Saturday May 17th 2025
Saturday May 17th 2025
Suzuki GFS 1200 Bandit…
Now that we had the exhaust system in place it was time to get it running and see how noisy it was and whether it was burning much oil. This was because the bike had 58,000. With a temporary fuel supply the bike started and ran well. There didn’t seem to be too much mechanical noise, although the exhaust was very loud. On start up and when being revved there was very little blue smoke from the exhaust. Therefore the jobs could be done at the next sessions would include
Carburetor balancing.
Valve adjustment.
Brake fluid replacement.
Stripping out the front end of the bike and replacing the forks with the brand new forks that came with the bike.
Inspect/overhaul brakes if need be.
Inspect tyres.
Inspect swinging arm bearing for wear.
Inspect Wheel alignment.
Inspect rear shock absorber
Spraying damaged ares of the frame’s lovely crimson red paintwork.
Fastening the gauze back on the metal frame work that prevents the air filter from being drawn into the carburettor intakes.
Mash 400 Dirtstar.
Not a great deal of progress was made at this session. However Graham managed to make sure the fuel injector was unblocked and capable of spraying fuel using a fuel injector tester that Phil H had supplied. The pipework of the fuel system caused something of a puzzle as it had already been disassembled and there were no photos to use for reference. Although the engine turned very very slowly there was a huge white spark at the tip of the spark plug and Graham remained keen to see if the bike would fire up with fresh fuel in her belly. The very loose valve adjuster (With nut coming undone) found at a previous session, could have caused the symptoms its previous owner had described (And thought my be due to the valves hitting the piston). Wouldn’t it be nice if a major strip down wasn’t required.
Jialing 125 (Trail bike project)
At the previous session its fuel tank had sprung a leak close to its bottom rear left hand corner. Some Petro Patch Putty had been obtained since the leak appeared. Graham rolled the parts of the putty together and spent quite some time forcing into the holes and covering the area of the leak with it. It wasn’t particularly pretty but hopefully it would allow us to ride the bike at Non-Stop Trials the following week.
Kawasaki KZ550 (ish)...
At the start of the session the bike was still not happy to start up and run. AJ and his assistants took the rocker cover off the engine and checked to make sure everything was as it should be including the valve clearances. Once it had been put back together and fettled a little more, the bike started and ran to AJ's satisfaction. If anyone should know if it was starting and running correctly, it was AJ. AJ had also spotted the cause of the slight oil leak. It turned out to be that the screw in cap blocking off the left hand end of the main oil gallery under the crankshaft was cracked. It was just a small crack in the head of the plug but was just enough to cause a leak. It pay to know your onions!
Member’s bikes…
Peter’s Honda 500 Rebel had remained in the workshop awaiting new chain adjusters which were found to have been butchered. The bike had come into the workshop on 03/05 when a rusted ball joint was found to have caused its failure to change gears. It was as an attempt to adjust the final drive chain was made, that the butchered adjusters were found. At the session on May 17th new chain adjusters were installed and the final drive chain was adjusted to the correct tension.
Guy bought his BMW F650 GS for help getting its front and rear brake pads replaced. As with so many simple tasks it needed a little more effort than was at first expected. This was due to the caliper of its single disc front brake having become corroded onto the pins on which it was supposed to slide. By unscrewing one of the pins from the caliper mounting plate, it was eventually possible to start rotating the caliper on its other pin. After a lot of rotating the caliper came off the pin allowing both pins to be cleaned up and greased before the caliper was re-assembled. This took up so much time that the back brake wasn’t touched on this occasion. The net effect of a sliding single piston caliper being corroded onto its pins is that only the brake pad with the caliper’s piston behind it gets forced onto the brake disc. Instead of the other brake pad getting drawn onto the backside of the disc as the caliper slides, the caliper does it best to bend the brake disc!! This will lead to loss of braking efficiency, uneven brake pad wear and a spongy brake lever action.
Mal continued fettling his Honda Vigor inching it ever closer to getting it back on the road.
Jon continued his efforts to manufacture the last few metal components need to complete the Ducati 250.
