Saturday June 28 th   Suzuki GSF1200 Bandit At our workshop session Saturday June 28 th Roger, Ioin and Steve all worked on the Suzuki 1200 Bandit, the problem they were trying to overcome was the dragging front brakes.   They pulled apart the front brake calipers and after a little difficulty managed to extract the pistons and install a new set of pistons on the left hand side . Once the brakes were back together the left hand front brake still dragged too much but with some judicial fiddling it eventually freed up enough that we could move to something else at the following session.   The next thing we would be doing was to check the valve clearances and the balance the bike’s four carburettors.   Ducati 250 cc single.  John made some excellent progress with Graham’s help. John was waiting for rocker cover gaskets to come from Italy, however Graham helped him make his own. Using nothing more than gasket paper, a ball peen hammer, Stanley knife and s...

Sad news – after much deliberation it was concluded that the cost of rebuilding the monster reached far deeper than the pockets of its donor and it was put back on it wheels and trailered away.

John and others set about cleaning up many of its heavily corroded aluminium components. Andy fastidiously fettled, cleaned and polished its footrest hangers. A decision now needs to be made as to whether or not retain the existing cam-belt tensioner rollers as they have stood idle for so long.

Its owner set off with a rag tag crew of volunteers to go and collect the remaining parts and bring them to the workshop. When they arrived they consisted of the engine and frame still assembled in one piece but minus the wheels and suspension which were already in the workshop. The bike had clearly stood idle for some time and been exposed to the best the Welsh weather could throw at it. Work began to start disassembling it.

Club member John began bringing pieces of his Ducati Monster into the workshop with a view to re-assembling it and getting it running. First to arrive were the front wheel, front forks and tank. John informed me that the bike had been stood around in a partly disassembled condition for several years. Once again with our never say never attitude we’ll see what we can do to help John get the bike in running order again (and give it a funny nickname too!)