Wee Monster Work

Had the Wee Monster up on the workbench for the last few weeks... need to find that lost horsepower...

First time I am ever working on a motor-sickle engine proper.Thought I'd start my initiation with the simple 2 valve Desmo heads.

Belts off... not too difficult...

Heads off. Loss of compression on front cylinder. Leaky valve. Must have been knicked by a stone she swallowed in the gravel trap back in April.

Gave the valve a spin... thought it was bent. Sourced a complete 620 head to rob the valves off it. Turns out the valve wasn't bent - it was just my crap drill-press. Oh well... now got a complete spare head.

The world of Desmodronics...

Lapping in the valves... that's all that was needed.

With only 59bhp (before the gravel trip), we are a bit below the average for the class. Should be in the low 60s - 65bhp is the class maximum. Need more power! Took the barrels off and removed the base gasket... this'll give me 0.4mm more compression... should bump it up from 10.5:1 to around 11:1... and give an extra horse or two.

Now... to get it all back together again...

Classic TT Onboard

Finally managed to get my Classic TT onboard footage uploaded...


...and part 2.

Travis Newbold - a legend!

Newbold's Motorbike Shop from Waylon Trostel on Vimeo.

Porsche Guy

This guy is pretty cool...

URBAN OUTLAW - THE MOVIE from Tamir Moscovici on Vimeo.

Christmas is Early!

I've been looking out for new gloves for a few years now. Found these at a knock-down price from a bloke in Australia - gotta love eBay! Power-rangers are go!

 

I love my old Nankai gloves... but been racing in them for 8 years now. They've been down the track many times, kept my little handies safe and I've only had them repaired once in that time. Faithful servants. They will now be rested in the kit bag as the 'backup' gloves.

 

 

Great Curves

Just love the way the seat curves up to meet the tank ;-)

 

Thank Café Racer Culture for some sweet pics...

 

Harley-Davidson 883 by TJ Moto

Here's a sweet Harley by Tushar Jaitly, of TJ Moto based out of Delhi, India.

 

Thanks for the link Silodrome.

News from Africa

Some news from my brother Nic in South Africa...

Off to visit some peeps in Graskop on Saturday. The St4 did not get the nod for the job, with intermittent fault ,no chancing it.
Might have worked fine, might have not. Confidence in the machine is important.
So went on the st2. Super little motorcycle.

So I ride some other routes go through some road works for about 15k's. slow, mud sand, all the stuff you do not like to ride a Duke over.
Anyhow, all good, road opens up, open up. Back end don't feel good, feel again. No good.
Pull over.
Sheeeet.
Flat.
Rear.
Back road somewhere.
Hmm.
Bag off bike on stand. No wurries. Out with the kit.
OOOh!, on inspection there appears to be a couple of possibilities.
Send the Auger mujob into one, and give it a clean. Dumbass shitty Chinese products. Rubber cement tube has about 1 10th of a gram of cement in it.
Chinese, you don't want that.
No wurries, we don't need that. plug in. 1x CO2 bomb, 1 x can tyre weld. Pffffffffffffffsssssssssssst.
Spin tyre. Pfffsssssffffsssstffffsssst. nuther hole.
Quick.
Auger.
Plug.
Rest of tyre weld.
Sooper.
Wait 5 minutes. Check pressure. all good.
PAck up . Ride on.

Decision.
Back home or onward. there was time.
No, rather back home. I do not have total trust in these things.
Besides, I had used all the repair kit up.
So back home it was. 160 k's. in the car, and back .

All good.
It was pissin doon, and all misty, so being in a car was great.

yeah! tyre repair kit lives under seat.
Yea never know.

Flattrack Practice

Yesterday, Pete Boast held a practice day at Leicester Speedway. I had committed to going, but really wasn't up for it on the day. Not wanting to let anyone down, I managed to reluctantly drag my kit into the van, and loaded the flattracker. As I was man-handling it in, I felt a muscle in my back go "poing!". Fuck, that hurt!
 

 

I shovelled some pain-killers in my mouth and headed to my 'local' track. Overnight rain left the track really soggy - not the conditions I like. I just watched the first few sessions glumly. Not up for it. Not up for getting my bike and kit covered in shale. Being surrounded with Paaarp-paaaarping bikes and a drying track and my mood slowly changed. I popped another pain-killer in and got my kit on.

First session I is was super slow. It started to come to me by the second session and actually started to enjoy the third session. I just went round and round and round. I wanted Pete to ride my bike and give some feedback. I have never ridden another flattracker.. so have no idea if my bike is good or bad.

It was a good turnout with 2 sessions being run.

Thanks Mark Hall for the pic.

Unfortunately, Pete didn't get a chance to try out the bike but gave me a great tip on my handle-bar position. I swung them forward about 2 inches... much easier getting into corners (which is where I struggle). I found the throttle control a bit awkward with the bars that far forward, but I got used to it. By the end of my third session, my back was killing me. So I quit while ahead.

Some of the usual suspects were there...

Thanks Mark Hall for the pic.

 

 Young Oliver Brindley was flying... passed me a few times.

Thanks Mark Hall for the pic.

It was a good day on the clay and a great track - I hope we get to race there next year. Hopefully I'll get to see the doc today about my back - still fuckin hurts. Also just realised I didn't do a post on the last round of the DTRA National Flattrack Champs... I'll get onto that soon.

Sweet DD

A sweet looking Desmo Due-like racer build by the panigaleracingteam. Loads more pics on the build, on track and vids in their blog...

Thanks Café Racer Culture blog... for the link!

Conservatories...

... can be useful.

Autumn arrived this week to end the best summer weather in many years. Making space on the workbench for the winter projects. Need to make an early start on next seasons preparations - starting off with finding those lost 10bhp on both the Wee Monster and the Suzuki SV...

Fame!

This month's edition of Practical Sportsbikes... never had my name and pic in a magazine before...

Keeping good company... on the same page as Anstey, Dunlop, Mercer, a few others and some chap named McGuiness.
:-)