Oh dear, oh dear, Oh dear. Jack made an excellent job of reassembling the clutch, then came the time to re-install the cam chain. A link had been ground in order to split the chain for disassembly. Unfortunately the ends of the adjacent links had also been ground through, meaning that the chain is effectively junk. It is a duplex chain (In order words two chains side by side!) and if it were possible to obtain one it seems as though it would be extremely expensive . A decision needs to be made on what to do with this bike/engine. If anyone has a spare Yamaha TX or XS500 cam chain in a cupboard it would be gratefully received.

Still no progress on this one. However a parts dealer in Derbyshire (and expert on Italian moped pistons!) has a piston which (fingers tightly crossed.) could fit our engine. It should be with us soon and you never know we might be able to make some progress towards re-building the engine. If it doesn’t fit I think this project may have reached the end of the road.

Dylan was on hand to oversee further work on this bike and came equipped with new fork seals and a new choke lever. By close of play both front forks had been removed and stripped down. One of them had been fitted with a new fork seal, which was far easier than anticipated.

We have received a kind offer to donate us a bike to add to our projects. It is a Honda 100cc Scooter. READ MORE . The replacement compressor was put together and seems to be running properly which is good news, as it supports a wide variety of workshop activities.

More progress was made towards getting this bike running. Most notably the throttle cables were installed and further work was done towards completing its wiring. The bike has its original air filter box which presented something of a problem. The first issue was getting it back into the frame. Jack suggested dropping the rear wheel downwards by removing the rear shock absorbers. This worked a treat although it was something of a Chinese (AKA Japanese) puzzle to fathom how to fiddle it in. The biggest single issue is going to be getting the carb rubbers (Air filter box to carburettor) over the carbs. They have shrunk and gone hard over time. Very hot water softens them enough for there to be a realistic prospect of getting them to fit, but the air filter will have to be fitted very quickly so they remain hot. Jack has now been awarded the ‘Air Filter box fiddling award!’ A set of front fork stanchions to fit this bike are amongst those that are being despatched for re-chroming.

 No further work on the engine this week. It remains in one piece, sat at the side of he workshop awaiting disassembly. Mark spent some time stripping the paint from the alloy wheels with paint stripper but the last of the paint proved too stubborn. I believe the wheels and frame/swinging arm are being sent for blasting to remove the paint/corrosion ready for us to begin repainting them. The front forks were disassembled and reluctantly came apart after many years. It took the heat of a blow lamp plus some very clever hexagon sockets to break the rust and get the bottom bolts turning. After that it was just a case of removing the circlip above the fork seals and a hefty yank to get the fork seals out and the forks disassembled.. The fork legs are going for re-chroming.