Saturday February 8th 2025

Jiailing 125.

A new carburettor complete with a fully functional choke was installed and after a good few kicks the bike fired up, idled nicely, ran quietly and without obviously burning oil. One or two more hurdles were overcome, these included fitting a new front brake cable. The wheel had to be removed and the brake arm moved round on its splines to get sufficient adjustment in the cable but it worked nicely. The rear wheel spindle needed further tightening and the fuel tap was found to be leaking and in need of replacement. Another odd fault presented itself in the form of the chain appearing to jam at random. The front sprocket was secured by two bolts and we believed it was smaller than standard, Every time the position of the split link coincided with the head of one of the bolts the chain appeared to jam because the link was touching the bolt head. Unlike the other links in the chain the side plate on the split link had parallel sides rather than being slightly indented, this meant that it was the only link to touch the bolt heads. A bit of judicious grinding of the split link overcame the problem. The next things needing attention are the seat which at the moment is nothing more than a sheet of metal. Keiran would be working his magic with foam and vinyl to make something a little more padded. The front wheel is fairly wobbly, moving from side to side around ¾ of an inch in a single revolution. At some stage in the future Rory would rebuild the wheel during a workshop session giving everyone the chance to see how it is done.

Kawasaki Z250 Scorpion

Steve had done an awesome bit of polishing on the Sprocket cover bringing it up like a mirror. It was so shiny that he might have to polish the rest of the engine’s aluminium cases in the same fashion. A new clutch cable had been purchased for the bike but for reasons that are unclear it was not long enough to reach the handlebars. Steve managed to lubricate and reinstall the original cable getting it to work quite smoothly. The bike had a pair of mismatched handlebar levers, one black and one was shiny aluminium. Steve took the black finish of the front brake lever to bring up a lovely shine on it. The fuel tap was found to be jammed solid and would need to be replaced. It was thought that the fuel filler cap was missing and replacements were seemingly rare as rocking horse poo. Those that were on the market were extremely expensive. However, at the very end of the session Graham found a circular fuel filler cap with the bits around the Z550. Low and behold it fitted and the Z250 ignition key fitted it to, phew! Another important job that needed doing was for the seat pan to be reconstructed where portions of it had rusted away. Don fabricated metal pieces that Keira then welded into place (Working outside the workshop). Now all that remains is for the foam and seat cover to be reunited with the seat pan.

Honda Vigor.

Mal put the bike on a workbench so that the front end of the bike could be removed in order to spray the fork sliders and during the course of the session Mal made a lovely job of spraying them in the spray tent using Steel Wheel paint so well suited to the job. He also began to sand down the powdery aluminium corrosion on the left hand engine cover ready to spray it with a fresh coat of black paint.Then Mal intended to remove and respray the bike’s swinging arm.

Ducati 250 Single racer.

Jon installed the silencer whilst Andy worked to finish the seat base. Once an ignition system could be found it would be time to hear the no doubt distinctive sound of the bike running.

Motobi Moped…

Keiran helped Jose to install a new rear number plate and the most space age top box we had seen in a while. Now it was time for Jose to get some miles under the wheels of this 1960s 50cc moped.