Old pages 12/02 to 05/03

Old pages 07/03 to 11/04

For the first time in ages my Zephyr is off the road, the constant salt and rain has got to the brakes and they were starting to drag, so time for a bit of work!! The big problem with binding brakes is, if you don't catch them soon enough, is that the excess heat caused by the pads being constantly in contact with the disks will cause the disks to warp (expensive). So I have pulled the callipers off and stripped them, the plan is to give them a coat of paint as well, as they are looking very shabby. A tip to remember if you are doing the same job is to pump the pistons out of the callipers as much as possible, using the master cylinder. Before you remove the callipers from the hoses, this makes the pistons much easier to get out, (but I forgot!! so with some help from a couple of mechanics I know!! and some Oxy acetylene, an air line and some cursing and swearing...), the callipers are now apart awaiting attention from me.

Where does the time go?? I have just spent the last couple of days updating the web site and noticed that the last time that I wrote something for these pages was in February!!! I swear I meant to do something before now but..... well you know how it is!!!

Anyway, just to update you on things motorcycle related in my life. The Zephyr has been back on the road with brakes re-built and sprayed for about 6 months now. The old standard exhaust finally fell apart. The £800+ cost of a OE system, and the total lack of a road legal aftermarket system meant that I had to be a bit inventive with a replacement. So, I got an 'e' marked Round Stainless Steel Scorpion silencer and link pipe for a 1999 Yamaha Fazer 600 (£169.99) and had a 4-2-1 header made in stainless by a local business HIB Exhausts (Contact Sean Hibbert on 01248-722033) for a very reasonable £275. Sean mostly makes car exhausts so I didn't know quite what to expect, but considering I gave him the bike silencer and link pipe and no real instructions. But, he has done an excellent job and I for one would happily call on him again if I need another one off exhaust making. The other thing I was shocked about is that the bike runs crisply throughout the rev range with no coughs, flat spots or stutters, and without any adjustments to the carburation at all. It also sounds gorgeous, not to loud but with a nice deep rasp when you open it up. I am planning to paint the wheels this winter, but the thought that instantly crosses my mind is the standard wheel sizes (18" on the front) make the choice of rubber open to me very limited. So it might be worth looking at a pair of wheels from some thing else (a set of ZX6-R wheels maybe???)

My son used his GS500 through the early part of the summer, but sold it to fund an old VFR400 NC30 before I had a chance to try out any other modifications on it. But plans are afoot to re-furbish this during the winter so if we do any thing interesting to it I will try and let you know what!!

Just like buses nothing for ages and then two postings at once!!!

The really worrying thing about the completely knackered    brake pad on the left is that the owner of the scooter that these pads came from had absolutely no idea that they were worn out!!!! He just totally ignored the funny grinding noise and the loss of an effective front brake.

But what is perhaps more scary is that these pads are by no means the worst I have seen!!! That honor is held by a moped (a Honda MB5 for those that can remember that far back) whose owner only recognised that he had a problem with the front brake when the brake piston finally wore down so much that it popped out of the calliper and lost all the hydraulic fluid over the brake disk and front tyre.

Seriously guys if you are in the least bit concerned about things like your brakes just pop in and ask one of us to take a quick look for you. It could save your life....... 

What is the difference between cheap and good value?

The reason I ask, is that at this time of year we normally sell a lot of kids bikes and quads, but this year our pre Xmas sales were hit fairly hard by a number of small shops springing up selling "cheap" mini-bikes and quads imported from China and the Far East. Most of these are not approved to any form of safety standard and have absolutely nothing by way of spares backup from the importers.  The internet sellers and most of the small shops disappear just after Xmas with your money in their pockets and don't care that the present you bought for your kids breaks down half way through January!! This year we were getting people coming in to the shop by the 4th of January with tales of woe asking if we could help them out!! It is not that we wouldn't but merely that without a supply of spare parts we can't. You have to ask yourself how cheap these machine really are???

By contrast, we sell a range of similar looking, but more expensive, quads and mini-bikes from Taiwan. The main difference is that we value our customers and we aim to be here to support them not just make a quick killing and run away. So before we start to stock and sell any product we A) Check that they are approved to all current safety legislation B) Check that we can obtain a full range of spare parts C) Employ trained mechanics to fix them. Yes the machines we sell are more expensive in the first place (but you don't pay much more for the extra quality) but they last much longer, and if they break you can get them fixed again. Surely this is much better value for your hard earned £££'s

Well after last months bitter rant, I thought I should write some thing a bit more on the normal lines of these pages. We recently had a used bike part exchanged with us and all seemed normal until we came to replace the number plate with one with our logo on the bottom of it. This revealed the smallest number plate I have ever seen beneath it. For your amusement have a look at the photo with a couple of 50p pieces given for scale.

Well I don't know what came over me but I have just bought another bike purely on impulse, a 1998 Triumph Daytona 1200 and I am not sure why!! It isn't as though I had given up on the Zephyr, quite the opposite I had just made some enquiries about new shocks and getting the wheels sprayed black, when along came the chance of this Daytona. If it had been any Daytona I am not sure that I would have bought it but a very good friend of mine bought the bike new in 1998 and I first rode it with just 17 miles on the clock!! Well as I am a creature of impulse....!!! I am now the owner of on large black and gold Hinkley Triumph. No major plans for it yet and I am not really sure what to do with my Kwack but with my sons NC30 currently being in bits in the garden my house is starting to look like a bike shop!!! So I guess I am open to offers around £2200 for a nice 1994 Zephyr with recently serviced brakes, engine and new back tyre with under 30k on it!!! contact me personally if you are interested.

GSR 600

Fast furious and fun are the first words that came to mind after riding the brand new Suzuki GSR600 for the first time at Rockingham speedway recently. On the short twisty circuit, I was having no trouble keeping up with the latest GSX-R 600 K6 thanks to the superb road holding and extra low down torque the retuned GSX-R 600 engine delivers, although the 750 K6s with their even greater spread of torque and extra bhp were pulling away from me slightly at the end of the short straights.

 Another advantage the GSR600 has over its sportier cousins on this tight twisty track is the sweet changing gear box that has been altered to give lower 1^st and 2nd ratios which make pulling away from traffic lights (or for that matter tight race track corners) a doddle while 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th & 6^th remain as close as the GSX-R 600. Overall, the extra torque from the engine and the sensible gearbox modifications make this a bike that is more than happy in town or out on the open roads.

 Having read some of the not too complimentary press reports of the bike recently. I have to say this was not at all what I was expecting, true the engine likes to be revved hard to get the best performance out of it, but that is what comes of its super sport heritage and the screaming exhaust note from the twin underseat pipes at high rpm is guaranteed to set the pulse racing. Yet driven gently (while the tyres were warming up) the engine is reasonably flexible and the exhaust note restrained.

 The bike was very comfortable with an excellent seating position for me at 6 2 and judging from the reaction of some of the shorter dealers present it was no less comfortable for them either.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the 25 or so laps of Rockingham on this new Suzuki 600 and I think that Suzuki have probably invented a new class of bike the "Sports Commuter".

Remember that number plate from the end of February well I have just seen the owners new machine and I have the feeling if the police catch him with this plate on he will probably have to deal with a court!!! COP this on his GSXR-1000 K6 !!!! And yes that is a 5p!!!

I've just had my new (to me) Triumph Daytona MOT'd and first time through it failed..... Nothing really significant, Headlight aim and a split seat that made Andys trousers wet!!! (not really a fail but not the best way to impress the tester either!!!) But, it got me thinking about the purpose of the MOT test and how often customers feel we are trying to use the test to generate income by failing their bike. The truth of the matter is that the MOT often provides the only close inspection by a qualified mechanic that the machine gets in a year. And judging by the number of horror stories that most testers can tell you about totally f**ked bearings, brakes, chains, sprockets etc (see some of the older pages for examples) saves countless lives a year. Just the thought of a front wheel bearing collapsing on one of today's supersport bikes at 160mph + is enough to set my pulse racing. We really don't fail your bike for the fun of it, just purely if a part is dangerous or doesn't comply with the law.

Sometimes the conversations we have on the phone here have us rolling around this is just a short one but I promise it is true word for word!!!

"Hello Bill Smiths can I help ? "

"Yes... Are my parts in ? You said they would be here on Friday!!! "

"Yes Sir.... But it is only Thursday!!!"

"Yes I know.... But are they going to be in then ?"

" Yes Sir!!! That is why I told you Friday.....!"

The phone goes down we fall around laughing ! Once is bad enough, but we have that sort of conversation so often it is a sort of standing joke around here.

Well I have just finished completely updating the website to make it look a bit more professional and I have just noticed that it was the end of July when I last posted something here. So just a quick updated is due. Sometime around October I found the remains of an old Yamaha RD250 buried in a pile of rubbish in a friends workshop, so pulling on the rose tinted specs I decided that it might be fun to see if I could build a classic two stroke track bike to have a play with in the summer. So I dug it out of the pile and started acquiring the bits to put it right

But I will try to keep you updated with the progress of this project as I go along.

The project Yamaha is now well and truly underway The engine with the original bike turned out not to be an RD250 engine but from an earlier YR5 350 which fits straight into the frame, this was quite a common conversion when the bike was 'learner legal' as from the outside the engines are very similar, but unfortunately the YR5 only has a five speed gearbox (not good for tuned two-strokes with a narrow power band) So the search was on for an RD box, which, fortunately, will fit straight into the earlier bikes crankcases. This is one of the reasons I love these bikes the modular build concept employed by Yamaha at the time means there are a huge combination of configurations that can be built from the basic model.Yamaha were not kidding when they named the model RD (Race Developed) for instance the top end from the all conquering TZ350 race bike can be fitted directly on to this engine (the crankcases are almost identical) as can the dry clutch, although good used race parts are now getting thin on the ground and therefore quite costly. As finding parts for a thirty year old bike can be difficult through most dealers I have turned to ebay for many parts and found some real bargains, £19 for two cylinder heads, £10 for 4 std piston kits....and yep you guessed it !!! another RD250, this time a 1980 F model, so I now have two!!!

Last night Simon (my eldest son) and I stripped the second RD 250 completely and I supposed considering it is 26 years old it wasn't in bad condition, the chrome work is in a rather pooly state, but I am not that interested in that, as there are no plans for this machine to ever see the road again. But, now there are so many decisions to make! Such as, which frame to use (personally I think the early 250 B frame is a slightly better frame as it is very close to the early TD3 Yamaha Race bike, but the Raask rear sets I've been keeping for years (you wouldn't believe how long I have been meaning to do this!) fit the later 250 E frame so I will probably go with this one as time is creeping by! And I want to ride it this year. The next task is to strip down the engine and decide what is re-usable and what needs to be replaced. Other things I need to consider are brakes, tyres and exhausts.

Well four months have passed since I last had time to post anything here. During which time we have stripped and re-built the engine, which was in surprisingly good condition and on standard bores, an miracle considering this is a 26 year old two stroke sports bike!!! During the re-build we fitted a pair of new pistons (cheap pattern items (e-bay £12 for four complete sets inc rings)  I have decided to build the bike to some where near its standard spec, to show Simon the sort of difference that can be made to a two stroke when you tune it. We have now started a trial assembly to sort out things like rear set linkages exhausts and wiring looms etc. P.S. Sorry about the picture but it was taken with my phone in low light!!! 

17/08/07

As always seems to be the case ages has gone by since I last wrote anything for these pages! But now I have noticed, so I need to bring you up to date with the project Yamaha. When Simon and I started out the idea was to build a fairly simple 250 two-stroke track bike, to do a couple of track days on. Inevitably, the plan has now evolved slightly!! Now we are planning to build a slightly more “ race developed bike” after all RD did stand for Race Developed”!!!

I have managed to source a brand new old stock disk type rear wheel hub and a couple of DID alloy rims (thanks Andy), these are much lighter than the original cast alloy types. This will have the dual effects of improving that, all important, power to weight ratio. (Less weight = More acceleration) ;-). And reducing the un-sprung weight of the bike, making it easer to turn and giving the, rather crude by today’s multi-adjustable standards, suspension a much easier life.

We have also started on the first ‘loose’ assembly of the bike, this will allow us to sort out all the minor problems, before stripping the bike again to do any cosmetic work (painting the frame etc)  So the forks are in ( upon examination the steering head bearings have play on the steering stem so this will have to be sorted too! )  the yokes and the front wheel is in. I am now trying to decide which disk rotor to use. I have a choice of a brand new 320mm 1000 EXUP disk or the std 1978 RD250 disk. The EXUP disk looks massive on the wheel, but despite being from a bike about 15 years newer, the mounting bolt holes are identical! But the disk is much thinner so some sort of adaptor will be needed.

There are also plans for the engine too including some expansion chambers. I might have a go at the maths and build a set for myself. But to be honest I don’t really have the tin bashing and welding experience to make a really accurate set, so I will see if I can find someone to make a set to my design.

As to carbs, in the past (for the road) I have had great results with VM 26mm Mikunis from the 250LC. The smaller choke diameter gives higher gas velocity, which makes for a much better petrol/air mixture at all speeds, apart from flat out. But, as this bike is really for the track, initially I am going to keep the std VM 28mm carbs on it and hope that I can get it to flow enough gas to benefit from the slightly larger choke size.

I have a set of brand new unused RD250B barrels, that I bought when one time Yamaha parts distributor Avils of Northampton went bust, for £5 so I am going to give the ports a bit of attention with my Dremmel, And use these.

The compression ratio needs to be worked out using a burette. The cylinder heads will need the squish band area to be machined to close up the wide tolerances that Yamaha built into the road bike to make it reliable in the hands of the teenage idiots that they expected to ride it, like me!!

In the chassis department e-bay has provided a set of used Koni shocks for £45 and I have stripped the front forks re-oiled them and added a set of spring pre-load adjusters, in the shape of 10p worth of 2p pieces in each leg. From memory, this is about what we used to use for the production racers that I was involved within 1979. Although, you could buy specially made spacers but these cost about £10 and weren’t adjustable.

Just a short update on the Yamaha 250, the front wheel is away being re-laced as I write this. Amazingly Yamaha still listed the genuine spokes for this wheel so I ordered these and they turned up two weeks later, not bad support for a 30 year old machine. This has helped keep the cost down quite a bit, saving me having to have a set of spokes custom made. Unfortunately the rear set is unobtainable, however, so this is going to have to wait until I have saved a little bit more cash. As to the dilemma over which disk to fit? I have decided to leave it for a while and decide when I have the wheels back and on the bike. But the picture shows just how big the disk is!!

OMG I have just realised that it has been nearly a year since I last posted something in these pages, my doesn't time fly!!!

Well just a quick update on my motorcycling activity 2007 - 2008 then!!

Yamaha had their normal Launch of the new models at the Rockingham circuit near Corby in Northants. All went well riding some of Yamaha's very impressive range. First impressions of Yamaha's stunning new R1 suggest that it is going to be such an easy bike to live with, as, despite, having nearly 180 BHP on tap  this is delivered smoothly throughout the flexible engine's range while the super taught chassis just changes direction as soon as you think about it. Downside to a great day was ending up in the kitty litter on a FZ1000 after one of the roving marshalls undertook me just as I was about to pitch into one of the corners leaving me no place to go but the grass!!!! Fortunately, I got off the brakes before hitting the grass and ended up upright in the gravel trap up to the axels and going nowhere!!!

My Triumph 1998 Daytona 1200SE has eaten it's starter motor sprag clutch and is currently apart, motor on my bench waiting for inspiration / money to replace it. Or if any one wants a project for the winter £800 will get the whole thing.

I had a quick flirt with Italian motorcycles and bought a very clean 1994 Ducati 750ss with an idea of using it for track days. But in the end it was so clean and tidy that I couldn't face using it on the track, and possibly chucking it up the road, so I let it go again, before I wrecked it!!

I bought a 2005 Bandit 1200 to use while the Triumph was off the road, this has performed perfectly now for 4000 miles and is reasonably comfortable for my wife Linda to ride pillion on. It has a nice sounding, but road legal Scorpion end can with a removable 'track day' baffle and a genuine Suzuki hugger. The only thing that really spoils it, is that a previous keeper has fitted a little fly screen (I guess because he  really wanted a faired bike) and this diverts a whole lot of noise producing air turbulence just under my helmet!! So when I have a second that is coming off!!

The RD 250 project has sat almost untouched since my last post in November 2007 although I have now had the front wheel laced up to the DID and I am currently saving to have the rear wheel done. Apart from that .... I promise to update these pages a bit more often.