Sunday 30 December 2012

Mark's still cleaning his bike

As usual, click any image to zoom in.





Here are some video clips I took when Mark was unaware - just to get my own back for the times he left his dictaphone in sound-activated mode to see if I snore:

  1. Popping round for a brew
  2. Burning me off out of a roundabout
  3. Riding over the toll bridge
  4. Nearly home
  5. Made it back



Friday 21 December 2012

Replacing the distributor clamp

As usual, click any image to zoom in.



These photos are actually from a while ago but I've only just found them on my pinhole camera obscura.
Mike Kilvert (the seller of Mark's bike) came up with his Dad, Rich (that's what he told us, anyway) a few days after selling it to try to sort out why Mark's bike wouldn't start when cold.
At the time we thought the clamp holding the distributor was moving so we bought a replacement and fitted it with their help.
We haven't got a fancy stand to lift the bike into the air so we just rested it on Mike's knee and the foot peg!
One neat trick was using a screwdriver to pull the kickstart spring out of the way so that they could remove the inner cover.
We had trouble getting the inner cover back on though. Turned out that the shaft between the kickstart and the gear lever was coming under a hydraulic effect so we had to use a syringe to remove oil from the hole it sits in.















Saturday 15 December 2012

Autosol



As usual, click any image to zoom in.



You've got to love the stuff.










We used it in the past to keep the exhaust pipes on our Hornets in showroom condition - including underneath so everybody could admire the shine while the footpegs were shooting sparks.


Mark bought the bike from a self-confessed non-polisher (hi, Mike!) but spent an hour this afternoon on the clutch casing and carb cover.   Looking good already.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Another speedo restoration


As usual, click any image to zoom in.


We tried hooking up Mark's "new" speedo to his bike last weekend. Although the odometer worked, the needle moved not a jot.


This was somewhat disappointing given that in carrickbay's description on ebay it was claimed that the "needle moves when you spin with Allen key".


Mark was spitting sparks so I took the speedo home and dismantled it. Turns out the description was somewhat less than accurate as the needle mechanism was seized.

I eventually managed to free it up with some WD40 and today we tried it in the bike. It read 25mph when doing 30mph so it didn't take more than 3 or 4 turns of the brass adjusting screw to get it reading correctly again.

Maybe we should go into business - there's a fortune to be made judging by how much some people are charging for what we've done here more than once!


Saturday 1 December 2012

Oil change

As usual, click any image to zoom in.



We changed the oil in Mark's C15 today.






We ran the bike until it was warmed up then drained the oil tank and cleaned both the oil filters before filling back up with 20w50 mineral oil.





To stop an oil leak we've tried replacing the metal washers on the sump plate with some fibre washers.