Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2017 i Classic Motorcycle Mechanics

Election special! Yup, like me – I bet you’re bored of those two words. For some reason, us Brits seem to have had our fill of going to the polls lately. If it wasn’t the Scottish Referendum in 2014, then the General Election in 2015, then the EU Referendum last summer… and now this: another General Election. The good thing is that – by the time you read this – the result will be known. We can then (finally, hopefully) head in a direction that surely should see us as a nation…er, well.Who knows? With Brexit and the like, who can predict our future and what will happen to the economy? Still, here’s a shout out for the modern classic biking economy: it’s booming. Prices of late – even on…

Prize winner****** You couldn’t make it up! With reference to Pip Higham’s column in the May issue of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics, I have a story of my own! My father was a car mechanic all his days and, as usual, he was working in the garage on a Saturday morning up to his elbows in oily car parts when one of the regular customers came in and asked him if he could do an oil and oil filter change as he was going off on holiday but instead of telling him to bugger off he told him how to change the oil and how to use the old screwdriver rammed through the old oil filter trick to get it off. So, he lent him a screwdriver gave him a filter…

KAWASAKI z1000 Scoop gets let loose on someone’s dream motorcycle: a Kawasaki Z1000 special and asks, ‘when is a retro anything but?’ WORDS: STEVE COOPER PHOTOS: GARY D CHAPMAN Sponsored by:Motorcycle Restoration Company Professional Motorcycle Engineers www.motorcyclerestorationcompany.com Do you remember being a youngster? Do you recall that period when you’d progressed from pressing your snotty nose up against the dealer’s shop window? Did you have access to the American motorcycle mags that not only showed us Brits what we might get the following season but also flagged up custom bikes? Everything from tuned canyon racers to strokers, choppers and even insane trikes powered by a brace of tuned Kawasaki H2 engines. Everything was fair game for modification and rearranging. The power of paint had a curious impact on many of…

MIRA FILES BEST BIKES OF 1982 The fashion for the leading manufacturers in 1982 was to bring turbocharged bikes to the market, but more fun was to be had with the new batch of 550cc sports bikes, says John Nutting. WORDS: JOHN NUTTING HOTOS: MORTONS ARCHIVE/JOHN NUTTING There was so much change in the motorcycle scene in 1982 that we could be forgiven for overlooking other events on the world stage. Britain went to war (well, conflict) with Argentina to claim back the Falkland Islands. It was an epic and tragic encounter that resulted in hundreds of deaths, but amid Maggie Thatcher’s hubris there was the remarkable logistics success of sending ships, material and aircraft across half the globe to support our troops and secure victory. At home, computers were…

Q & A Our very own wizened sages, Messrs Mark Haycock and Steve Cooper are here to answer all of your woes, be they mechanical or spiritual. Every month we will be giving advice, as well as some general tips. Don't forget to send in your own tips too. 1982 Kawasaki GPz 1100 Q:Hello CMM, from Gabriola Island, Canada! This is my 198 Q 2 GPz1100 (see below). I purchased this bike with 14,000km from the original owner. She has always had fuel injection issues. Would the issue be the computer? I have purchased off of eBay four control units for the FI but none of these worked! When running on the original computer unit it runs fine for 15 minutes but then loads up and quits running and when…

Project Ducati 996 part 7 Ciao, bella! The light resto of the Ducati 996 is done! And the open road awaits! WORDS AND PHOTOS: JIM LINDSAY Whoopee! My Ducati 996 passed its MoT this morning and I’ve just taken it for its first ride. After nine months, it’s all done and I am experiencing that mixture of satisfaction and sadness that comes at the end of a successful project. The final leg started with collecting the bodywork from Paul Cowern at KAS Race Paint in Kettering, Northants. The finish was brilliant and, I reckon, good value at £992 including VAT. I had to ban house guests for a few weeks because the safest place to store all the carefully wrapped bits of ABS was on the spare bed. Not enough…

What to buy and how much to pay Unless you have some good mates stateside, it pays to buy a complete example. Scruffy and all there is infinitely better than tidy but missing stuff. It was never sold in Europe so any spares will, almost certainly, be on the other side of the pond. If you must buy an incomplete example factor in import duty, handling fees and VAT along with the now astronomical shipping cost most Americans seem obliged to charge for missing parts. That’s the bad news. The good news is that prices for used parts aren’t too salty. A pair of cylinder heads for £100 doesn’t sound too bad, likewise used mudguards at £40 a pop. Although not common by any means 350 GTOs do come up…

Archive Remember him this way WORDS: BERTIE SIMMONDS PHOTOS: BRIAN J NELSON Nicky Hayden really showed his promise aboard the American Honda RVT RC51. By this time of his career the youngster already had a lifetime of racing behind him, on the dirt tracks of America, before heading onto the Tarmac. He won the AMA Supersport championship in 1999 with his privately-run Honda CBR600 before being promoted into the Superbike class. He would run in both classes, winning his first race at Road America in 2000. From 2001 he concentrated solely on Superbikes and came third behind champion Mat Mladin and Eric Bostrom. By now Honda were keeping tabs on the youngster and he justified their faith by winning the AMA Superbike series on the Honda VTR in 2002, winning…

Nobby Clark I have just read an article in a magazine about a bloke called Nobby Clark who worked with Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood, Kenny Roberts, Jim Redman and so on. What I was wondering is, are there any books about this bloke as I would like to read about this man who apparently also spoke eight languages. Is there anything CMM could print about him? I guess maybe there has been stuff in Classic Racer but I don’t subscribe to that publication, CMM is my favourite though. I’d like to see more Japanese trail bikes from the 1980s in CMM as my real passion is off-road type bikes. Could CMM do that? I still love the mag though, I cannot wait each month for the DT 175 MX project,…

Chris Daniels Owner of The Motorcycle Restoration Company The donor bike, a 1977 Z1000A with a Z900 A4 engine was bought from BAT Motorcycles as a non-runner in need of repair or restoration etc. I spent some time on the bike getting it to a roadworthy point without tackling any cosmetic work as I had a plan to rebuild the bike to a specification that was in my head, which is pretty much where the bike is now apart from the colour. The hubs were aluminium and were to be vapour blasted, but there was a chromed pressed steel spoke flange on the rear that was rusty and could not be left as it was. No one in the Zed community knew how to get it off. The MRC deduced…

READER’S RIDE Cliff and Doris a love story! It’s the age old story… boy meets bike, boy rides bike to Wales. WORDS: CLIFF WILLIAMS, BERTIE SIMMONDS PHOTOS: CLIFF WILLIAMS, MORTONS ARCHIVE Following an evening in the company of the esteemed editor of this publication, I found I was left with two things. First off, I had a dreadful hangover that took days to clear and the second was the realisation that I had made a commitment to submit an article on old Doris: my Triumph Speed Triple 955i, which has just attained classic status. Unsure how to go about this, I decided it may be enjoyable to take Doris on a little road trip through Wales, while telling you a little about our many years together. I bought her (all…

RETRO REBOOT Honda CB900FX If Honda made a big naked streetbike that could handle corners, we’d hope it’d look a little like this. WORDS AND IMAGES: KAR LEE The term ‘UJM’ was coined in the mid-70s to describe your typical standard road-going motorcycle. Short for Universal Japanese Motorcycle, it was a label to describe the trend of predictable machinery made by the big four Japanese companies. The template for a UJM would consist of a four-cylinder motor, a riding position you could take home to meet gran, a tubular cradle frame, twin shocks and a front disc brake. They were bikes that the Japanese could churn out and Honda arguably built the best UJM of the era in the CB series with the twin-cam 750F and 900F. The success of…

Project Fast Berk part 3 Brake expectations! What is lurking under the skin of a Yamaha twostroke twin that’s sat on its backside for five years? WORDS AND PHOTOS: CHARLIE OAKMAN Two issues ago I introduced my intention to build a TZR race bike into CMM from what was a rolling frame and box of bits and pieces we had here in CMM’s sister title Fast Bikes magazine’s workshop. Not only am I to build a bike, but then take my orange jacket to at least one round of this year’s Yamaha Past Masters Racing Series which is dedicated to Yamaha’s legendary two-stroke parallel twins of the 1980s including the RD250LC, RD350LC, RD 350YPVS, TDR 250s and of course this bike, the TZR250. No small challenge for me, especially as…

1 2 3 IGNITION! Fixed ignition timing is old hat; programmable ignition gets the best out of your sparks. If you look at any older, four-stroke, motorcycle (post Edwardian period) chances are it’ll have a little stubby lever somewhere on the bars connected to a Bowden cable. Follow the cable and you should end up at some form of HT dissemination system, either a distributor or magneto. The lever and cable move one component relative to another thereby facilitating a level of variable timing. Initially installed on bikes to assist easier starting, the system also allowed optimal firing points, dependant on engine speed and load. In the name of progress and in a bid to make bikes a little more idiot proof advance/retard controls rapidly moved to an automatic system…

Project Yamaha DT175 MX part 10 Curing the carb! Our Ralph has some things to say about sorting the DT’s fuelling system. WORDS AND PHOTOS: RALPH FERRAND We’re nearly finished with the little DT… but first we need to sort the bike’s Mikuni carburettor. As always, the first job was to carefully disassemble it into as many component parts as possible. I then scrubbed all the parts as clean as I could get them with a toothbrush (Asda Value ones are great for this) and brake cleaner. Then I loaded all the component parts into the basket of the ultrasonic cleaner and gave them a good half hour soaking and being buzzed by the ultrasonic magic bit. I use Mykal fluid which is added to water at a ratio of…

BUYER’S GUIDE BRIDGESTONE GTR350 It’s street scrambler heaven this month with one of the rarest of the breed! WORDS: STEVE COOPER PHOTOS: GARY CHAPMAN You always hear journos talking about ‘The Big Four’ Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha, but after the Second World War, there were scores of Japanese firms turning out motorcycles. As the 1960s dawned there was a period of profound acquisitions, mergers and takeovers which saw many previously strong brands absorbed within that quartet of big names. As the 60s came to an end only Bridgestone remained resolutely producing stunning motorcycles which challenged the very best quality of their much larger rivals. For many, Bridgestone’s finest hour came circa 1967 with the arrival of two new twin-cylinder ranges in 175 and 350cc. The company habitually majored in…

Quik Spin 2003 HONDA CB1300 It’s another jaunt down (recent) memory lane for our corpulent editor. But maybe this time,he has a point? WORDS: BERTIE SIMMONDS PHOTOS: MORTONS ARCHIVE/JOE DICK Right, it’s time for me to get my apologies/ excuses out of the way very early doors. Firstly, you’ll see that this bike really is ‘only’ 14 years old. It’s not quite in that 15-year VJMC ruling that we here at CMM try to stick to. For that I apologise. But look at it! It’s a real UJM, a universal Japanese motorcycle with pure, clean lines and naked as the day it was born (well, rolled off the production line). It’s what we would term a ‘coming classic’, something we feature now and again so that you can think ahead…

READER’S SPECIAL HAILWOOD HERO! This Aussie built custom CBX6 was inspired by the Mike Hailwood RC174… WORDS: JEFF WARE, KRIS HODGSON PHOTOS: PETER PAP Honda’s CBX was a game changer in its time, boasting in excess of 100hp when first introduced, with the unusual characteristic of being a six-cylinder. It packed some real punch with DOHC, four-valves per cylinder and six carbs. Okay, it may not have been the first or the last six-cylinder motorcycle but the CBX remains to this day one of the most instantly recognisable classics. So what happens when you take old-school cool and give it a touch of new life? Well, that’s the question Vaughan Ryan has answered in this epic build, where the focus has been on creating a motorcycle that is as much…

The Triumph Speed Triple: buying a genuine cool classic Old Clifton Suave’s 2002-model Speed Triple is a bona fide classic as are many of the Speed Triple family: just look at the prices they command. The first models were the modular 885cc (and a rare 750cc) Speed Triple, which first saw light of day in 1994. This ‘T309’ model of Speed Triple took part in a popular Speed Triple Challenge and the last of this first model trundled off the production lines in 1996. Colours were simple and striking: yellow or a very cool black. Weight was 209 kilos and power was just under 100bhp. Early models had Nissin on the calipers, while later ones had ‘Triumph’ on them, even if they were the Nissins. Updates were also made to…

RG masterclass! If you want to know how to strip, tune and rebuild an RG400 or 500 (and big bore the bugger) there’s only one man to turn to… WORDS AND PHOTOS: SIR STANLEY STEPHENS ere’s the latest in my series of masterclasses on particular legendary two-stroke motors. This month it’s the Suzuki RG400/500. Now, over the last eight years I’ve written a fair few features about these motors, on the strip and rebuild as well as on tuning, big-boring and one on the disc-valves used by the RG family of engines: I’ve pulled these stories together and updated them where and when necessary to give you all the cumulative knowledge of my many years of working on the Suzuki square-four two-stroke. This month is part one, where we deal…

Giblets, rubber & gizmos Please tell us, why’d you take a perfectly good bike apart, Scoop? Project Yamaha RD350 part 8 The RD350 has proved to be a hugely enjoyable bike for which I am eternally thankful. I state what many may think is blindingly obvious simply because there are some bikes that you fettle, repair and nurture for ages only to find on that very first ride it just doesn’t do it for you. It simply doesn’t float your boat, flick your switches, move to your groove or rock your world. Fortunately in this instance at least nostalgia is exactly what it used to be. The Yamaha has proven to be flickable around country lanes, more than adequate on fast A-roads and a pleasure to ride in urban areas……

Project Honda CB400 Four Part 3 Stopping power! Time to get some anchors sorted with this 400 Four! WORDS AND PHOTOS: RALPH FERRAND Last month I sorted the leaky old forks on the baby four and they now soak up the bumps just as they should, rather than dribbling down their own legs, like an incontinent pensioner. The iffy stoppers were next on my hit list. After a quick investigation, with my brake fluid tester, I ascertained that there was enough water in the hydraulic fluid to fill a reservoir! The very affordable Laser brake fluid tester saves a lot of ambiguity about the condition of brake blood! Next job was to attach my compressedair driven version of the trusty MityVac to the bleed nipple on the caliper, to suck…

BIKE BUYER Make or Break REVISITED! What’s happened over the last five years to bike prices? Scott Redmond reprises his role as judge, jury and executioner to a range of bikes he used to ‘make or break’. WORDS AND PHOTOS: SCOTT REDMOND It’s funny how things change over the course of just five or so years. When I started the regular ‘Make or Break’ column, showcasing what I’d bought, why and what I was planning to do with it, it reflected the then-current state of the market. And how it’s changed: or not. It’s interesting now to look back on what I bought, for how much and what these bikes would go for now. Pull up a jerry can, let’s adjust those rose-tinted goggles and chew the motorcycle-buying fat. This…