Saturday July 12th 2025 Suzuki GSF 1200 Bandit… Ioin prepared and sprayed the rocker cover, restoring it to its original finish.  Graham, Heinz and new member Richard then set out about re-fitting it using the brand new rocker cover bolts that had been supplied with the bike.  Once the rocker had been carefully fiddled back into place so as not to disturb the rubber seal that runs around its outside edge. They went to fit the new bolts.  Four of the eight bolts fitted, the other four could not be persuaded to screw in.  It was then that it became apparent that someone had fitted some sort of thread repair kit to four of the bolt holes and at the same time reduced the thread size from 8mm to 6mm.  An attempt was made to cut a 6mm thread onto one of the new 8mm bolts, but the difference in diameter was too great.  So it would be a case of getting the silver spray out to tidy up the modified bolts used by the previous owner.  They had been ingeniou...

  Saturday January 25th 2025. Piaggio Velofax. With a bit waggling, wobbling and tapping the engine pivot bolt finally slid into place.   Then Graham mimicked a choke cable using a piece of electrical wire.  Then once the carburettor had been checked for cleanliness it was time to see if it would start.  After three or four kicks it sprang into life for the first time in more than four years.  It was quite raucous without its exhaust but ran and idled perfectly.  During that four year period a new piston was obtained to replace the original that had been lost.  The replacement came from another similar model and seemed to be doing the job just fine.  Graham made a paper base gasket and a broken reed valve had to be obtained.  The tip of the original reed valve had broken off.  As genuine replacements were not available the services of a company making carbon fibre reed valves were enlisted, in order to make a new one using the original a...

  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. 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...

  Saturday December 28th 2024 Being in the period between Christmas and New Year, this was a relatively quiet session… However… Motobi Moped… Jose’s 1960s Motobi moped still refused to run continuously and the engine insisted on dying for no apparent reason, then refused to re-start.  Graham helped Jose by inspecting the contact points and checking the points gap through the holes in the generator rotor.  With a gap between 0.3mm and 0.4mm the setting seemed to be about right.  A mark on the outside of the rota indicated that the points were opening in roughly the right place.  Of course checking visually isn’t accurate enough for good running in the long term.  This could only be achieved through the use of a timing buzzer and a dial gauge to determine the precise position before dead centre (BTDC) that the points were opening.  However our rough test would be sufficient to ensure the bike should run.  The fact that the feeler gauges slipped easi...

  The Piaggio Velofax... Graham and Jack did a little work on this little red Italian large wheeled moped.  The engine felt very insecure in the frame.  This was overcome when it was realised that the mount that the engine pivots on was not part of the frame and hadn’t been bolted up.  Missing components still frustrate the process of getting the bike running.  In this case the ignition lock and the workshop manual have disappeared but hopefully not forever.  Turning the engine over with or without a battery produced a few very strong sparks at the spark plug but they came, went, came again then disappeared.  Installing a 12 volt battery didn’t change the situation. Would the manual be located?  Would the ignition lock reappear? Would the spark ignite!!

 Piaggio Velofax - A little progress made... After a great deal of online searching, Graham eventually found VE UK selling a throttle slide for the bike's Dellorto SHA 14 12 C Carburettor and was pleased to find that it fitted correctly.  Jess assisted by fitting the top end of the throttle cable into the twist grip.  The bike is fitted with a pump fed two lubrication system.  The throttle cable divides into two near the engine.  One cable goes to the carb to control the throttle.  The other cable goes to the oil pump to control the amount of two stroke oil pumped into the engine, depending on the throttle opening.  Unfortunately the oil pump cable on our bike appears to be seized and the screws that would give access to the pump are not only very hard to get at, but also likely to be heavily corroded.  So a decision has been made to run the bike with a petroil mixture.  In other words mixing a small but carefully calculated amount of two str...

The session was well attended and as usual some good work was done.  Here is a summary of it… The Jiailing Trials Bike Project… Andy, Levi and 1st time attendee Curtis worked to strip the bike down to its component pieces. The intention being to allow us to improve the appearance of the engine and frame.  They removed the engine from the frame and also removed pretty much all of the ancillary components.  Much of the frame is currently bare metal and beginning to attract our friend  ‘Corrosion’.  As our pockets aren’t deep at the moment the intention is to hand paint the frame with a hefty layer of red Hammerite type paint to inhibit any further corrosion and give it a resilient finish.  The exterior of the engine was also showing its age.  To make it appear fresher we aimed to remove loose corrosion and flaky paint from the exterior of the engine and then give it a good coat of heat resistant silver paint.  Other components such as the wheel rims...