Saturday December 14th 2024

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 Saturday December 14th 2024.


Kawasaki Z550


AJ, Jack and Jon worked on the bike, AJ in particular was overcoming some final electrical problems around the headlight.  The front brake light switch was found to be faulty and a new one will have to be ordered.  AJ got the bike running outside the hall with vacuum gauges attached to try and establish why the engine was not idling smoothly. Unfortunately the club’s gauges were not playing ball. Hopefully a balance issue would explain why the exhaust of No 1 cylinder was not getting hot.  The respray of the bike’s tank and side panels was still a work in progress.

Kawasaki Z550 on the brink of completion?

Kawasaki Z250

Steve and Allan worked on the bike’s rear disc brake. The vacuum brake bleeding device the club had bought couldn’t be persuaded to work due to its o-ring having warped.  However with Phil Howell’s assistance Steve eventually got the fluid into the rear brake caliper.  Steve had concluded that the bike’s original rear brake master cylinder was beyond redemption and was using the after-market one purchased from Z-Power.    The next challenge to overcome would be fitting the one size fits all master cylinder firmly to the frame, by attaching it to the brake arm.  This was going to be a challenge because apart from the distance between the cylinder’s mounting bolt holes, the dimensions differed from the original.

Kawasaki Z250 - rear brake proving a challenge.


Yamaha PW50

Phil Howell’s gave the bike one last look over and worked to try and ensure its two stroke oil pump would pump oil correctly. The bike was then taken away from the workshop, to be erm wrapped up ready for Christmas.

Motobi moped

Image of the Motobi moped before its restoration.

Jose continued his efforts to get the bike running by stripping its carburettor down to find out why despite having an immense spark at the spark plug it would periodically fail to start.  It had also been found that switching on the, no doubt, feeble headlight would cause the engine to stop and not re-start easily. Everything appeared alright in the carburetor.  When the engine was running it even continued to run with the plug cap held an inch or so from the top of the spark plug (With insulated pliers!!)  Spares for this 1960s moped seem to be as rare as rocking horse poo, so we had to hope we could find a replacement set of points, a condenser and an ignition coil and one way or the other get to the bottom of the problem. 



Ducati 250 Racer

Andy worked studiously with fibreglass to strengthen and repair the bike’s seat and tail hump. 

Andy gets the hump (Seat hump) as he mixes fibreglass ready for the repairs.


MZ150

Annabelle’s MZ150 was put on a workbench and the rear wheel spindle was reinstalled. The twist grip needed to be removed but it wasn’t until a little grub screw in the end of the handlebar (Accessible through a hole in the twist grip) was found that the bar end weight could be removed.  The bike came with a small selection of parts that had been removed from it including its battery. Would it start and run at the next workshop session?

Work commences to get the MZ150 back up and running 


In other workshop news…

Assisted by Andy, Graham utilised the club’s motorcycle trailer to convey the Peugeot V-Click, a member’s NS125 Honda and Annabelle’s Dnepr 650 from the workshop to the club’s storage container freeing up much needed space in the workshop. 

AJ’s Meryl made us a fine Christmas cake that AJ bought to the session.  Needless to say it was delicious and much like any other cake that Meryl had cooked for the club, it was consumed in an instant.  I am sure you would all join with me in thanking Meryl for her time and her cake making expertise.


It was tasty tasty, very very tasty thank you Meryl.


Graham delivered a variety of spares and consumables to the workshop. These included…

  1. A rechargeable soldering iron.

  2. A replacement Dremel type grinder.

  3. An 800 piece heat shrink insulation Kit.

  4. A pair of wire cutters/crimpers.

  5. A 4 kilogram bag of metric nuts and bolts.

  6. Heat Resistant black paint

  7. Etch Primer. 

In a shocking conclusion to the workshop session

Keiran’s Yamaha Virago decided it was going to frighten us all by trying to catch fire. The smoke and flames were quickly put out with minimal damage to the bike.  They appeared to have emanated from the bike’s starter motor situated in front of the engine. Although Keiran wasn’t able to ride his bike home, he was able to get a lift home.  If it was going to catch fire, it had probably done it in the best place. 

Keiran's Virago - limited damage but a puzzle to solve.