Long fast club runs tend to reveals failings in your bike, especially when 'given the beans' by other riders. You know who you are! The oil leaks that have plagued the W/NG really made themselves felt on the 87 mile run around Norfolk that the VMCC Blakeney Run entailed. It was clear that the oil was coming from the top end, but I wasn't sure if it was the decompressor, the rocker box gaskets or the cylinder head bolts. Having spent some resealing the decompressor recently, I removed the rocker boxes to take a look revealing that the existing aluminium gaskets did not fit at all well ..read more

For some bizarre reason the speedometer cable on the W/NG broke the other day. It's been there for a couple of thousand miles, but wasn't particularly well lubricated so perhaps that was the reason. I'd not considered repairing a speedo cable before, but there wasn't a replacement available commercially and I needed it for the VMCC run to Blakeney the following weekend, so I decided to attempt a repair. The first attempt was to use the wonderous TIG set to weld a short length of 4 mm round bar to the end. I filed it square and it looked fine: I made a little collar out of a bit of 8 mm al ..read more

 Sunday brings the first VMCC run of the year, the first of many I hope. The W/NG is at Son Tom's house with a dead speedo, so the first trip of the day is to go down there, meet up and replace the speedo cable. That done, it's off to the start point at Spooner Row just outside Wymondham via a petrol stop. We arrive on time (for the first time!) and sign on, grab a cup of coffee and are welcomed by the crowd falling easily into chatting about our bikes and where we have come from. One or two remember us from Letheringsett 2022 and from a Blue Sky run I did on my own a few years back. At ..read more

 There's always something. There I am, minding my own business and riding the W/NG to my current house renovation project and thinking I've done most of the work on it, when the kickstart fails. It sometimes jams, failing to move the engine and feeling very solid. This is why: See the first tooth on the quadrant? It's jammed against the pinion. The second tooth will do this too and the way to remedy it is to put the bike in gear, move it a fraction (to move the mainshaft pinion) and kick again, when it will work. Trouble was, this time I wasn't paying attention and gave it a mighty kick ..read more

 Well it's been a week of cracking through little bike jobs, alongside welding up rust holes in the fuel tank of yet another Eastern Bloc two-stroke, this time an MZ TS125 - but more of that later. For some while the W/NG horn has been a little touchy, because the horn adjuster doesn't work very well due to a stripped brass lock nut, though I improved it a lot in the middle of last summer by squashing the nut slightly. It has an odd thread, 0.209" x 36 tpi which I found by luck on eBay - it's a bicycle tyre valve core thread! The adjuster lives behind the tone ring nut: The one that was ..read more

 One embarrassing thing that happened last year was a shortage of fuel - or rather not. I ran out of fuel out in the wilds of Norfolk having given son Thomas a lecture about coming out without checking the tank, discovering a little while later that not only had I run out of fuel but that the reserve tap wasn't working. Emptying the tank, I pulled the tap off to check and found the filter torn and the reserve port full of paint chips: A few minutes poking around soon had that clear, and I fitted a new filter: I realised later that this one is of a coarser mesh than I would have liked ..read more

 Some while after fitting the new headlamp and instrument panel, I became aware that the ammeter rarely showed a charge. At the time, I assumed it wasn't centring properly and resolved to pull it out and adjust the needle. However, obsession being what I'm known for, I kept an eye on it and eventually realised the needle intermittently showed a charge. There had to be something wrong. Following the usual checks (voltmeter on the battery, linked D & F cables with voltmeter to earth, connectivity checks) I realised the dynamo was struggling to go past six-point-something-small volts. I ..read more

 Following the repair of the FH seat base fixing screws which I wrote about recently, I found a bit of time to finish the repair of the rear end. You can see how the seat is constructed here. The large shaped pressing that you sit on (Ariel were making more use of steel pressings in the late '50's) is spot welded to two angled sheets which sit on the frame rails and carry the mounting holes. Those angles are closed with two quadrant shaped pieces which rot away. I cut them out: Using a bit of cardboard, I made a template to get the shape right: This pale blue metal was an old bread b ..read more

Legend has it that the bike lift is, or at least becomes (with advancing years) one of the most useful tools in the workshop. Some while back I spent a few hours faffing about with drawings, replanning the workshop in an attempt to fit one in.  Thoughts turned to this again recently and looking around I discovered this Switzer lift which is shorter and less wide than most.  I posted a question on the AOMCC FB page and got a host of encouragement from the members, including one who had exactly the same lift and was happy to take some measurements that were not available on the KMS web ..read more

The FH kit came with the original dual seat, cover intact, which I dismantled: There was some foam, some original, some replaced: The top of the seat base was in very good condition: Underneath, there is enough space for a sandwich or two and I toyed with making the seat lift up for a while - I even made some hinges to try it out but considering the options for locking I realised that I was on a crusade that would be neat, but wouldn't achieve very much. I put the idea away for another day. The seats were originally retained with Spire clips and screws, fastened from underneath before t ..read more