Workshop Session Saturday May 4th 2024
Dnepr 650.
Once again Graham was called upon to kickstart the bike into life and he succeeded where others had failed, most probably because not quite enough fuel had been added to the tank. After a top up of fuel and a few more kicks the engine sprang into life, ticked over and allowed Annabelle to ride it up and down the side of the Chapel building. There were some puffs of smoke from around the left hand cylinder head indicating that the cylinder head fastenings needed to be tightened up. Annabelle also devised a nice solid clamp for the tail end of the left hand silencer. The exhaust smoke was a little blue in colour indicating that some oil burning was going on. This might just have been oil that had found its way into the silencers some previous time or it may have been indicative of worn valve stem seals. It was unlikely to be piston ring related as the condition of the pistons rings on both pistons had been checked as part of the process of working out why the compression was low. Annabelle also demonstrated the latest in wooden side-stands.
Honda Vigor
Mal spent some time encouraging the direction indicators and other electrical items to work correctly. It still needed a couple of new tyres, the rear brake stripping, some new steering head bearings, a good lubrication for the drive chain and some paint work doing to get it ready for the road. During the meeting on March 23rd Graham had stripped the bike’s carburettor and made sure it was free of stale fuel and gunge. At the meeting on 06/04/24 fuel was found to be pouring from the bottom of the carburettor. Graham wasn’t present at this meeting but after the committee meeting on 08/04/24 he checked out his hunch that he hadn’t tightened up the fuel drain screw on the bottom of the float bowl. He hadn’t! Very quickly after that the engine fired up, ran quietly and ticked over after several years of standing idle..
Jiailing 125 trials bike project.
Don spent some time working on respraying the bike’s modified Honda fuel tank but had some problems with the paint reacting with other paint on the tank and further work was required to get the paintwork spot on. Meanwhile Phil James worked to begin restoring the shiny finish of the bike’s aluminium fork sliders which had suffered the ravages of time. With a bit more polishing once the remains of the original lacquer have been removed they should shine up like new.
Benelli Motobi.
Joe and his other half continued their efforts to remove of grime from the frame and engine of this 1966 moped. (Was it classed as a moped back in 1966, because it predated the legislation that required mopeds used by learners to have pedals capable of propelling them). Once cleaned up the frame was in excellent condition for its age. The engine had been nicely preserved by a layer of general grease. It wouldn’t be long before this little bike would be running again.
Kawasaki Z250.
Steve patiently repainted the centres of the bike’s brake disc and then installed the new final drive chain and sprockets. Graham began the process of rebuilding the bike’s carburettors for a second time, unsure why they had been taken apart for a second time. He reinstalled the CV throttle slides and then having checked both pilot jets were clean, he pondered whether or not there should be a rubber plug blanking off the pilot jet hole. The plug ensures that fuel being drawn through the pilot hole has first to pass through the main jet and through a drilling in the pilot jet housing. The parts book said plugs were originally fitted but Graham was unable to find them at first. However after a ferret around in one of several boxes of carburettor parts he found two plugs ready to be installed. The starter motor and oil breather housing that fit onto the engine beneath the carburettors are not looking their best so they would probably be removed and polished at the club’s next meeting. Other work that still needed doing included replacing the Speedo/Tacho/Ignition Switch and the headlight along with the front mudguard. Getting the Carburettors back into the hardened shrunken hoses leading to the air filter box is going to be something of a challenge. Hopefully the workshop’s hot air gun will soften them sufficiently to overcome the problem.
Kawasaki KZ550 Limited.
No work was done on this project on 04/05/24 nor at the previous workshop session on 20/04/24. This was due to our 4 cylinder Kawasaki guru Andy Jenkins (AKA A.J.) having suffered a serious motorcycle accident on April 19th. Everyone in the club wished A.J. a full and speedy recovery from some very nasty injuries.
Tools…
The club had recently purchased a host of tools and both hand and power tools from the home of someone that passed on to a workshop somewhere in the sky. Phil Howells organised a team of volunteers to bring the tools into the workshop and to sort them out into their various categories. Whilst not everything would prove useful a large number of power and hand tools would prove very useful indeed. For example we now had a smaller air compressor which should prove useful and a pillar drill that could prove even more useful.
Health and Safety.
Club member Keiran Byrne gave the assembled throng a very informative Toolbox Talk on Health and Safety in the workshop to the assembled throng who gathered round and listened with great interest. Keiran has a working background in Health and safety and so his contribution to the session was greatly valued. I think the most important ethos that he sold to us was that where Health and Safety was concerned we should be prepared to ‘Challenge and be challenged’. In other words don’t turn a blind eye if you realise someone is creating a risk that could be avoided and don’t take umbridge if someone suggests a safer way of doing something. Afterall it is in everyone’s interest to avoid injuries occurring in the workshop.