Saturday September 27th 2025

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Saturday September 27th 2025


Honda CBR1000F…


Graham and Don pondered and tinkered and pondered over how to get the bike’s four carburetors in their new inlet rubbers.  Every time the right hand carburetor slipped into its inlet rubber the left hand one popped out.  The trick to overcome this was to completely loosen the clamps on all four carburetors and in particular those on the middle two cylinders.  Then push the clamps on the middle two cylinders towards the engine (i.e. away from the carbs.) This allowed the inlet rubber to expand without any restriction.  Another problem on this particular bike was that there was a metal bracket on the frame that was getting in the way of the idle adjuster screw which projected out of the left hand side of the carburetors.  Once the bracket was bent slightly to get it out of the way the carburetors could be properly lined up and finally slipped easily into their respective inlet rubbers.  Then all the clamps were tightened up.  It had only taken a little more than an hour to get to this stage.  It was shortly after this that Graham realised that the fuel pipe to connect up the fuel supply, couldn’t be seen poking out of the carburetors.  Checking more closely the pipe it should be attached to could be seen inboard of the left carburetor, completely inaccessible with the carburetors fitted in place.   At this point Graham muttered a couple of choice words under his breath.  As Don was now busy with a piece of garden machinery Graham enlisted Guy’s help to get the carburetors back out of the inlet rubbers which gave enough room to push the thick walled fuel pipe onto the connector.  To get the thick pipe onto the connector it was first heated with a hot air blower to soften it.  It then went on easily enough.  An inline fuel filter (A rather large posh one that looked as though it ought to be on a car) had been installed.  So there was then some debate as to where to put it, nearer the carbs or nearer the tap.  This was because space was limited.  Honda had curiously put the fuel tap rearward of the carbs with a rear facing fuel outlet. The net result of this was that the pipe would have to bend 180 degrees to fit on the fuel outlet on the tap, which is never going to be a good thing.  Why do it like that Mr Honda?  Also why put the vacuum gauge take offs on the bottom of the manifolds where they are totally inaccessible, making carb balancing nigh on impossible.  The team now including Guy and Keiran amongst others then reinstalled the battery box and fitted a battery.  However when a fuel supply was restored large amounts of it poured from the bottom of the carbs.  Hands were thrown up in despair until it was suggested that someone checks that the fuel drain screws fitted to each carburetor float bowl were checked to see if they were tight.  The drain screw on number 4 carburetor was found to be loose allowing the fuel out. Once the screw had been tightened it seemed that the fuel leak stopped. A few presses of the starter and the bike started up and ran.  It was a little reluctant to take more than small throttle openings. This may have been due to it not being fully warmed up and/or to the fact that the air filter was not fully fitted in place.  Another problem that had to be overcome before it could be started was the fact that the chokes couldn’t be pulled to the on position by their handlebar lever. Nor did they back into place when the lever was returned to its off position.  This was put down to the pressed steel plate that links them all together having been bent whilst hours were spent trying to get the carbs fitted into place. A little bit of judicious bending and some lubricant, soon had it working reasonably well again.



Honda CBR1000F now including - Carburetors!!






Yamaha Majesty (Yer Majesty)...


Peter, Gareth and Jo all worked to repair damage to some of its plastic body work.  Gareth told us about a technique where Baking Soda is combined with Superglue to make a quick setting but rock hard bond between the pieces of plastic. Once the glue had set, our brand new plastic welding kit was used to add some staples along the join to reinforce it. Then a small piece was cleverly filled and the whole thing rubbed down ready for Andy our bodywork person to give it expert refinishing. 





Yer Majesty looks almost ready to grace the highways once more.


Two pieces of the bodywork firmly joined back together and ready for refinishing.









In other news…


Heinz had been suffering from very poor MPG on his rather unusual Moto Guzzi Quota 1100.  Graham cranked up his Guzzidiag software and attached his diagnostic lead.  Software is never quite straightforward but after a good long head scratch, Graham  realised that he needed a second piece of software for the lead to work. It was something called a driver. Anyway once the driver was installed a new com port showed up on the programme and the readings started to flow thick and fast. Hopefully in conjunction with one another they could lead Heinz to find the source of his problem. 


Mal did some more work to get his Honda 650 Vigor ready for the road. New tyres, new rear disc, new speedo cable, new battery and a new throttle cable seem, for the time being, to be the last pieces of the puzzle.


So this is what a Honda 650 Vigor looks like.



Seimon Pugh-Jones kindly came along and with the agreement of those present took still photographs of the day’s proceedings to form part of the promotional video that he and Ian Gravel were preparing.





The Bandit had now become a thing of beauty and just a small tear in its seat cover needed to be fixed.  Hopefully Keiran could come up trumps to make the seat as good as new.


Suzuki GSF1200 Bandit now a thing of beauty.




Speaking of Keiran, his mode of transport to and from the session that week is worth a mention.  It was a little bog standard MZ125 but over time someone had taken a great deal of time (But not a lot of care) turning it into a kind of trail bike.  The spare spark plug on top of the steering head was a novel feature to say the least, as was the upturned exhaust pipe.  The latter modification clearly had something to do with coping with the inclement Welsh weather. For Graham it was reminiscent of the upturned and extended exhaust tail pipe, fitted to the TS250 Suzuki ridden by Micheal Crawford in an Episode of Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em. In the episode in question Michael (AKA Frank Spencer) rode the bike into, and if memory serves me correctly, out of the River Thames. The thought of Frank Spencer riding any sort of motorcycle fills me with dread.


Heavily modified MZ125 - affordable ride anywhere transport.



On the right side we see the exhaust clearly adpated for amphibious use?