The Bikeshite Thread

[gtd2000]

Do they still have the blue digi dash in the tank?

I believe it's a pod mounted to the handlebars but LED, it's certainly not an object of desire!

 

Edit:

 

[gtd2000]

Rumours of a 400 coming out too, they've tested one which needs some jiggling to get it right and talk is of an easy 80-90mph, I think.  Have been told they can tune the 200 to near those speeds, waiting to run in mine in before I get that sorted as it's topping £700 I think for the exhaust, stage 3 package and fitting.

 

From what I've read, save that £700 and get yourself a written off Suzuki Burgman 400 and then take that engine (which is the same one they make under license in Italy that they propose to use) and shoehorn that into your 200!

[hairnet]

spend the 700 on a lexmoto 125

[Jazoli]

Had a great run out this am, 5 counties, almost 200 miles, empty roads (at 7am) and not a cloud in the sky

 

 

 

Pic taken with a potato

[UltraWomble]

 

 

It's been fun, but I have no use for such a device. So if you have the urge to own this festering - albeit fully-functioning - pizza lugger, watch out for the For Sale thread coming soon. It could be your lucky* day.

I do indeed have a yearning for a festering 50.

Not only that but should the price be right and I beat a certain Mr Craft to the podium then I promise to ride this back from wherever it is to Preston (Lancs) for the collection thread.

[UltraWomble]

The Scomadi

Whereas Im giving very careful consideration to delving into the land of the Never Never where from the Preston Scomadi dealership I can get a 151cc LML Star with delivery miles for £50 a month.

Missus wants her kitchen fettling first though :/

Just trying to juggle figures to see if both are possible.

[KruJoe]

That old 'ped of Dan's is looking grand, SA! I never thought it would be a goer again.

 

Will's in Nepal, I'll be in touch with him again shortly... his school building projects are completed, but I'm thinking he may get involved with the flood relief efforts. I'll let you know.

[gtd2000]

spend the 700 on a lexmoto 125

That worked for me!

 

I even got change.

[Cavcraft]

Whereas Im giving very careful consideration to delving into the land of the Never Never where from the Preston Scomadi dealership I can get a 151cc LML Star with delivery miles for £50 a month.

Missus wants her kitchen fettling first though :/

Just trying to juggle figures to see if both are possible.

LMLs are very cheap to be fair.

[strangeangel]

That old 'ped of Dan's is looking grand, SA! I never thought it would be a goer again.

 

Will's in Nepal, I'll be in touch with him again shortly... his school building projects are completed, but I'm thinking he may get involved with the flood relief efforts. I'll let you know.

Excellent. When it comes to two wheels I am a bit of a sucker for a lost cause. And if the resurrection of this humble workhorse can raise a few quid for a good cause, what's not to like?

[John F]

Righty then... I mentioned a while ago that I'd got a new (and unexpected) addition to my fleet, so here it is:

 

 

 

A 1988 Yamaha XJ900F.

 

The story behind this is fairly complex. About 2 years ago a mate from clay pigeon shooting told me that he'd been given it by someone else with electrical problems (due at least in part to the wiring loom having been butchered by previous owners) and some teeth missing on the flywheel which meant it occasionally wouldn't start on the button. He'd made a start at stripping it down but then realised he'd have to split the crankcases to get to the flywheel, so he lost interest in the project.

 

Many, many years previous to this when I lived out in Germany and smoked around on a 1990 XJ900F, a mate of mine over there bought a very low mileage one (about 5k kilometres) and binned it badly on the ride home from picking it up (he lost his leg in the accident). He spent ages in hospital, and shortly before I left Germany I decided I had to do something about his bike wreckage as nobody else in our accommodation complex knew who it belonged to... so I stripped everything usable out of the wreck & brought it back to the UK with me. My mate was pleased I'd taken the trouble to deal with his borked bike, and eventually told me I could just keep the bits. So for the next 20 years or so I carted the engine & boxes full of bits around with me whenever I moved house, not having a particular idea what I'd do with them.

 

So I decided to give the bits (including the complete engine & loads of other components) to my clay pigeon mate. But when I arrived with the bits, he told me he'd been planning to give me the bike!

 

I didn't have space or desire to own it, so we gave the whole lot to another mate so he could learn how to build up bikes. It just ended up sat in his mum's garage for the next year or so.

 

Then a few months ago a different mate lost his job and had his bike stolen in the same week. To cheer him up, I arranged for him to be given the XJ900F project so he'd at least have the prospect of a bike to look forward to. It just ended up sat in one of his mates' garages until a few weeks ago.

 

I got a call from him, saying that he'd come into a bit of money & had bought a new bike, also his mate wanted his garage back so he needed the XJ moving. So much for trying to help mates out, although I don't hold it against him 'cos he's not good with spanners & the whole idea was a bit beyond him.

 

Which meant the bloody project has ended up back with me!

 

On the plus side, I've got everything I need to build up a good bike out of the bits. The engine from the crashed XJ still turns freely, amazingly, so I can use that. Also the carbs are as good as new.

 

But best of all, I'd stripped the entire loom from the crashed bike so was able to replace the crap butchered one with an (effectively) brand new 30-year old loom

 

The only fly in the ointment is a broken-off exhaust stud in the low-mileage engine, I posted a separate thread about that. The plan is to attack it later this week.

 

But if it all goes tits up I have a complete spare engine to use for bits...

 

[Guest Hooli]

I fitted a LED headlight, I think I'll be able to see at night now. They actually fit unlike HIDs as these don't stick too far out the back of the light.

 

Before -

 

 

After -

 

[strangeangel]

Well, that was quick - the Pavement Pizza moped is spoken for!

 

I have a feeling there may be an epic collection thread in the offing but, for now, content yourselves with all the photos I took for the For Sale thread that's not now going to happen

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wise choice, Sir. Class never goes out of style

[John F]

Small update on the XJ900 project: the broken exhaust stud is out

 

See here for the full saga: http://autoshite.com/topic/29081-extracting-broken-studs/

 

And the thread is undamaged too, which is nice.

[brandersnatch]

 

City Airport bike park. Nice to see one in everyday use.

I had one of them etc.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John F]

More progress with the XJ900 today.

 

Broken-off fastener wound out using the left-handed drill technique:

 

 

 

Engine in the frame (a bastard of a job):

 

 

 

Electrics tested with a leisure battery - most of them work, some tweaking to the rear light cluster required. Engine turns over on the starter. Bike put to bed for the night & off to the pub

 

[John F]

The bike is now largely built up...

 

 

 

... but while turning the engine over on the starter to circulate the fresh oil, I noticed that the wires from the pickup coils are trapped between the engine and the frame.

 

So the engine needs to be moved again.

 

Fucksticks.

[Eddie Honda]

Got round to dumping the oil and changing the filter on my oldgit R1100RT. Also changed a couple of washers either side of the oil cooler return pipe banjo on the engine casing. I think there was only the inner one present - unless I've been a blind fookwit and not found the old one stuck somewhere.

 

Change the plugs too. Eventually fished out (with the toolkit box spanner) a pair of NGK Iridium and put in a pair of dual electrode Bosch. Now on the hunt for a nice skinny plug socket to stick in the tool box for those stupidly-buried-in-a-too-small-hole plugs.

[andy18s]

.

[Guest Hooli]

Down visiting my parents this weekend. My mum has been saying her bike wasn't riding right & she doesn't trust it in bends. New fork oil that works, steering bearings cleaned & repacked with grease so they move & pumping the tyres up past 15psi seems to have helped.

 

 

The poor thing is a '96 with a genuine 2,600miles on, she's only had it a year & hardly used it as it didn't feel right.

 

12 miles of italian tune up & it runs a lot better, pulls better & corners better than I expected such a silly little thing to do. God it's small though and slow...

[Jerzy Woking]

Clutch and brake fluids changed on the 900SS Friday night - wish I had taken a photo of the stuff that came out of ALL the resevoirs, as never seen anything that colour before.

 

Now the clutch works as it should (it wasn't slipping or dragging) in that it's lost the slowness of the lever movement. It's a really nice thing to ride - taut handling, grunty engine, gorgeous sound. Shit headlight though.

[Guest Hooli]

Which reminds me. List for winter visit to parents - brake fluid, engine oil & final drive oil. I could do it today but too lazy & what's in there isn't too bad.

[plasticvandan]

I've decided to move on from my German 2 smokes and am going to look for an old XJ600 divvie or similar,so this being autoshite,if anyone has one and fancies an ETZ250 with a fully rebuilt engine,let me know!

[Eddie Honda]

for an old XJ600 divvie or similar

Where's the chair going/gone?

[plasticvandan]

Scottish Power put paid to the chair,so sadly that's on eBay.

[Bfg]

Down visiting my parents this weekend. My mum has been saying her bike wasn't riding right & she doesn't trust it in bends. New fork oil that works, steering bearings cleaned & repacked with grease so they move & pumping the tyres up past 15psi seems to have helped.

 

21105582_10159187345320511_5691669961283590845_n.jpg

 

The poor thing is a '96 with a genuine 2,600miles on, she's only had it a year & hardly used it as it didn't feel right.

 

12 miles of italian tune up & it runs a lot better, pulls better & corners better than I expected such a silly little thing to do. God it's small though and slow...

 

I'm not ranting, but rather quietly reflect :

Am I the only one who feels that it's a crying shame that people who aren't able or can't be arsed to have their vehicle maintained in a fit state for the road - are allowed to have a driving license ? 

 

Perhaps 'sense awareness of a vehicle's condition' should be part of the driving test, so that even if they can't do maintenance or repair jobs themselves - they at least know to take the vehicle to a garage.? 

 

I take note that Hooli's mum did at least not use the vehicle, so I'm not pointing fingers here. Rather it's more a generic reflection of the state of things ..now that daily or at least weekly vehicle maintenance is not part n' parcel of ownership.

 

Seeing as it's a statistical fact that a huge percentage of vehicles fail their MOT each year - then, in the eyes of the law, there's a huge percentage of vehicles, at any moment in time - that are unfit to be driven on the road.  (..and that doesn't include the numerous items which may not be caught by the MOT).

      Please note : these vehicles are all around you when you're out on your bike,   ..including your mates on their bikes &/or all those neigh-on bullet-proof cars driven by rep's on the phone and old giffers like me 

 

It's an interesting question of responsibility & morality : What sort of civilised society condones their loved-ones driving an unsafe vehicle ..or worse still - be the innocent victim of an accident, where poor vehicle maintenance was contributory to that accident ?   

 

Sorry, perhaps these sort of topics are too deep for here.  I'll shut up.

[Guest Hooli]

Stuff

 

Those are good points you make there, it is an interesting discussion.

 

I believe (but not sure on it) that driving/riding an unsafe vehicle is covered by dangerous driving? If so then the idea of what you suggest is already in law, as it should be.

[Guest Hooli]

I've decided to move on from my German 2 smokes and am going to look for an old XJ600 divvie or similar,so this being autoshite,if anyone has one and fancies an ETZ250 with a fully rebuilt engine,let me know!

 

Isn't JohnF putting one of them back together?

[John F]

Hooli, on 28 Aug 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:Hooli, on 28 Aug 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:

Isn't JohnF putting one of them back together?

 

Not quite, I'm doing an XJ900F shaftie.

[Guest Hooli]

Ahh, I thought it was a XJ at least.