Saturday January 11th 2025
Saturday January 11th 2025.
Kawasaki 550.
AJ came in armed with the resprayed fuel tank and side panels looking resplendent in a metallic shade of burgundy. AJ, Jack and John spent time during the session working to complete the electrical system, fit the new fuel tap and fit the newly resprayed fuel tank and side panels. Next session would be the time to finally get the carburettors balanced once and for and all.
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| Kawasaki 550 limited looking good with its resprayed paintwork. |
Motobi moped.
Now that the intermittent stalling and difficult starting issue had been resolved with a new spark plug it was time to see if we could find out why the lights weren’t working. Graham assisted Jose to take the headlight and the little light switch apart to try and fathom why there were no lights. It was found that there were six volts being fed to the light switch and to the headlight. We then realised that the headlight needed to be earthed on its brackets and hey presto both bulbs in the headlight lit depending on the position of the switch and the tail light lit as well. Another problem caused by the footboard touching the generator housing was overcome. It had caused the generator cover to rub on the generator rotor but some packing placed under the footboards overcame the problem.
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| Motobi Moped from the 1960s now running well and even its light a glowing. |
Piaggio Velofax.
Graham had obtained a new ignition unit for the bike and eventually a nice bright spark materialised at the HT lead. The spark was not dependent on there being a battery on the bike but Graham had also obtained one to power the rest of the electrics. Graham then pondered the heavyweight wiring protruding near the handlebars. It made no sense for them to be there and because the connectors were so dirty Graham soon realised that they should be connected to the starter motor on top of the engine. Unfortunately connecting the wiring to the starter motor meant removing the engine from the frame. Once the frame was lifted off the engine it was easy enough to attach the wires to the starter motor and to the engine (Providing an earth). The problems then began and getting the bolt through the engine pivot proved impossible despite three of us manoeuvring the frame and engine relative to one another. We also considered making one last attempt to get access to the two stroke oil pump located under the engine. Because the two bolts securing its cover were likely to have broken off it was decided to stick with plan A and the bike would be run on petroil (25:1 or 40ml oil to 1000cc petrol). So, we had a nice strong spark, compression and a fuel tight carburettor but starting the bike would have to wait until the next session.
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| Frame and engine stubbornly failed to reunite but at least we have a spark. |
Kawasaki Z250.
Steve W worked his magic to fashion a way of connecting the aftermarket rear brake master cylinder to the frame and get it connected to the rear brake pedal. Which took a little fiddling as it was a one-size fits pattern product. Then with a little help from club mechanic Phil and clever tool to draw the fluid through the pipes, Steve bled the rear brake. Next it would be time to refit the sprocket cover and the clutch actuating mechanism fitted inside it.
Jialing 125 trials bike project.
Phil McAthey and others did further work to reassemble the bike. Yes you did read that correctly Phil McAthey got his hands dirty!! The front forks and wheel were fitted along with the rear wheel, chain and sprockets. In the mean time, Andy made a very nice job of spraying the front sprocket cover to match the rest of the engine. A way was now needed to attach the sprocket cover to the engine as the lugs for both its mounting screws had been, at some stage, broken off. Watch this space for further developments.
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| Jialing trials bike project now taking shape again. |
Ducati 250 Single…
Work was done to install more components such as the ignition coil now fitted in a location that will be under the seat and to overcome some issues with the engine peripherals. The biggest hurdle that now needed to be overcome was finding an affordable electronic ignition system or the full set of components needed to run the ignition with its original contact breaker. This would take a fair degree of research. Andy also worked on the seat surround trying to overcome a problem that had prevented fibreglassing done at the end of the year from hardening. Hopefully obtaining an alternative hardener would solve the problem.
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| Where can we find ourselves a bright spark to get this running? |
- A set a vacuum gauges to replace the faulty set.
- A spark plug tester to hopefully identify faulty spark plugs such as that which had almost foxed us in the Motobi Moped.
- A drill bit sharpener to save blunt drills causing frustration or getting thrown away.