlebar clamps which were ugly as f**k.
Viewed from this angle I think it makes sense.
Also I carried on preparing the Fazer for the winter campaign. I put heated grips on the other day and today it was time to fit fork gaiters. I don't like replacing fork seals and if the bike has gaiters there's never a need to do so. The bare fork thing happened in the 70's when it was considered cool to look like the track bikes. Anyway I think it's bollox, the idea of having a bearing surface (the stanchion) exposed to road salt. grit and rain is insane. I've said it before and I'll say it again - fork gaiters should be a legal requirement. Here's the right leg ready to refit.
The gaiter fitted to the leg. I smear the unswept area under the gaiter with lithium grease
Here's the finished job, it was also a good oportunity to grease the wheel spindle and apply coppaslip to all the fixing bolts involved.
30/10/2010
X7 Ahahahaaaaaaahahaaaaaa!!!! I've just taken it out up and down the big hill. It lifts the front wheel in 1st, 2nd and 3rd :o)
I was going to put it on the road as is to decide if I want to keep it, then maybe send the engine to Stan Stephens - I know the pistons are flapping about in the bores but it rides OK.
Anyway as a result of that 5 minute test ride, I'm definately keeping it!!!
29/10/2010
X7 again, tonight I replaced the left hand fork seal and fitted gaiters to both fork legs. I stripped and regreased the headstock bearings, made a bracket to mount the ignition switch under the tank, sorted the wiring loom, connected the battery. With all that done I bled the oil pump, fired it up and rode it up and down the street. Once I figured out that the gearchange pattern is reversed due to the rearset linkage set-up it was obvious that the bike is little gem ! What and experience; The noise, the smell, the discomfort etc.. marvelous!
I'm not sure that the tail unit suits it, but for now that's what it's got....
28/10/2010
More work on the X7, I finished fettling the rearsets and bunged the exhausts back on.
Next was the kickstart. It was flopping about (you can see in the photo above) and actually fell off the shaft when you tried to use it as there was no retaining clip. I took a cone cutter and file to a mudguard washer and then cut a retaining clip from some 1mm alloy plate
When fitted this held the kickstart on perfectly
So the remaining problem was that it flapped about. There were no detent balls fitted, here are two bicycle headstock ball bearings and a spring I found kicking around in my box of lathe turning stock
I put these in the drillway in the kickstart boss and rammed the kickstart lever on, it took several attempts and lots of swearing but I got it on in the end.
Then I fitted my washer and retaining plate and bent up the ends to stop it coming off.
Job done, I'll change the leaking fork seal and fit gaiters next. There was only one fuel tank mounting rubber, so until a new one arrives I can't fit the fuel tank and run it up, hopefully that'll be at the weekend.
27/10/2010
I've made progress on the X7 project. It has no sidestand because the spannies preclude it's use. The centre stand was worn so that both tyres were on the ground at the same time. It turns out that the bushes were badly worn allowing it to slop around. Time to break out the lathe..
I only had a stainless bar in the right size so that was bunged in. I don't enjoy turning stainless, it work hardens so you have to cut it slowly and hard. I was spinning it at 50 RPM using the back gear and taking 1mm off at a pass, as you can see it generated some heat. Next I bored down the centre to 10mm and then snipped the two bushes off with the parting tool. Here you can see the two new bushes at the top and the two worn out old ones at the bottom.
Here are the new bushes with the nice new bright coated tensile allen bolts that I used
Once installed the bike sits with 1/2" of clearance below the rear wheel - sorted. Next I stripped and greased both rearset mechanisms. Next up - refit the rearsets and exhausts and change the horrible huge left hand switch gear for one of those little custom jobbies that just has Hi/Dip and horn.
26/10/2010
Well I've had a nightmare with my web authoring software. I use Kompozer which is generally OK but it struggles to open web pages that have a lot of embedded images. This meant that I couldn't load in the "Bob's Blog" page and therefore I couldn't edit it! Filezilla came to the rescue; it's a proper FTP client so I could download the Bob's Blog file and images to my laptop and then Kompozer was happy to load it in locally and publish from there. Anyway, sorry it's boring as hell but that's why I haven't updated recently.
So, to bikes! The DR200 turns out not to be quite the bargain I thought. It was a little noisy on the top end. I lifted the cam cap and found this:
Yes, they're all knackered. The difference between this and the NX650 is that the NX650's problems were caused by oil starvation and the DR200's by some idiot not adjusting the tappets. Really, it's got 2 valves, it takes less than 10 minutes to set the tappets - my 2 1/2 year old daughter could do it, so if you are the previous owner of this bike I dub thee an utter prat for not doing them!
I've taken the cam and followers down to SEP who are going to do their thing and return them better than new....
I'm loving the FZS600 Fazer, I've just bought it a couple of early Christmas presents; A "Delkevic" titanium stubby silencer which sounds great and has really opened up the top end performance and an HID gas discharge headlight kit. The weakest point on the MKI Fazer is the headlights which are pathetic, I was struggling to hold 60MPH down roads I knew well. With the HID installed ton up night time riding is the order of business :o)
At Newark on Sunday I bought an X7 cafe racer. It needs quite a bit of work but it runs and should be a laugh. I'll post photos when there's something to see.