Saturday August 30th 2025
Workshop Session on Saturday August 30th 2025
It was a quiet session so the roundup is relatively brief.
Yamaha YP125 Majesty...
The Yamaha YP125 Majesty (AKA Yer Majesty) was the centre of attention. Dave, Peter, Don and Jason set about what should have been a simple job of refilling the coolant in the cooling system ready to give the engine a run. However as soon as coolant was added to the radiator it appeared on the floor underneath the bike. So, as is so typical of our projects a quick and simple job turned into something more time consuming. The radiator had to be removed in order to check why it wasn’t holding water. As the four bolts that secure it were undone one of them promptly decided to shear off. A temptingly long length of bolt was left projecting out of the aluminium crankcase. However its tapered sides meant that nothing would grip it. Taking a chisel and using it to try and punch the bolt round failed to turn it, so it was decided that drilling the bolt out was the only option. Graham set to with the smallest of drills fitted in the rechargeable drill. They barely made a mark on the end of the bolt. Then Don suggested trying with a larger drill. Graham tried a 5mm drill and with continuous pressure it eventually began to bite and start drilling through the bolt. As is often the case the drill bit drifted to one side preferring to drill the soft aluminium in favour of the hard steel bolt. Despite this the resulting hole was close enough to the original bolt hole to be utilised. A 6mm tap was used to cut a thread in the new hole. Luckily the piece of bolt didn’t drop out and a nice thread could be cut.
Now to the reason the water was pouring straight onto the floor - The radiator drain bolt was missing from the radiator. After the usual hunt around the workshop a bolt of suitable diameter was located and installed complete with an O-ring to seal it up. The bolt was of a slightly different pitch to the original but cut its way nicely into the plastic lower radiator tank. After a little deliberation the battery was installed in the tail end of the bike with some cable ties to keep it in place because the battery box had been removed along with the rest of the bike’s body work. Fresh fuel and a couple of presses and it started up and ran quietly largely thanks to the work Wade did a few months previously obtaining and fitting a new generator stator complete with the ignition trigger coil.
The team’s next challenge was to start refitting the bike’s body work. The team took this on with great gusto despite the lack of info on how it all went back together. Another session of head scratching and Yer majesty would be back in one piece nearly ready for the road.
Honda CBR1000FX…
In One small step for Honda kind, Jon set about re-installing the airbox air intake hose. Whoever had fitted it previously had given up trying to push it into its aperture, then glued it on with something akin to black mastic. We were having none of that, even if it did mean removing the air filter to fit it. With the filter in place there wasn’t enough room to push the rubber into place between the aperture and the air filter mounting which poked through the aperture. Removing the filter overcame this. Soon it would be time to clean up and reassemble the bike’s bodywork.
Mash 400 -Dirtstar…
In between helping others out, Graham continued the challenge of grinding the edge of the exhaust valve rocker so that the decompressor would no longer function. Several members of the Mash UK Facebook group suggested grinding the lug off to overcome the starting difficulties we were having. By the end of the session there was about an eighth of an inch to go!!!