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LAVEERDA CHOTT Buyer’s Guide

SUZUKI TL1000R

Retro Spective

WEISE AIRFLOW GLOVES, BRIDG GESTONE

CHA

ARE KIT AN ND TAMIYA KITS!

BOIL!

!

WIN

■ Suzuki GT1000

Kettle fourcylinder!

APRILIA TUONO

■ Noale’s naked V-twin 20 years on!

FIVE DECADES OF MODERN CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS INCLUDING:

TOOL OF THE MONTH: ALUMINIUM REPAIR. 90s: APRILIA RSV1000 MILLE, SUZUKI TL1000R. 70s: YAMAHA RD350, SUZUKI TR750, KAWASAKI Z900, YAMAHA TX750. Also: Q&A: YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND YOUR BIKES AND MEMORIES!

July 2021 Issue 405 Publisher: Tim Hartley, thartley@mortons.co.uk Publishing Director: Dan Savage, asavage@mortons.co.uk Designer: Michael Baumber, Tracey Markham Production Editor: Mike Cowton Group Advertising Manager: Sue Keily Divisional Advertising Manager: Thomas Lee tlee@mortons.co.uk Tel: 01507 529412 Advertising: Simon Meyer SMeyer@mortons.co.uk Tel: 01507 529310 Sales and Distribution Manager: Carl Smith Marketing Manager: Charlotte Park Commercial Director: Nigel Hole Editorial address: CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS MAGAZINE, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR Website: www.classicmechanics.com General enquiries and back issues: Tel: 01507 529529 24 hour answer phone help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk Archivist: Jane Skayman jskayman@mortons.co.uk, 01507 529423 Subscription: Full subscription rates (but see page 94 for offer): (12 months 12 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £52.80. Export rates are also available – see page 94 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. Customer services: Tel: 01507 529529 Lines are open: Monday-Friday 8.30am-5pm Distribution: Marketforce UK Ltd, 3rd Floor, 161 Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP Tel: 0330 390 6555 Subscription agents: CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS MAGAZINE, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR Printed: William Gibbons & Sons, Wolverhampton Published date: CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS MAGAZINE is published on the third Wednesday of every month Next issue: July 21, 2021 Advertising deadline: July 02, 2021 © Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISSN 0959-0900 CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS magazine takes all responsible steps to ensure advice and technical tips are written by experienced and competent people. We also advise readers to seek further professional advice if they are unsure at any time. Anything technical written by the editor is exempt – he’s rubbish with spanners.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND? Where have all the cheap motorcycles gone? That’s the question I’m asking myself as I dive into the search for ‘another’ project, or regular ride.

With £3000 burning a hole in my pocket, you’d think I’d have my pick of something suitable for CMM and the VJMC’s ’15 year or older’ rule: sure, I can still get a smattering of Yamahas such as old EXUPs and some ZX-6R/7R Ninjas and a few Honda VFRs, but that’s about it.

Five or six years ago the world was my oyster: I snaffled up a CBR900RR-V FireBlade for under £2k and the same for a Suzuki GSX-R750 W-T SRAD for the same. Sold them for a few quid more a few years later…

So what do I want for £3k? Well, a Kawasaki ZRX1200R would be nice – but no chance to find a decent one for that. Have you seen the prices recently? Same goes for most UJM naked muscle bikes, sportsbikes too – and adventure bikes.

What’s done this to prices then? Is it some Brexit/ Covid thing? Cap hpi predict that we will continue to see strong used bike prices in the short to medium

Bruce Wilson

Malc Shaw

Always on it!

CMM Returner

Boxing clever!

This month Scoop serves up a number of delights: firstly, a Buyer’s Guide on the Laverda Chott and also the latest (okay, somewhat delayed) instalment of his Yamaha RD350 two-stroke. She’s a real beauty!

Fast Bikes editor and former CMM staffer Bruce is currently up to his ears in modern sportsbikes for his magazine’s yearly sportsbike test. But he’s still had time to send in part four of his Aprilia Mille project.

It’s lucky 13 for Malc this month as he celebrates 13 months in the contributor’s chair and builds a box for his fast-coming-on classic, the Suzuki TR750.

Mark is marvellous this month, entering into the inner workings of his Yamaha TX750, he also gives us a Q&A special treat when he takes a reader’s advice on doing a bit of ‘Uri Geller’ metalworking!

Ralph Ferrand Kwak attack!

Why not Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month?

www.twitter.com/cmmmag

Steve Cooper

Q&A King!

Having trouble finding a copy of this magazine?

Editor BSimmonds@Mortons.co.uk

www.facebook.com/ClassicMechanics/

Mark Haycock

Independent publisher since 1885

term? Reasons are many. People seem to want to avoid public transport, so learner bikes are in big demand, as are scooters for commuting, and the knockon is post-test bikes are wanted too. Sounds like dealers will be competing for good stock, too. Sports and customs from the 1980s and 1990s also are increasing in prices, as well as machines from the early noughties. Let’s see what happens…

In this issue we’ve got a mixed bag: two Suzuki specials (one a legendary two-stroke, one with a legendary name and a turbo attached) and a classic ride on Aprilia’s Tuono… a version of which I’ve just bought with my £3k! Well, it seemed rude not to…

Once more, if you like what you see in CMM, simply scan that weird box thing on the ‘Next Month’ page or go to: https://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/ issue/preorder.

With his ‘purple pain’ Kawasaki H2C just a smelly memory, our Ralph can do what he does best: spin those spanners on a good ol’ four-stroke Zed! With a box of bits pretending to be a Z900, he gets started!

Allen Millyard Super six man!

Allen is full-on and nearing the end of the second Super Six-Cylinder Kawasaki Zed. This issue he’s got the pipes back (beautiful) and gets her started – eventually.

Alan Dowds John Nutting

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH!

There’s only one man who can ride a very special Suzuki GT750 Kettle – and that’s Nutters! He heard of a machine sporting a fourth cylinder, making the famous triple into a 1000cc four-cylinder two-stroke. It’s timely, with July proving to be the month when The Kettle Club will be serving up days of entertainment for their 25 (+1) anniversary gig, which also proves to be the 5th0 (+1) birthday of the ol’ Water Buffalo itself. Should be fun!

Pip Higham Commute scoots!

Pip has been busy for sister title Classic Racer this month (check out his piece there about Yoshimura), but he’s still managed to make us giggle with this month’s Pip tale about big men on commuter machines… sounds weird!

Turbo Time!

Turbo time indeed: not time for his ZRX turbo yet (how long’s it been now Al?), but instead he’s been sent off to ride Big CC’s Suzuki Katana Turbo – as if 150bhp on a retro isn’t enough?

Matt Cain CMM reader special Matt wanted to make a GSX-R special and went above and beyond to buy the donor bike – he wasn’t sure he’d make it out alive! But the bike has – as has he.

Check it out on page 24.

Simon Meyer Splendid Ad Person Simon is the main man to call when you need an advert in the hallowed pages of CMM. We love our advertisers and live for them: so, let us know if you want to be seen in our feature pages too!

www.classicmechanics.com / 3

60

Contents

Q&A Mark Haycock with two pages of tips! Win a Venhill £50 voucher!

54

ALLEN MILLYARD Chromed pipes and starting the six this month!

66

TOOL OF THE MONTH Mending metal…

68

SUZUKI TR750 Malc Shaw is sorting the bikini fairing and building a box!

68

LAVERDA CHOTT Steve Cooper checks out this lovely Lav trailie…

86

APRILIA RSV1000 MILLE

06

ARCHIVE

08

CMM STUFF

12

NEWS

18

FEEDBACK

20

SHOW US YOURS

24

BIKE OF THE YEAR

Bruce Wilson returns with part four of his Noale V-twin.

090 KAWASAKI Z900 Ralph Ferrand is on part one of this stocker restoration.

96

YAMAHA TX750 Mark Haycock gets into the motor of this twin.

100 YAMAHA RD350 Scoop may have finished his twin stroker.

30

Mick Hemmings: Brit bike legend!

New kit, tools and tyres and stuff.

News and happenings for July 2021!

WIN a Bridgestone charger for our Star Letter!

WIN S-DOC chain cleaner!

Win a Tamiya kit for ‘The Way We Were!’

Another reader and another special restoration/special for the Bridgestone competition!

APRILIA TUONO

38

SUZUKI KATANA TURBO

46

SUZUKI GT1000

When 150bhp just isn’t enough…

John Nutting rides a FOUR cylinder Kettle!

56

WITHOUT WHOM

58

SUZUKI TL1000R

94

SUBSCRIBE!

Bob Spendlove paints perfect classic bikes.

Are we seeing a used-price bounce-back for this twin?

Save cash with our special offer subscriptions!

105 NEXT MONTH

Check out what’s in the packed August 2021 issue.

106 PIP HIGHAM

Big men on small scoots: another weird tale!

Bertie Simmonds gets naked. Pass the sick bag…

www.classicmechanics.com / 5

Best of British!

6 / classic motorcycle mechanics

cmm

News

Kettle Club celebrates 25 years!

Well, okay, more like 26 years (1995-2021) but with all that happened (or didn’t) in 2020, the Kettle Club is looking forward to their ‘25+1’ anniversary this year.

With this in mind, they plan to celebrate big time at their Blue Haze Rally, at The Fire Service College, Moreton-inMarsh, Gloucestershire over July 14-19 – that’s six days of three-cylinder (or four, see page 46) two-stroke fun!

Skid Brown, membership secretary, explains: “Like many organisations and events hit by the pandemic last year, the club was cruelly robbed of the chance to celebrate 25 years of the club and 50 years of the GT750 itself. The scene is set this year for the double celebration at our Blue Haze Rally. Early take-up of tickets

seems to show this could be the biggest event in our history and to truly mark the occasion we hope to set a new world record by assembling the largest gathering of GT750s ever on the Saturday afternoon!”

The origins of the Kettle Club stem from the late 1980s when the idea of forming a singletype club devoted to the iconic

GT750 was first mooted but it was not until the mid-1990s, when an amalgamation of devotees from the SOC and the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club (VJMC), got together and decided to make a go of it. In August 1995 a group of 16 enthusiasts pitched up at a site in Standlake, Oxfordshire. By the end of that weekend, the Kettle Club UK had been formed – and a legend, for these were ‘The Standlake Few!’. Today the club has more than 800 members worldwide.

For more information go to: www.thekettleclub.com

TROY STORY! Amazing to think it is 20 years since Troy Bayliss first won a world title for Ducati in World Superbike.

To celebrate, the Ducati Museum has a new exhibition entitled Troy Story: The Legend of a Champion. It was way back in 2000 that Bayliss – still pretty much unknown – was drafted into the WSB squad to replace the injured and later retiring Carl Fogarty. In 2001 – his first full season – he took his first of three WSB titles, taking 15 podiums along the way. The machines he used in his time in WSB included the Ducati 996 and 998R, the 999 and 1098R factory

machines, and all are present in the exhibition.

For more go to: www.ducati.com/ww/en/borgopanigale-experience

Weise

Airflow Plus Gloves TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING THIS GREAT PRIZE...

1. Go to www.classicmechanics.com 2. Fill in your details

3. Press enter 4. Sit back, relax and wait

We’ve teamed up with our friends at Weise to offer you the chance to win a pair of Weise Airflow Plus gloves worth £39.99. They feature full grain leather palm, with stretch mesh on the back of the hand and TPU knuckle reinforcement. Find out more on a range of bike clothing at thekeycollection.co.uk Competition closes: 22/07/2021. Good luck! There are no cash alternatives available. The winner will be the first name drawn at random. Terms and Conditions apply. To view the privacy policy of MMG Ltd (publisher of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics) please visit www.mortons.co.uk/privacy

12 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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cmm

Stuff

The latest riding kit, top toools, tyres, retro clothing and moore TUCANO URBANO SPENCER JACKET The new SPENCER jacket from Tucano Urbano is classic, simple and d easily adaptable to life both on and off the bike, but it’s tough and protective, too!

Class A-CE approved for protection against abrasion and impact without limiting riding ability, the SPENCER jacket has soft shoulder and elbow protection included as standard, as well as a pocket for a back protector. The outer shell is made from a mixed nylon/ cotton Ripstop material which is water-resistant and has a wax effect. You’ve also got a polyester mesh lining for added breathability. Oh, and you’ll never forget a face mask again thanks to the small pocket inside the collar that holds a microfibre face mask which is included. Available in Dark Blue, sizes S-4XL.

Price £159 99 £159.99

www.tucanourbano.com

ARAI PROFILE-V FLAG

From £379.999

The Profile-V is stylish and has a strong outer shell as well as a one-piece multi-density EPS inner liner to absorb, and spread impact energy. It’s designed around the Variable Axis System (VAS) for a smoother shape and it is equipped with dual intake vents, brow vents and a three-way chin vent plus five exhausts.

The VAS-V MAX vision visor is Pinlock ready and uses an F1-derived latch mechanism; the semi-removable interior features Facial Contour System (FCS) and speaker pockets. You can choose from solid colours (£379.99) or UK/Japan ‘Flag’ versions for £459.99. whyarai.co.uk/bike-locator

€25

HONDA CBX1000 T-SHIRT That orange clock-set from the Honda CBX1000 was unmistakable – and iconic. So, if you like that sexy six-cylinder motorcycle it’s time to put yer money where your moobs are: buy this T-shirt! The odometer indicates the cubic capacity of the CBX at 1047, the daily mileage at six means six cylinders: a clear reference to the motorcycle that was this T-shirt’s inspiration. Comes in black, sizes S-3XL. www.CBX1000.usk

WEMOTO YAMAHA FAZER SERVICE KIT

Great idea this, to bundle everything you need to service your machine – in this case, the doughty Yamaha FZS600 Fazer (1998-2003, y’know the good model before they used the R6 motor!). In the kit you’ll get a Hiflo air-filter, oil-filter, fuel-filter, NGK spark plugs, a sump plug washer, engine oil, latex gloves and a reusable Wemoto bag and other freebies! www.wemoto.com

8 / classic motorcycle mechanics

£61.46

Post to Mechanics, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ m or email your pictures to editorial@classicmechanics.com

WIN

KIT

Every month, we’re giving away a Bridgestone Oxford Products Oximiser 3X to the winner of our Star Letter! No cash alternatives, before you ask! Simply get in touch by sending emails to: letters@ classicmechanics.com or direct to the editor at BSimmonds@Mortons.co.uk or post your letters to the normal address, giving contact details in case you’re the lucky winner.

**Prize winner****** Back in the fold!

Harleys please!

Great mag, well worth subscribing for decent and helpful journalism. I run and maintain a variety of Japanese, British and American bikes and enjoy all the articles, especially the tool features and restorations. However, the main reason for writing is about Harley-Davidson. I note your reference to this great marque in the feedback section of the last two issues.

There are many of us in the UK who ride and maintain classic Harleys, so why are they not included in the mag?

The HDRCGB (Harley Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain) dates back to the 1940s and has over 2000 members, many of whom are vintage enthusiasts who would love to see Harleys included in the mag and, by the way, we are not all old codgers! There are plenty of young riders who are turning to the joys of classic ownership. Surely it makes sense to expand your readership to include Harley enthusiasts?

Rod Naib

Bertie says: “OK, OK! Let it not be said we don’t listen.

Check out the next couple of issues, Rod! And – if we carry the features, maybe some of you will subscribe?”

18 / classic motorcycle mechanics

I have been working in the Middle East for the past five years and am about to move back to the UK later this year. Part of planning my retirement was searching for a classic bike that I wanted, which ended up being a 1976 Honda CB750/4, which lead me back to subscribing to CMM again, and I found the Parts Finder last month and also the restoration guide! All perfect timing for me and good to be able to immerse myself again in this world, although I’m not looking forward to the cold and rain. I need to make sure my garage will be well insulated!

I think David Silver Spares may become my best friend – or maybe the other way round!

Anyway it is fun sourcing all the parts and reading the valuable articles on ‘how to’!

Martin Holt

Perfect Pip! Well, Pip really did it for me in the June issue. A wonderful dissertation on the marvels of Gunk and it’s so satisfactory reception by the nasal organ, and even managed to introduce the always quotable Professor Stanley Unwin.

Pip can still get it up...

Martin is back in the game!

Bertie says: “David Silver and his team will help you no-end Martin! They are a top team! As to help, have a Bridgestone Oximiser charger.”

What a wordsmith and let’s give him credit, he sure could shoe it back in the day!

And the V-Max is always a good way to keep your bank balance down!

Ray Smith

Bertie says: “Pip does indeed still spin it up reet good, Ray!”

Wreck-it Ralph!

Wrec W ap It was a great March issue. My fave f bit was The Good Old Days, D especially Ralph Ferrand’s F views, top man! He is spot on about the right-on, liberal do-gooders claiming the moral m high ground. Ralph has gone g up in my estimation!

John Vassallo

Bertie says: “Glad you lliked Ralph’s rants… perhaps a column of them, from next i issue?”

cmm

Tested

Riding kit worn, tools twirled & tyres turned RST ISLE OF MAN TT GRANDSTAND LEATHER 1PC SUIT At my age, the intention never was to try and ride like a TT racer, but merely to wear a one-piece suit that offered excellent protection and day-long comfort… and I found it in this offering from RST. What particularly drew me to the suit was the fact that it offered a less aggressive stance than RST’s TracTech Evo suit (I recently sold mine), thereby allowing the wearer to adopt a more upright stance.

The suit is CE Certified to Level A, and comes with CE Level 1 back protector, shoulder, elbow and knee armour, plus pocket only hip armour and TPU shoulder cups. You’ve also got double layer cowhide on your rump!

Comfort is important to me, so the soft Neoprene race collar and cuffs, and a

fixed comfort inner mesh lining allow for a welcoming flow of air within the suit, definitely improving the comfort factor – especially on hot days.

Other features include two inner pockets and the MAX central zipper, along with a Velcro fastener at the suit collar to keep the zip in place and away from the bike’s tank when riding.

This is a superb one-piece suit which oozes quality and with a less ‘aggressive’ fit than some one-piece leathers, so it’s comfy on and off the bike. The suit is available in black or black/white, in sizes M-5XL/40-54/Euro 50-64.

£449.99

Mike Cowton www.rst-moto.com

ANLAS NR-7 TYRES With many of the major brands now walking away from classic tyres for tiddlers there don’t seem to be many options other than the odd unknown brand of dubious quality! Fortunately Anlas has stepped up to the plate.

As well as producing their own two-wheel range, their tyres have a growing reputation on the Continent thanks to their outstanding value and quality.

I’ve had a pair on my Yamaha YL1 for two years now and they’ve proved to be excellent in all weathers. With Anlas now offering bike tyres for almost any application they are genuinely well worth considering as an alternative to the more expensive brands.

Steve Cooper www.anlas-tyres.co.uk, www.cambriantyres.co.uk

£Various 10 / classic motorcycle mechanics

SEALEY PILLAR DRILL Whooping great pillar drills are fine and dandy but how many of us ever really need a 750mm high bench-mounted example or a 1500mm floor standing one? With bench space at a premium, Sealey’s SDM30 is perfect for general day-to-day use and has enough power for virtually all bike-related jobs. Unless you’re taking on professional level work it may very well be the ideal piece of kit. Pitched precisely at the hobby end of the market, it’s arguably a seriously good fit for most of us shed-dwelling fettlers.

£144.95

Steve Cooper www.sealey.co.uk

www.classicmechanics.com / 11

cmm

News

Kettle Club celebrates 25 years!

Well, okay, more like 26 years (1995-2021) but with all that happened (or didn’t) in 2020, the Kettle Club is looking forward to their ‘25+1’ anniversary this year.

With this in mind, they plan to celebrate big time at their Blue Haze Rally, at The Fire Service College, Moreton-inMarsh, Gloucestershire over July 14-19 – that’s six days of three-cylinder (or four, see page 46) two-stroke fun!

Skid Brown, membership secretary, explains: “Like many organisations and events hit by the pandemic last year, the club was cruelly robbed of the chance to celebrate 25 years of the club and 50 years of the GT750 itself. The scene is set this year for the double celebration at our Blue Haze Rally. Early take-up of tickets

seems to show this could be the biggest event in our history and to truly mark the occasion we hope to set a new world record by assembling the largest gathering of GT750s ever on the Saturday afternoon!”

The origins of the Kettle Club stem from the late 1980s when the idea of forming a singletype club devoted to the iconic

GT750 was first mooted but it was not until the mid-1990s, when an amalgamation of devotees from the SOC and the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club (VJMC), got together and decided to make a go of it. In August 1995 a group of 16 enthusiasts pitched up at a site in Standlake, Oxfordshire. By the end of that weekend, the Kettle Club UK had been formed – and a legend, for these were ‘The Standlake Few!’. Today the club has more than 800 members worldwide.

For more information go to: www.thekettleclub.com

TROY STORY! Amazing to think it is 20 years since Troy Bayliss first won a world title for Ducati in World Superbike.

To celebrate, the Ducati Museum has a new exhibition entitled Troy Story: The Legend of a Champion. It was way back in 2000 that Bayliss – still pretty much unknown – was drafted into the WSB squad to replace the injured and later retiring Carl Fogarty. In 2001 – his first full season – he took his first of three WSB titles, taking 15 podiums along the way. The machines he used in his time in WSB included the Ducati 996 and 998R, the 999 and 1098R factory

machines, and all are present in the exhibition.

For more go to: www.ducati.com/ww/en/borgopanigale-experience

Weise

Airflow Plus Gloves TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING THIS GREAT PRIZE...

1. Go to www.classicmechanics.com 2. Fill in your details

3. Press enter 4. Sit back, relax and wait

We’ve teamed up with our friends at Weise to offer you the chance to win a pair of Weise Airflow Plus gloves worth £39.99. They feature full grain leather palm, with stretch mesh on the back of the hand and TPU knuckle reinforcement. Find out more on a range of bike clothing at thekeycollection.co.uk Competition closes: 22/07/2021. Good luck! There are no cash alternatives available. The winner will be the first name drawn at random. Terms and Conditions apply. To view the privacy policy of MMG Ltd (publisher of Classic Motorcycle Mechanics) please visit www.mortons.co.uk/privacy

12 / classic motorcycle mechanics

W IN

www.classicmechanics.com / 13

cmm

News

PR ‘VISION!’ We often get press releases here at CMM but this one kinda baffles us.

From the PR company of Uswitch.com comes a league table of ‘endangered motorcycles’, as in two-wheelers that have seen their numbers drop the most in the last 25 years.

See the list below, but… well, it seems most are scooters, some are variations of Honda’s Vision scoot, with the number one being the Honda SA50J Vision, with most of the others being high-selling Honda tiddlers.

These are the sort of machines that gets used, abused and then die, either in someone’s back garden or a field somewhere. Shame to see the MTX50 down to just two examples in the UK! What do you think? Here’s the list in full.

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Model Honda SA50J Honda NE50T Honda NB50M Honda NH125MD Honda MTX50S Honda MTF50S Honda SA50M Honda NT50F Bajaj KB 100 Honda NE50M

2020 31 1 22 4 2 2 11 3 1 90

1995 5,272 164 3,105 518 237 224 1,181 306 91 7,825

Decrease -99.41% -99.39% -99.29% -99.23% -99.16% -99.11% -99.07% -99.02% -98.90% -98.85%

You can view the research in full here: https://www.uswitch.com/car-insurance/ guides/endangered-cars-bikes/ 14 / classic motorcycle mechanics

The way

we were… back in the day u yo of s ap sn c lgi sta no ur yo us Send e at bsimmonds@ m to nd se er th Ei ! ed ste ur yo th wi cebook page. C’mon! mortons.co.uk or via our vibrant Fa Andy Turner says: “It’s been great to read the magazine during the last year to help remind me of brighter things! The January 2021 issue threw up a surprise too as Dean Welburn’s mono-shocked CB500/4 was later owned by me in the early 1990s!

As a poor student in Manchester I graduated from a CM125 to my first big bike, the 500/4, bought from a shop in Worsley. I couldn’t quite stretch to the £750 they wanted for a 750/4 so it had to be the 500.

The dealer happily off-loaded a charging fault on to me. “The battery is just a bit flat mate,” but once that was sorted it was a great bike and regularly took me over the hills from Manchester to Hull in all weathers. In fact, the biggest problem was trying to work out which spares I needed as nothing on the bike was standard!

(www.hobbyco.net) which We've teamed up with The Hobby Company the UK to give our favourite in kits cycle motor c distributes Tamiya plasti in miniature. So, send in cycles motor ing restoration one of its amaz the chance to indulge in a your pictures of your bikes and you could win mber to send your name Reme own. your of ation restor cycle motor miniature to post the kit. where know we so ission subm each on and address

As a technically inept novice I learnt lots from the Honda, but finally sold it on for a GSX-R750H, before moving through an RD350LC, ZX6Rs, GSX-R750 Streetfighter, CB350 and even a CB-1 (pictured with my father, who found the CB-1 a bit faster than the BSA M20 he rode in the Army!). More recently I’ve added to my garage a 550/4 with a 650 engine, built from a pile of bits, so clearly once bitten!”

KIT WINNER

Graham Askew says: “I thought you’d like to see pics of my old bikes... and an AA van!”

Dean Welburn says: “I thought I’d show you some off-road pics! One is me at Warden Law, a disused quarry up in the north east on a YZ400 between 1982 and 1986 (note the motocross wellies!). I used to ride there on my Husky WR430 (I don’t remember why I wasn’t wearing a helmet!) along with Andy Robson (who I built the CB500 with), who owned the YZ400 I was riding. The other pic is at Wheeldon Farm on a DRZ400S back in 2011. It was a great place to learn about riding off-road properly.

www.facebook.com/ClassicMechanics/ 22 / classic motorcycle mechanics

www.twitter.com/cmmmag

cmm

News

DIARY DATES Some dates for your diary… remember, thanks to Covid-19, nothing is set in stone, so do check these before you go. Booking online is best…

25-27 JUNE: Santa Pod Festival of Power

RARE RACER FOR SALE Our friends at The Motorcycle Broker currently have this for sale: a 1978 Ducati NCR which was supplied new to Steve Wynne Racing, the very same who set up Mike Hailwood’s TT winning machine of the same year…

Paul Jayson of The Motorcycle Broker says: “It was in the crate for many years and then used only to parade once with Paul Smart riding it. It is unrestored and completely original with the round case, dry clutch and sand-cast NCR motor. Only 18 of these machines were built and this is one of the few genuine ones to come to market since January 2014 when Bonhams sold one for £125,000.” Unsurprisingly, this machine is POA but it has plenty of history and documentation. For more go information to: www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk

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3/4

4

This event has been rescheduled from its traditional Easter weekend! This three-day summer spectacular features an action-packed line-up of family drag racing entertainment with all things powerful on and off the track on four and two wheels – the latter with freestyle stunt bike rider Lee Bowers. For more go to: www.santapod.co.uk JUNE: Honda Owners Club To celebrate 60 years of the Honda Owners Club, an event will take place at the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum, Bashley Cross Roads, New Milton, Hampshire BH25 5SZ. JULY: International Classic Motorcycle Show Our popular International Classic MotorCycle Show, usually held in April, is taking place over the weekend of July 3-4 at the Stafford County Showground.

For more information head to: www.classicbikeshows.com JULY: Honda Owners Club Ace Cafe for HOC’s Honda Day at the Ace: www.hoc.org.uk

2021 Scarborough Oliver’s Mount events 26/27 JUNE: Barry Sheene Classic 31/1 JULY/AUGUST: Oliver's Mount Festival

11/12 SEPTEMBER: Michelin Steve Henshaw Gold Cup For more on all these events go to: www.oliversmount.com

PRE-ORDER YOUR CMM! In these difficult times, it’s often the case that people of our age may not be outside, shopping or buying our favourite magazines so o we’ve got just the thing for you: p pre-order. Simply scan the fuzzy round thing with your smartphone (c’mon, w we’ve all got one) and off you pop!

A Alternatively, if you like what you see coming up in the August issue (see page 105 for more) then go to: www.classicmagazines.co.uk/issue/ preorder where you can pre-order all of Mortons’ wonderful magazines, which include trains, cars or towpaths…

16 / classic motorcycle mechanics

CMM BIKE OF THE YEAR READER’S SPECIAL

EVO XR! Long-time biker, Matt Cain had a dream of building a special Suzuki GSX-R750L Evo… but it started off as a bit of a nightmare…

WORDS AND PICS: MATT CAIN

When I think back to it now, I realise that the purchase of this 1990 GSX-R750 L should have been published under the headline: ‘What not to do when buying or selling a bike…’

You see, I spotted the advert in Facebook and it was listed as a non-runner that had been stored for the last 10 years, and as it was only £1500 I thought I would go and have a look, after all, what harm could that do? I called the seller and arranged to meet him that night – that’s normally a big no-no, right? Add into the mix that it was a winter night and

it was cold, dark and raining. He gave me a postcode to meet him at and I was to call him once I was there. It was starting to sound a little bit cloak and dagger for my liking and I was only buying an old air/ oil-cooled GSX-R! The postcode took me to a back alleyway to a Victorian terrace in a (how should I put this) ‘less desirable’ area of Northampton, where shady people in hoodies quickly passed packages between each other and melted into the darkness. Needless to say, sitting there with £1500 in my pocket, I didn’t feel best at ease…

TOP: A double-take bike - looks standard, but isn't!

ABOVE: The bike as found!

ABOVE: During the build.

LEFT: Bodywork was beautifully done.

But, in for a penny, in for 1500 pounds eh? So I called the fella and 10 minutes later he appeared from down the road and jumped into my car. We drove down an old cobbled back alley to a garage where another bloke opened a garage door. By this time the heart rate was up to well above the normal…

I was hoping I wasn’t going to get clobbered…

Eventually, the reasoning behind this secrecy came out: the story went that this bloke had split from his wife and this was her garage now and he had to get rid of the contents therein ASAP, to recoup whatever he could from the doomed relationship. Snag one was that his soon-to-be-oralready ex-wife also had the log-book to the sorry-looking black and silver L-model GSX-R, complete with Micron end-can.

In the back of my head I could hear someone shouting ‘WALK AWAY YOU FOOL!’ But a few things stopped me from doing so. Firstly, I could tell it wasn’t stolen and this lad – while down on his luck a little – was clearly quite genuine. I also realised there was a comprehensive spares package to come with the bike, too. So if I could get it for a very good price I would take a chance. Because of the way he was selling it and the lack of V5 I was able to buy it for well under half what he was asking for it, which was a result.

When I got the bike home, everything checked out: this was a perfectly legitimate GSX-R. Not only that but in the cold light of day I could see that actually it was a super-clean example and looked like it had never seen the rain in its whole life: not a bit of corrosion or road muck and was completely standard with the exception of what I could now see

TOP LEFT: Carbon and Mikunis and Yosh air-box cover.

ABOVE: Carbs getting sorted.

was a full Micron exhaust system. But there was a dilemma: should I restore this bike back to factory spec in the black and silver colour scheme, or make a bike that I wanted? The latter thought won through and the Evo project commenced!

The bike was stripped completely and thoroughly cleaned and checked. I had brought a complete front and rear-end from a GSX-R1000 K4 which I decided to fit to the L which is a fairly easy procedure. The front was just a new tapered bearing to the headstock to fit the new size steering tube, and making a new bracket to take the lock stops. A new clock bracket was made and the steering lock was machined to fit the slot in the frame. The old forks were sold on and covered the cost of the new set easily: result! The rear-end again was very simple and just a case of removing the old swingarm and linkage. I kept the old pivot spindle and made some top hat spacers to make up the difference in the width and size of the spindle. I then mocked up the ride height so I could make some new linkage dog bones to fit the new swingarm. As I used the wider K4 wheels and brakes etc. the only alterations were to fit an offset front sprocket and a 520 chain to give the correct alignment and clearance for the chain to the frame. A softer rear spring was needed www.classicmechanics.com / 25

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Parts infantry #1!

Either the spellchecker struck, or Jim Moore is a malapropist?

The Parts Finder was really interesting, but at least twice, a parts inventory was described as an ‘infantry’: I had to chuckle.

On a serious note, it was wholly right about importing as I needed two little petrol tap gaskets for my XS650C, and the usually brilliant Yambits couldn’t help saying they were no longer available. I reverted to the previously brilliant Heiden Tuning and CMSNL and found them at Heiden at seven Euros each PLUS 25 Euros shipping! Upon contacting them to ask if they could just send these tiny thin gaskets in a letter, they advised not, but suggested it would work out cheaper if I had other stuff to order? I think they must be suffering terribly from Brexit! Thankfully Yambits could supply two new complete taps for £60 which didn’t seem so silly, but then I noted that they were exactly the same shape as the

BMW doppelganger Thanks for a great mag and monthly nostalgia trip. I was just reading the March issue article regarding the BMW K1, and wondered if they based their colour scheme on a vintage

Bohmerland? Maybe if you can find one a comparison road test would be good?

Ha ha!

John Barnard

Bertie says: “If we can find one – why not? Ha!” Ha! Spot the...

originals; maybe they could contact the tap supplier and ask for some gaskets? They thought that might be a good idea. Oh, and some of the younger readers might need to Google Mrs. Malaprop?

Jeff Peyton-Bruhl

Bertie says: “We don’t doubt Brexit is affecting spares ordering and prices Jeff, we apologise to you for our error (we do have at least two people to look at words, but one of them – me – is an idiot). When Jim Moore next does an article we will tell him to be more pacific…”

...difference...

Lights out #1!

Aww... the A65!

Parts infantry #2!

As an English language anorak I am well used to bike magazines mangling the written word – usually ‘breaks’ for ‘brakes’ or ‘yolks’ for ‘yokes’ and such like. Jim Moore has surpassed himself in his article on NOS spares in the Parts Finder supplement attached to the latest issue. I could not work out how the Army was involved in motorcycle parts supply until I realised that ‘infantry’ should read ‘inventory.’ Nice one, Jim, I’ve not seen that one before, but, great supplement and great magazine. I’m still riding

at 78, now on a 2003 CBR600F. I suspect that a big-capacity Japanese two-stroke would blow my mind. Sadly, at today’s prices, and the limited time I probably have left on bikes, I’ll never find out. Oh, and tips for old-age riding? Shorter distances plus the ingestion of a couple of Paracetamols before the ride to calm down the arthritic bits!

John Cotterell

Bertie says: “You can’t go wrong with the humble but speedy CBR600F sir! BUT – surely it’s Ibuprofen for any muscle/back pain?”

Clive Hurst does not need to worry about readers falling foul of the law regarding the conversion of halogen or filament headlights to LED or HID as I did in my article in the April edition. If he checks the MOT regulations 4.1.4 he will now find that the rules have been changed and it is legal to convert to LED or HID. It states ‘A ‘light source’ means any bulb, LED or other means of emitting light’. The law changed on March 22, five days after the magazine came out, although I had known of

Lights out #2!

Reading Clive Hurst’s message about headlamp conversions in the June edition of Feedback, I wanted to point out a recent update. The DVSA issued special notice 01-21 (https:// www.gov.uk/government/ publications/special-notice-0121-headlamp-conversions/ mot-special-notice-01-21headlamp-conversions) which

Aha! Go check the new regs!

the impending change for a considerable time due to ‘insider’ information. And as Bertie stated they are SO much better and brighter than a 50-year filament bulb!

Peter ‘Scottie’ Scott

Bertie says: “Cheers Scottie!”

changed the rule from March 22 this year. This now allows bikes with HID and LED conversions to pass the test, subject to the other requirements around beam, etc. Surprised Bertie didn’t know this when he replied!

Alan Shepherd

Bertie says: “Me? Know anything? Pah! I’m the last to know!” www.classicmechanics.com / 19

our pages, so you can in y jo d an e id pr R U YO We want to see s. store with fellow reader re d an e rid u yo t ha w e l shar @mortons.co.uk or mai ds on m im bs to s ot sh es Email your hi-r e mag. Let us know th of nt fro e th at s es dr in some photos to the ad send before and after d an it ne do ve u’ yo w what you’ve done and ho in touch. Bertie. t ge o D n. ca u yo if s ot sh

hi h We’ve teamed up with SDoc100 which g kit in cleanin manufactures some of the best bike bikes your of s picture the business! So, send in your worth Kit Care Chain 0 SDoc10 and you could win an £50, which includes their new White Chain Spray 2.0 that offers four times more wear protection for chains and sprockets than the competition. Find out more at www.motohaus.com

MARK WILLIAMSON’S 1983 SUZUKI GSX750E

ANTHONY PARSONS’ COLLECTION These are my two beauties. One’s a 1996 Honda XRV600 Transalp. It’s done nearly 60,000 miles now and is still such a lovely, comfortable bike to ride. The other is a 1982 Yamaha RD250LC; bog standard unrestored and a French import. It came over here about 16 years ago.

French and UK bikes were the same specifications, same bhp! Just a little info: only 253 LC250s were sold in France from 1980 to 1983, so she is rare from the off! She’s only done 12k. I’ve also been told by the previous owner that the

20 / classic motorcycle mechanics

engine’s never been apart, but who knows? I have even got the luggage rack that was offered by Yamaha.

She’s a keeper!

WINNE R

This is my 1983 GSX750E; it’s my first project and I have had immense fun building it. I took a risk and bought it on eBay last November after just seeing a video of it running and paid for delivery from the north east to Cheshire.

Overall it was mechanically sound. It hadn’t been on the road since 1994 and consequently it was hard to start, but ran like the proverbial dog. I stripped, cleaned and balanced the carbs which cured that. The tank had a big matt black stripe up the middle which, when I spilt some fuel on it, came off so I got a local company (T&M Specialist Coatings Ltd) to respray it. I know the decals are the wrong ones for the year but for me this is the best looking paint scheme they did.

At first glance you could be forgiven for th hinking the front end is of a bare 750ES. However, the round headlight and anti-dive forks are all included in the manual and parts catalogue so I’m choosing to assume (as it was imported from Japan in 1988) that this was a model for their home market. It’s not show standard, but it’s a usable beautiful classic that rides as good as any bike made today. I love it and am proud of what I have achieved.

These bikes are a much overlooked classic; when will CMM do a feature on them?

RETRO RIDE

So, there’s a bit of engine work needed here, with a head and base gasket replacement as well as the spacer plate and camshaft sprocket mods. Once that’s done though, you have a low-compression engine that’s all set for some forced induction…

That comes in the form of a custom-made stainless steel welded manifold, a Garrett ball-bearing turbocharger, dump valve, wastegate and pipework, leading up to a neat alloy plenum chamber under the fuel tank cover. Like the Z900 RS, the Katana also has a small manual boost controller down by the turbo, a simple knob that you twist for more or less power, ranging from 220bhp to 260bhp.

A Dynojet Power Commander and MAP sensor board look after the fuelling changes needed, and that’s pretty much it in terms of hardware. Sean’s obviously spent weeks fine-tuning the fuel mapping needed to go alongside the plumbing and turbo, and that‘s a big part of the development job too.

I’m fully briefed on matters then, and all set to go.

I park up my trusty old Fazer 600, hop aboard the ear-bleeding Katana, and set off towards London.

The first problem is obvious – there’s no fuel in the thing (there’s never enough fuel in a Katana…) so I stop at the BP garage round the corner and fill up with super unleaded. The 12-litre tank takes almost 11 litres and I’m assuming Sean’s set me this little trap to ensure I’m paying attention…

Back on the road, and I’m gently trundling around the various roundabouts between Wokingham and the M3. On small throttle openings, the Katana is 42 / classic motorcycle mechanics

ABOVE: This can happen all too easily!

RIGHT: Cool Kat looks, but with a real kick!

smooth and easy to ride, with no big surprises from the power at all. The loud exhaust note reminds you that you’re on something a bit excessive, but the main thing I’m noticing at the moment is the strangely-heavy front-end. I stop at another garage and put some air in the tyres – the front is at 20psi and the rear 30psi. To be fair, this bike has spent almost all of its life on the dyno, and all the attention has been on the engine work. I also didn’t give Sean much notice I was coming, so he had no time to give it the once-over.

Now, we’re properly moving. I head out of Wokingham and get the chance to give the nowwarm engine some beans. Overtake some cars off a roundabout on to a clear bit of A road, second gear, full gas, and: BLINKIN’ FLIP! There’s a proper ‘calm before the storm’ moment as the revs pick up past 6k, and then the Katana goes nuts. What seems like a small explosion goes off underneath me, and I’m hanging on to the bars for dear life, scrabbling for another gear as the front wheel heads skywards.

Change up into third, and it does the same trick (the traction control is off) and I’m experiencing the typical Big CC turbo bike thrill once again.

It’s quite different from the Z900 RS mind. That had a massive low-down dose of instant grunt, like riding an enormous V-twin. Here, the power production is a bit later in the revs, with a more pronounced hike in power from 6000rpm right up to the redline, and it’s still pulling really hard as you approach that redline…

www.classicmechanics.com / 23

MAIN TEST the engine look uncannily more authentic than the triple it’s based on. The cylinder block and heads have been combined so smoothly and symmetrically that there’s barely any indication of a join, and likewise with the cases. He’s also built the frame and bodywork so that it matches the extra width of the engine – but you have to look closely to see where the additional material has been added, but more of that later. That’s the point, says Phil, who started with a self-imposed budget of just £3000 to pay for anything he couldn’t do himself, which as it turns out isn’t much, because he’s so multi-skilled.

“It wasn’t built for performance or handling, but to look like a bike from Suzuki’s GT range,” he says. “I started it six years ago as a trial to see if I could get it to work. I was quite surprised when I built it up with old parts kicking around the shed and I had a water-tight running engine. I then put it to one side and didn’t look at it until a year later.”

Actually it was a bit more complicated than that.

Suzuki’s 750cc engine has three pairs of flywheels pressed together with a helical drive gear to the clutch between the centre and right-hand cranks. On top of the horizontally-split crankcases, there’s a one-piece cylinder block – the first to be liquidcooled on a Japanese road bike – topped by a one-piece cylinder head. Porting was simple, but to save width the left exhausts were rotated outwards so the transfer ports snuggled more closely while the other cylinder was rotated to the right. “The right-hand side is the only side you can add the cylinder,” says Phil. “You have two left-hand pistons and one right hand, and the left-hand exhaust ports come out of the left side, and right-hand one comes out of the middle. You can add one to that but if you added to the other side you have to go even further.

It just didn’t work out. I just looked and looked at it and it was the only way to do it really.”

48 / classic motorcycle mechanics

To add the extra capacity, Phil cut off a right-hand cylinder, head and cases from one set and mated them to another crankcase. He pressed up the additional crankshaft, machining off the drive gear to join them up. “As luck would have it, all this lined up perfectly, so that saved me having to make a new main-shaft,” he recalls.

“Now I had tested my mods I needed to build the engine properly, so took it apart and rebuilt it with new crankshaft parts. I machined the crankcase, cylinder and head parts to fit and tack welded them with a MIG spool gun to hold them in place.” Phil then cut a vee into the joins so he could get more deeply into the water jacket. The parts were then heated up uniformly before properly TIG welding them together. All the mating surfaces were machined to fit and a special gasket cut to fit.

Phil explained the challenge of welding up large castings. “As you know, even when it’s bolted together and you let go of the bolts it’s all going to move slightly,” he says. “So I put a shaft all the way through the bearings with a tool in the end and machined the right-hand one out bigger on the journal and then put a sleeve on the end of the crank to bring it back down to the same size.

Originally I just machined it a small amount and just put shims just to try it. Now I’ve changed it and it’s got a sleeve on it.”

ABOVE: During the build.

LEFT: Bodywork was beautifully done.

But, in for a penny, in for 1500 pounds eh? So I called the fella and 10 minutes later he appeared from down the road and jumped into my car. We drove down an old cobbled back alley to a garage where another bloke opened a garage door. By this time the heart rate was up to well above the normal…

I was hoping I wasn’t going to get clobbered…

Eventually, the reasoning behind this secrecy came out: the story went that this bloke had split from his wife and this was her garage now and he had to get rid of the contents therein ASAP, to recoup whatever he could from the doomed relationship. Snag one was that his soon-to-be-oralready ex-wife also had the log-book to the sorry-looking black and silver L-model GSX-R, complete with Micron end-can.

In the back of my head I could hear someone shouting ‘WALK AWAY YOU FOOL!’ But a few things stopped me from doing so. Firstly, I could tell it wasn’t stolen and this lad – while down on his luck a little – was clearly quite genuine. I also realised there was a comprehensive spares package to come with the bike, too. So if I could get it for a very good price I would take a chance. Because of the way he was selling it and the lack of V5 I was able to buy it for well under half what he was asking for it, which was a result.

When I got the bike home, everything checked out: this was a perfectly legitimate GSX-R. Not only that but in the cold light of day I could see that actually it was a super-clean example and looked like it had never seen the rain in its whole life: not a bit of corrosion or road muck and was completely standard with the exception of what I could now see

TOP LEFT: Carbon and Mikunis and Yosh air-box cover.

ABOVE: Carbs getting sorted.

was a full Micron exhaust system. But there was a dilemma: should I restore this bike back to factory spec in the black and silver colour scheme, or make a bike that I wanted? The latter thought won through and the Evo project commenced!

The bike was stripped completely and thoroughly cleaned and checked. I had brought a complete front and rear-end from a GSX-R1000 K4 which I decided to fit to the L which is a fairly easy procedure. The front was just a new tapered bearing to the headstock to fit the new size steering tube, and making a new bracket to take the lock stops. A new clock bracket was made and the steering lock was machined to fit the slot in the frame. The old forks were sold on and covered the cost of the new set easily: result! The rear-end again was very simple and just a case of removing the old swingarm and linkage. I kept the old pivot spindle and made some top hat spacers to make up the difference in the width and size of the spindle. I then mocked up the ride height so I could make some new linkage dog bones to fit the new swingarm. As I used the wider K4 wheels and brakes etc. the only alterations were to fit an offset front sprocket and a 520 chain to give the correct alignment and clearance for the chain to the frame. A softer rear spring was needed www.classicmechanics.com / 25

as the fulcrum position of the linkage had changed with the new swinging arm, leaving the original spring far too hard. I didn’t fit the later shock because it has a fixed reservoir which fouled on the existing frame, so the original remote reservoir unit was modified.

The body work was ‘well used’ at the very least and I never did like the black and silver colour scheme anyways – in my eyes all Suzukis should be white and blue (my old RGV250M was one of the best looking bikes of all time in blue and white). So I gave the bodywork to our local bike painter, Gary, with a photo of what I wanted it to look like and it came back spot on. The colours he used were later Suzuki colours but it looks just right. I had purchased a decal set off of eBay, and hadn’t realised until I pressed ‘Buy it Now’ button that they came from Mexico. They took about four bloomin’ months to arrive which slowed progress a bit, but this gave me the time and inclination to carry out the modifications. The tail tidy, Yoshi air-box covers and seat hump came from Fibreman modifications over in Ireland. The seat humps especially are hard to find, I guess everyone loses theirs or they get lost in the garage!

ABOVE LEFT: Oil/ Air-cooled top-end always solid...

ABOVE RIGHT: Coming together...

BELOW: The finished machine: needs a Yoshi system, mind!

To give it the look and feel of a RR model I fitted a set of Mikuni flat-slide carburettors with 50mm velocity stacks and foam filters, these were cupped by those Yoshi air-box covers and a carbon heat shield to create the non-pressurised air-box that were used on the period race bikes. This with the 4-2-1 Micron exhaust system and good set-up means it performs well, although this will be changed for a Yoshi system when I find one – after all, you have to go for Yoshimura with a Suzuki, right?

The whole idea of the bike was to make an evolution of the GSX-R that was subtle and only those that know their bikes would notice the differences, like the colours, the wheels and forks, the wider braced swingarm, the radial brakes, the nitride forks etc. etc. when you stand back and look at it the stance is more aggressive than stock and the under tray with removing all the brackets that weren’t required, has given it a cleaner appearance and a simple fabricated number plate bracket help to keep the lines and make the bike look lighter and faster Like all these projects they will evolve over time.

The next stage will be to get the suspension set up, fit some Brembo discs to the front brakes. A quality steering damper is required to tame it now the geometry has been changed with the new suspension.

And long-term it may well receive a new heart in the form of a turbo Bandit 1200 motor, but we will see… I just hope you all like how it looks. cmm

www.classicmechanics.com / 27

www.classicmechanics.com / 55

www.classicmechanics.com / 31

CLASSIC RIDE

ABOVE: Clocks are complicated: 'Racing' gets Ohlins.

BELOW: Fun to ride!

close to owning the Mille’s naked sibling the Tuono: and yet this model wasn’t the first stripped Noale naked. In fact, there must be a thing about naked Milles and editors of CMM as my predecessor, the legendary Ben Wilkins, actually hill-climbed an Aprilia SL1000 Falco, which was basically a half-faired Mille. I also had a jaunt to Tipperary on the sport-touring RST1000 Futura, but that’s another story. For more on the family, see the boxout…

So, back to the Tuono: strangely, it took Aprilia until 2003 – almost five years since the first Mille sportsbike was launched – to just strip it back and let it revel in its naked glory. We’ve mentioned the Falco, but this wasn’t the same thing, this (to give it its proper name) was the Tuono or Tuono Fighter, in some markets. Now, my Italian ain’t great, but I think Tuono means ‘thunder’. If there’s a parallel here in the modern classic world, this was akin to Triumph building modular motorcycles, things like

32 / classic motorcycle mechanics

the first naked Tridents but then realising that there was a stonking naked there, something with real attitude staring them in the face – the first iconic Speed Triple, it just needed to look right…

It was the same for Aprilia. For years the SL1000 Falco would plod along in the range when, really, we just wanted a Mille sportsbike without the fairing.

Ironically, the time spent developing the bike was pretty minimal. At the time people said it went from the original concept to the man in the street in around six months, meaning that project leader Klaus Nennewitz and his team had only a few months to get the job done, so I guess it made sense to make as few changes as possible to the original and very capable Mille. It could be argued that it was like an original crashed GSX-R streetfighter; just a sportsbike without a fairing, with no de-tuning needed or even attempted.

And that’s pretty much what we got. The Tuono Fighter shared the same 997.62cc, 97mm x 67.5mm Rotax-derived 60-degree V-twin, complete with twin balancer shafts. Perhaps that short lead time meant that Aprilia had to leave it alone motor-wise. So, unlike the Falco, they didn’t wind down the wick power-wise. Think of the Honda Hornet 900 or the Yamaha Fazer 1000 – all were dumbed down from their donor power outputs.

Not so the Tuono. This meant it had the same 125 or so claimed horses between those gorgeously sculptured frame rails. Real world was around 115bhp at the back wheel. Plenty then, plenty now and gearing was the same, too. The Tuono’s looks were also kept simple. While the Honda Hornet or

Yamaha Fazer 1000 looked nothing like their donor sportsbikes, the Tuono did share the same visage as the Mille – that trademark, three headlight stare and bikini fairing. The clocks were the cluttered and confusing ones from the Mille which you really had to try and get used to. Tank – ditto, side-panels – ditto, tail-unit – ditto… Also the suspension was identical to the standard Mille (not the R, of course) and another identical feature was the steering geometry and the wheelbase – this really wasn’t a neutered naked…

In fact, with those pull-back bars, your rump further over the rear, not so much weight over the front hoop – you were more likely to have a serious case of the head-shakes – and so it proved. Where the Mille didn’t have or really need a steering damper, you needed the one fitted as standard on the Tuono. I remember my time on Milles and Tuonos on my favourite roads and Donington Park where the Mille would behave and the Tuono would want to rise up like a fairly annoyed Cobra…

But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s talk about the ride. The Tuono you see here isn’t the standard ‘Fighter’, it’s the Tuono Racing. Like the Triumph Speed Triple, Aprilia found themselves with a hunk of cool naked bike that just begged to be raced, and so they did, in Italy. Therefore, the Racing got itself some Ohlins suspension, light OZ wheels, a race can and a number of carbon-fibre goodies.

If you actually raced it, the belly-pan meant you couldn’t use the side-stand and it had to be removed. The difference between the £7599 Tuono to the Racing was almost £4000, even if those parts

ABOVE: Not the comfiest in town...

RIGHT: Racing model got the radial calipers, too.

www.classicmechanics.com / 33

CLASSIC RIDE would cost more at the time separately. Power on both the Fighter and Racing was the same – so don’t worry on that score – but when riding both (and I’ve done plenty of miles on them) you do start to feel the difference when you’re pushing on. The suspension on the Racing just felt plusher, even if the geometry was (again, like the Mille) identical.

Also, the lighter wheels would translate to slightly swifter turn-in and a less vague feel from the front wheel. What you would really notice were the anchors. While both bikes have 320mm Brembo discs and calipers, the Racing would benefit from the-then (well, in 2003) ‘new’ concept for road bikes of radial calipers. When you’re hard on the brakes, you could really feel the difference when you chucked the anchor out.

But that motor really is the star of the show, so even on the standard Tuono you’re not losing out.

You’ve got that comfy, sit-up-and-beg riding position, but then you grab the loud handle and are simply awestruck by that instant V-twin oomph.

The figures: well, we mentioned around 110-115 at the rear 190-section tyre. With the same might as the Mille, you’re not losing out until your neck cops the flak at around 100mph-plus. The ‘Tuono tug’ you get starts at around 3000rpm or less, then dips a tad at around 5000rpm before fair kicking in again, then things carry on

34 / classic motorcycle mechanics

ABOVE: The 60-degree V-twin is a real gem of an engine.

BELOW: Being a sportsbike with no clothes on, it handles...

apace until you hit peak power at around 9-9500rpm. When you hit 10 the fun is over, but that’s not the point: ride that wave of grunt while your noggin sways in the wind. It’s all you need…

A ‘Fazer 600 with a jet engine’ I once called it – and I stand by that today. Even if you’ve ridden the likes of any ‘hyper-naked’ of today, you’d think things were a little tame. In comparison I’ve recently ridden a Yamaha MT-10 (Yamaha R1 motor, 160bhp) and it’s too much for the road. I’ll take nostalgia any time and 50bhp less, it’s more fun

SPECIFICATION ENGINE TYPE

sometimes to be in control than be controlled.

One thing I will say with the ergonomics, and it’s the same with home-made streetfighters of yesteryear – don’t expect this to be much more comfortable than the Mille. Sure, your wrists will feel the benefit, but your neck and upper torso will not – nor will the ankles/knees. Instead, think of this as an alternative sportsbike.

If I’m to recall my time on any of the Tuonos I’ve ridden, I have to relate what I heard from UK dealers of the Noale machine, from back in the day. They said that their demo bikes sold the bike many times over. One dealer said to me that prospective owners called it ‘the Tuono grin’ which would be plastered all over the face of any rider of this wonderful machine. Around 18 years on, my grin is still a mile wide… I badly need one of these.

Practicalities aren’t too bad either. With basic Mille architecture, you’ve not got much to go wrong.

Way-back-when spares were an issue – not so much any more. Issues with the earlier Mille/Tuonos include the pre-2005, 50amp starter solenoid, which is known to fail, so fitting the later 150amp helps. Upgrading the 90CCA battery to a 230CCA unit is recommended to help preserve the sprag clutch. The sprag clutch is the motor’s major weakness and any slipping or squeaking when the starter is hit hints at a worn unit, which will cost around £350 to replace. Reg-rectifiers can also go bang. Other than this, the motor is very reliable,

997.62cc liquid-cooled, four-stroke, 60-degree V-twin DOHC 4-valves per-cylinder, bevel drive BORE AND STROKE

97.0 x 67.5mm CLAIMED HORSEPOWER

125bhp @ 9500rpm MAXIMUM TORQUE

74.5lb-ft @ 7200rpm TRANSMISSION TYPE

It’s a family affair…

6-speed COMPRESSION RATIO

11.4:1 CARBURETION

Electronic Fuel Injection TYRES

120/70-ZR17 (F) 190/50ZR17 (R) FUEL CAPACITY

3.96 gallons (18 litres) SUSPENSION

Front: 43mm Showa fully adjustable inverted telescopic forks (Ohlins on Racing) Rear: Boge fully adjustable monoshock (Ohlins on Racing) BRAKES

2 x 320mm disc, Brembo 4-pot calipers (radial on Racing) (F), 1 x 220mm disc, single caliper (R) SEAT HEIGHT

820mm DRY WEIGHT

180kg (397lb)

It’s fair to say that Aprilia got more than their money’s worth with the development of the 60-degree V-twin motor.

Originally destined for the RSV1000 Mille sportsbike, as well as the Ohlins-suspended RSV1000 Mille R and (altered for racing homologation) the RSV Mille SP, it ended up finding several attractive homes. Firstly there was the SL1000 Falco. This half-faired machine used a mildly detuned version of the motor (claimed 118 rather than 125/128bhp) and a funky double twin-spar ally frame which tantalisingly showed a glimpse of the motor. Ergonomics weren’t as extreme and a lower seat height was useful for the shorter in leg (the Mille always felt tall).

Considering it was up against cheaper Japanese opposition such as the Honda VTR1000F FireStorm, it initially did well but then failed to connect with the bike-buying public. The machine was officially deleted in 2003, but they were still being sold as late as 2005/2006 when the list price was a paltry £6289.

A more sedate use was found for the V-twin engine with the arrival of two tourers – the RST Futura and the ETV1000 Caponord big-trailie/adventure bike.

The Futura featured a strange, if attractive, set of full-fairings with an almost angular look and could be bought with matching luggage: of course it was aimed squarely at the Honda VFR800, using as it did a similarly (to the Falco) detuned Mille engine. Despite great potential for sales and actual performance it bombed and – if you can find one – you’ll see they are bargain basement right now, It’s the same for the Caponord, That wonderful motor was now detuned to around 95bhp @ 8250rpm but producing 72lb-ft as low as 6250rpm. It was held in check in another cool-looking frame – this time called a ‘Double wave twin-beam’ made from aluminium box, even if sometimes the welds looked a bit iffy. The V-twin model soldiered on until replaced by the V4 model in 2013, which itself fell foul of emissions regulations by 2017.

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CLASSIC RIDE although out of balance, throttle bodies can make the bike very snatchy to ride at low revs and there is a tendency for some to leak oil from oil pressure sensors.

With that pretty chassis, like Milles, you’ll find that saucy frame and swingarm can get damaged/ scuffed, while clutch issues can mean it’s hard to get the bike into neutral. All can be sorted thanks to the experts out there and the best expert is Griff Woolley at AP Performance (www.apworkshops.co. uk); he knows the various Milles, Tuonos and the like, from V-twin to V4…

Price-wise, like most modern classics, things have firmed-up, big time! Looking back, the standard Tuono Fighter was only around £7599 in 2003, when the Mille R was £10,199, and the Colin Edwards replica (he was riding Aprilia’s threecylinder Cube in MotoGP at the time) was £12,250.

If you can find either the Fighter or the Racing of the Gen.1 models, I’d say take it.

Don’t worry if it’s the standard model you get, you’re not missing out on much. I was perilously close to buying a clean, tidy, standard Tuono for just £1900 five years back, but something didn’t quite add up with the bike’s history; part of me wishes I had taken the plunge…

Realistically – almost 20 years on – you’ll need to sort the suspension out on either model, and the brakes would need an overhaul. Do find something that’s been looked after – preferably by a marque expert – but you’ll find that both Gen.1 and Gen.2 bikes are pretty similar price-wise, albeit overlapping somewhat.

The Gen.2 (2006-2010) models are, in our humble opinion, not as pretty, but you decide. For rough Gen.1 models, you’re talking £2000 at the bargain basement level, rising to £4000 for a really lovely, well-looked-after model. For Gen.2 it’s from £3000 to £5500. You pays yer money…

If you land a taut Tuono, you’re in for a real treat: it’s visceral, vibrant, vivacious and about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on…

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BELOW: The 'Tuono grin' is a mile wide behind that helmet.

The Tuono arguably has been the most successful home for the V-twin motor. Launched in 2003, the various models have proliferated since then and up to the replacement by the V4 model from 2011.

Originally stemming from a 2001 concept show bike dripping in carbon-fibre and Ohlins suspenders, this was the limited-run (220) Tuono R Limited, a great ‘proof of concept’ machine.

The first mass-produced base model Tuono (or Tuono Fighter in some markets and later RSV Tuono in others) ended up with more modest Sachs/Boge suspension units, but the chassis/ motor was largely the same. Later 2005/06 models were called the Tuono 1000 R, basically the same, but with Brembo Goldline brakes and Sachs suspension front and rear.

The Gen.1 Tuono Racing had Ohlins suspension front and rear, OZ wheels, Ohlins steering damper and carbon-fibre bodywork, as well as adjustable gear-lever (for race-shift), and if you fitted the belly-pan/catch-tank, you’d have to ditch the side-stand!

With the sportsbike Mille being replaced by the updated version or ‘Gen.2’ in September 2003, it made sense that the Tuono followed suit. And in typical Italian fashion, things began to get confusing…

So, for February 2007 in came the ‘Gen.2’ Tuono 1000 R (or Tuono Fighter) which, in our humble opinion, isn’t as attractive. It still had the same motor, but this was boosted to 130-139bhp claimed and it had Sachs shock and Showa forks. The Gen.2 models had the Tuono 1000 R Factory replacing the ‘Racing’ model, effectively the naked version of the Gen.2 RSV 1000R Factory. The Factory had Ohlins front and rear, lightweight wheels, gold frame and lighter carbon bits and bobs, resulting in a bike four kilos lighter.

For tiddler fans, there was also a range of 125cc Tuonos, but that’s another story…

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RETRO RIDE

Or how Big CC Racing turned Suzuki’s 2019 Katana retro into a wild, turbocharged street-sleeper WORDS: ALAN DOWDS PICS: JOHN GOODMAN

www.classicmechanics.com / 65

RETRO RIDE

L

ike a lot of folk, I was a wee bit underwhelmed

by Suzuki’s new Katana when it was launched a couple of years ago.

The original 1980s Katana was part of my teenage biking fantasies, and while I never got the chance to own one, the super-trick design, solid 80s superbike performance – plus the cool name and logo – all had a big impact on me. Back in 1981, machines like the Katana were a big part of why kids like me got into motorcycles. A Kawasaki GPz1100 or Suzuki Katana poster on a 10-year-old’s bedroom wall generally only led in one direction – to the local bike shop six years later.

Fast forward four decades, and while the new Katana looks good and goes well, it’s some way off today’s cutting edge. It is, essentially, a GSX-S1000 naked roadster in a posh suit, with the same engine and running gear; a 150bhp version of the GSX-R1000 K5 motor, bolted into a twin-beam aluminium frame that’s also based around the GSX-R1000 design. The forks, swingarm, brakes, wheels and tyres are all the same as the GSX-S, and only the bodywork, bars and fuel tank have been changed. It’s a handsome, solid bike, but unlikely to make it on to the wall of any 10-year-old kid’s bedroom (or on the lock screen of their iPhone today).

RIGHT: Brembo brakes do an adequate job – but that's about it.

RIGHT MIDDLE: Chicken strips? It was cold!

RIGHT BOTTOM: Pipe-work makes it look standard-ish!

BELOW: Fuel range on the Turbo is worse than standard! Tank is too small too...

Sean Mills at Big CC was also slightly underwhelmed by the Katana. Unlike me, though, he has both the skills and the chutzpah to do something about that. And here it is, parked up outside the Big CC Racing HQ in Wokingham – a 260bhp, turbocharged 2020 Katana.

Sean’s thinking was along the same lines as his similar Kawasaki Z900 RS Café project, which we rode last year: take a popular retro-styled roadster, develop a well-priced bolt-on turbo kit, using the stock engine internals, and then bump up the power and torque to superbike-smashing levels. The kit developed for the Katana goes straight on to the GSX-S1000 too, so fans of the more conventional Suzuki roadster can also go crazy with an extra 120bhp if they fancy it.

These kits have to be subtle to work well and the Katana kit is just as slick as the previous Z900 RS set up. From the left-hand side of the bike, only a cunningly-sculpted turbo outlet pipe betrays the non-standard nature of what lies beneath. The right-hand side is more obvious, but a carefully chosen compact K&N pancake filter and black Tial dump valve camouflage the turbo install a treat. The alloy charge pipe sneaking up under the fuel tank cover is a big clue – but perhaps the starkest cosmetic difference from stock is down to the removal of the standard underslung exhaust chamber, leaving a huge gap around the swingarm pivot area.

There’s bugger-all subtle about the noise from the thing when Sean starts it, mind. The Z900 RS was fairly civilised in terms of noise, thanks to a link pipe and end can, but the unsilenced turbo Katana is as raucous as a drunk footy hooligan. Sean takes me through the kit over the fracas below. He’s had to do a bit more work on this design, because the Katana motor’s standard compression ratio is a bit on the high side, at 12.2:1, for a turbo (the Z900 RS compression is just 10.8:1). On a full-bore 500bhp race tune, you’d strip the whole engine down to fit low-compression turbo pistons along with billet con-rods and much more, but that can mean a £10k bill for the engine work alone. Here, Sean’s trying to keep the costs down for a street bike tune, so he’s compromised by using a spacer plate under the cylinder block. That raises up the block and head, increasing the volume of the combustion chamber, and thus lowering the static compression ratio. The camshaft sprockets need to be slotted so the valve timing can be re-set after moving the head up, and that’s also part of the install.

How much mister?

A full ride-in ride-out fitting service adds £800 plus VAT to the basic £3499 cost for the turbo kit, while the engine work (remove and refit motor, fit spacer plate, cam timing, gaskets) is another £995 plus VAT, and a silencer and link pipe would add around £500

depending on spec. So, that’s less than £6500 all in then for a ride-in ride-out service. If you then add in £7k for a low-miler Katana (or £5k for a GSX-S1000) and you have a pretty impressive bang for your buck, if that’s your thing. www.bigccracing.com

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RETRO RIDE

So, there’s a bit of engine work needed here, with a head and base gasket replacement as well as the spacer plate and camshaft sprocket mods. Once that’s done though, you have a low-compression engine that’s all set for some forced induction…

That comes in the form of a custom-made stainless steel welded manifold, a Garrett ball-bearing turbocharger, dump valve, wastegate and pipework, leading up to a neat alloy plenum chamber under the fuel tank cover. Like the Z900 RS, the Katana also has a small manual boost controller down by the turbo, a simple knob that you twist for more or less power, ranging from 220bhp to 260bhp.

A Dynojet Power Commander and MAP sensor board look after the fuelling changes needed, and that’s pretty much it in terms of hardware. Sean’s obviously spent weeks fine-tuning the fuel mapping needed to go alongside the plumbing and turbo, and that‘s a big part of the development job too.

I’m fully briefed on matters then, and all set to go.

I park up my trusty old Fazer 600, hop aboard the ear-bleeding Katana, and set off towards London.

The first problem is obvious – there’s no fuel in the thing (there’s never enough fuel in a Katana…) so I stop at the BP garage round the corner and fill up with super unleaded. The 12-litre tank takes almost 11 litres and I’m assuming Sean’s set me this little trap to ensure I’m paying attention…

Back on the road, and I’m gently trundling around the various roundabouts between Wokingham and the M3. On small throttle openings, the Katana is 42 / classic motorcycle mechanics

ABOVE: This can happen all too easily!

RIGHT: Cool Kat looks, but with a real kick!

smooth and easy to ride, with no big surprises from the power at all. The loud exhaust note reminds you that you’re on something a bit excessive, but the main thing I’m noticing at the moment is the strangely-heavy front-end. I stop at another garage and put some air in the tyres – the front is at 20psi and the rear 30psi. To be fair, this bike has spent almost all of its life on the dyno, and all the attention has been on the engine work. I also didn’t give Sean much notice I was coming, so he had no time to give it the once-over.

Now, we’re properly moving. I head out of Wokingham and get the chance to give the nowwarm engine some beans. Overtake some cars off a roundabout on to a clear bit of A road, second gear, full gas, and: BLINKIN’ FLIP! There’s a proper ‘calm before the storm’ moment as the revs pick up past 6k, and then the Katana goes nuts. What seems like a small explosion goes off underneath me, and I’m hanging on to the bars for dear life, scrabbling for another gear as the front wheel heads skywards.

Change up into third, and it does the same trick (the traction control is off) and I’m experiencing the typical Big CC turbo bike thrill once again.

It’s quite different from the Z900 RS mind. That had a massive low-down dose of instant grunt, like riding an enormous V-twin. Here, the power production is a bit later in the revs, with a more pronounced hike in power from 6000rpm right up to the redline, and it’s still pulling really hard as you approach that redline…

9

10

12

11

Luckily the GSX-R bottom yoke has a couple of M8 threaded holes in it, so a plate was made and bolted up. The fairing is mounted by two holes in the bottom and lugs bonded on to the GRP about twothirds of the way up. It was fixed to the plate through the holes. This plate had to be made and bent at different angles a number of times before it was right. Using epoxy resin I also bonded in a half-inch piece of aluminium with matching holes to the bottom of the fairing to add strength.

At the same time I added a strip of carbon fibre to the top of the fairing where the screen fixes and with epoxy resin plus a filler beefed up the mounting lugs and filled round the headlamp ‘hole’ where there is a recess (photo 10). Once the fairing is fully fitted and shaped, I will probably add a complete layer of carbon fibre on the inside for strength.

The plate was not going to be strong enough by any means to hold the fairing and headlamp, plus I needed a mounting for the headlamp bracket. This took some time and resulted in a couple of bits of threaded solid round alloy and a ‘platform’ on which to mount the headlamp bracket.

70 / classic motorcycle mechanics

I needed to figure out a way of altering the headlamp beam direction. A single bolt hole mounts the headlamp bracket and gives left and right adjustment.

The platform gave me another mounting point and 10mm, thick-walled alloy tube was bent to shape and length, bolting up to two of the five threaded holes under my new top yoke. Two other mountings were made to fit to the fairing lugs. Getting these bent correctly and at the right angles took quite a few goes and a fair bit of wasted tube! I use an automotive pipe bender meant for a soft brake/fuel pipe (photo 11). It works okay and again is a relatively inexpensive tool.

I wasn’t going to waste all my hard work with my poor ally welding sonce again I enlisted the help of Shaun, a local fabricator (photo 12), to weld it up plus the mountings for the rad which I’d made some time ago. As a slight aside here’s a picture of a virtually full-size scooter Sean sculpted from steel discs (photo 13). Here is the finished fairing mount (photo 14) which has had a few tweaks along the way, but seams quite solid. It’s taken ages to make, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel! cmm

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14

Thanks to: Shaun: Faraday Fabrications.

Skidmarx: 01305 780808

RETRO RIDE

I get home after a dose of the usual motorway madness, sampling the 260bhp available in a series of roll-ons in various gears, trying to get a picture of the performance. As ever, on full gas, Sean’s fuelling is a thing of beauty, with massive, smooth, inexorable waves of grunt launching you towards the horizon. Third gear is sensational, the power hit at 6000rpm is just hilarious, and only a sense of self-preservation and the average speed cameras lurking on the M3 gantries spoil the fun.

Next day I’m out to shoot some pics with ace snapper John Goodman. The Kat needs feeding before we go anywhere; the turbocharger obviously hasn’t helped fuel consumption and my full-gas motorway exploits yesterday have cost me dear in terms of BP Ultimate unleaded. Tank filled and we go to our favourite bends for some antics. The turbo bike is a piece of cake to potter round some gentle corners on – just like the stock Katana, the handling is easy, the weight keeps it stable, Brembo brakes are decent and the only downside is the slightly-worn OE Dunlop rubber on there. Off-boost, the engine is largely as standard up to around 6000rpm, and riding around 50-60mph for cornering photos is easy.

The only downside is the loud exhaust note, which has the curtains twitching on nearby houses. We bugger off before any keen coppers appear, heading to Box Hill to try and get a cuppa (no joy: Ryka’s is still locked down), then finish the day off with a few wheelie pics. This turns out to be harder than it sounds as it happens, partly because I’m a bit rusty after four months of lockdown and a winter without much riding, and partly because the turbo Katana isn’t an easy bike to wheelie for pics without a handy Cold War runway. This is because the power is a bit higher up; slower-speed antics are hard work; hitting the boost in first or second gear is savage; and third gear is a bit fast for photos.

The throttle response on the edge of boost is really tricky. As the power comes in, you’re feathering the throttle back and the torque falls away, so you’re chasing the drive all the time. Once you’re up in the 44 / classic motorcycle mechanics

ABOVE: Turbo install is nice and neat.

ABOVE RIGHT Even the filter is tucked away.

TOP: As standard the Kat/GSX-S handles well.

power, it all smoothes out a treat, but by then you’re the wrong side of 60mph – not ideal for wheelie pics on the road… So – this is a long, whiney apology for the ropey wheelie pics essentially: I will do better next time, promise.

I’m really impressed by the turbo Katana though, rubbish wheelies aside. It’s not a hugely practical everyday machine of course – the Katana’s small fuel tank and offensive exhaust note would grate after a month or so (the noise itself would earn me a divorce and an eviction notice). Sean does offer a link pipe and silencer as with the Z900 RS, and I’d definitely consider the extra cash for that. And if you must have your 260bhp with touring ability, the kit will also go straight on to a large-tanked, faired GSX-S1000F. The fact remains though that the engine performance is something else. MotoGP-level power from a bolt-on kit that starts at around £4k is hilarious. It takes the bike to a whole new level – and I can definitely see a 260bhp turbocharged Katana setting off a few ex-teenagers’ middle-aged biker fantasies, poster or not… cmm

WOR D PHO S: STEV TOS: E GAR COOPER Y ‘D ’ CHA PMA N

BUY ER’S GUID E

Laverda Chott Can a little 250 two-stroke trailie be mad, mental and thoroughly manageable all in one hit? Maybe this one can, says Steve Cooper.

CHAIN GAITERS

EXHAUSTS The fibre glass bash plate is infamous for collecting mud and rotting out lower half of front pipe.

Check condition at front end and inner faces; splits and tears will compromise efficiency.

GEARBOX Hugely robust and not known for causing issues; rumoured to have been originally for a 400cc prototype version.

72 / classic motorcycle mechanics

MAIN TEST

46 / classic motorcycle mechanics

S

ome reckon that when Suzuki’s engineers were developing their first proper superbike back in the late 1960s, they built a fourcylinder two-stroke liquid-cooled version of the 500cc Cobra twin, which was then the Hamamatsu factory’s biggest bike.

The story goes that they bottled out of offering a 1000cc four, chopped off one of the pots and ended up with a 750cc machine which would have been on the superbike trend at the time, and the GT750 emerged. Nothing much wrong with that, because the Kettle, as it became affectionately called, is a fine touring machine. But the theory that the bigger bike existed lingers, and certainly does in the mind of Kettle Club stalwart Phil Baldwin, who turned it into reality by building what he thinks it might have been like. So here I am threading my way through the twisty lanes of north Kent on that very machine trying to keep up with Phil on one of his GT750 triples, a minter he’s owned for many years.

Amongst fellow Kettle Club members the GT1000, as it is badged, has become legendary. They have rightly called it The Beast and when the opportunity comes on a bit of open road I open it up and realise why: the gap to Phil suddenly shrinks in a tsunami wave of silky acceleration. What’s also remarkable about Phil’s GT1000 is that he’s managed to make

Boiling hot!

WORDS: JOHN NUTTING PICS: GARY D CHAPMAN

Within Kettle Club circles, Phil Baldwin’s 1000cc four-cylinder version of Suzuki’s GT750 has become legendary. John Nutting takes ‘The Beast’ for a ride and comes back surprised

MAIN TEST the engine look uncannily more authentic than the triple it’s based on. The cylinder block and heads have been combined so smoothly and symmetrically that there’s barely any indication of a join, and likewise with the cases. He’s also built the frame and bodywork so that it matches the extra width of the engine – but you have to look closely to see where the additional material has been added, but more of that later. That’s the point, says Phil, who started with a self-imposed budget of just £3000 to pay for anything he couldn’t do himself, which as it turns out isn’t much, because he’s so multi-skilled.

“It wasn’t built for performance or handling, but to look like a bike from Suzuki’s GT range,” he says. “I started it six years ago as a trial to see if I could get it to work. I was quite surprised when I built it up with old parts kicking around the shed and I had a water-tight running engine. I then put it to one side and didn’t look at it until a year later.”

Actually it was a bit more complicated than that.

Suzuki’s 750cc engine has three pairs of flywheels pressed together with a helical drive gear to the clutch between the centre and right-hand cranks. On top of the horizontally-split crankcases, there’s a one-piece cylinder block – the first to be liquidcooled on a Japanese road bike – topped by a one-piece cylinder head. Porting was simple, but to save width the left exhausts were rotated outwards so the transfer ports snuggled more closely while the other cylinder was rotated to the right. “The right-hand side is the only side you can add the cylinder,” says Phil. “You have two left-hand pistons and one right hand, and the left-hand exhaust ports come out of the left side, and right-hand one comes out of the middle. You can add one to that but if you added to the other side you have to go even further.

It just didn’t work out. I just looked and looked at it and it was the only way to do it really.”

48 / classic motorcycle mechanics

To add the extra capacity, Phil cut off a right-hand cylinder, head and cases from one set and mated them to another crankcase. He pressed up the additional crankshaft, machining off the drive gear to join them up. “As luck would have it, all this lined up perfectly, so that saved me having to make a new main-shaft,” he recalls.

“Now I had tested my mods I needed to build the engine properly, so took it apart and rebuilt it with new crankshaft parts. I machined the crankcase, cylinder and head parts to fit and tack welded them with a MIG spool gun to hold them in place.” Phil then cut a vee into the joins so he could get more deeply into the water jacket. The parts were then heated up uniformly before properly TIG welding them together. All the mating surfaces were machined to fit and a special gasket cut to fit.

Phil explained the challenge of welding up large castings. “As you know, even when it’s bolted together and you let go of the bolts it’s all going to move slightly,” he says. “So I put a shaft all the way through the bearings with a tool in the end and machined the right-hand one out bigger on the journal and then put a sleeve on the end of the crank to bring it back down to the same size.

Originally I just machined it a small amount and just put shims just to try it. Now I’ve changed it and it’s got a sleeve on it.”

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BIKE CLEANING

BLAST CLEANING

BIKE STANDS

BLAST CLEANING

BREAKING

CARBURETTORS

76 / classic motorcycle mechanics

SPECIFICATION SUZUKI GT1000 MODEL

Suzuki GT1000 ENGINE

Liquid-cooled two-stroke four CAPACITY

1013.5cc (71 x 64mm) VALVE OPERATION

Piston ports COMPRESSION RATIO

6.7 to 1 (corrected) LUBRICATION

Injection pump IGNITION

Electronic inductive CARBURATION

Four Mikuni 32mm VM PEAK POWER

90bhp at 6500rpm est PEAK TORQUE

74lb-ft at 5500rpm est PRIMARY DRIVE

Helical spur gears PRIMARY RATIO

82/49 (1.67 to 1) CLUTCH

Wet multiplate GEARBOX

Five speed INTERNAL RATIOS

The GT1000 is geared high, with cogs from a GSX750.

2.571, 1.833, 1.38, 1.125 & 0.961 to 1 FINAL DRIVE

530 O-ring chain FINAL DRIVE RATIO

41/17 (2.41 to 1) OVERALL RATIOS

10.4, 7.40, 5.57, 4.54 & 3.88 to 1 FRAME

Duplex tubular steel cradle FRONT SUSPENSION

Telescopic fork REAR SUSPENSION

Aluminium-alloy swingarm, two spring-damper units with adjustable preload FRONT WHEEL

Cast aluminium alloy, 17in REAR WHEEL

Cast aluminium alloy, 17in FRONT TYRE

Continental Sport Attack 120/70 x 17 REAR TYRE

Continental Sport Attack 190/55 x 17 FRONT BRAKE

Dual 298mm-diameter discs, four-piston calipers REAR BRAKE

Single 200mm disc ELECTRICAL SYSTEM

Alternator 300W, 60/55W headlamp, starter motor BATTERY

12V-18Ah FUEL TANK

17 litres (3.75gallons) WHEELBASE

1492mm SEAT HEIGHT

31in (787mm) CASTOR ANGLE

n/a TRAIL

n/a WEIGHT (MEASURED)

266kg (529lb) with fuel

fills in the volume outside the clutch housing. On the left, the cover is also abbreviated because it has to house only the ignition trigger coils, which Phil has adapted from an aftermarket electronic system that fires double-ended high-tension coils from a GS model, so it fires twice per cycle and there is a wasted spark at bottom dead centre.

That gives the GT1000 a novel sound, still a bit like the triple with its deep crackly note, only more so and with a busier feel. The engine exhausts through four expansion-chamber-style pipes, neatly welded up by Phil from rolled stainless steel sheet and feeding a set of four silencers.

The GT750, particularly the early models, is flexible, normally pulling cleanly from low revs, but the GT1000 was less so. That could be a blessing because there could be so much torque, but in fact it’s likely to be a result of the fixed ignition timing.

No matter, for when that open road presents itself, opening up the GT1000 is a real joy, and revving to 7000rpm or more through the gears is largely unnecessary. The carburetion also retains that slightly erratic feel when shutting off and cruising at a lower throttle opening, but that’s much of the fun of riding a big two-stroke.

When he first built the bike, Phil used the larger CV Mikuni carbs from the M models, but arranging a linkage for the right-hand carb proved troublesome, so he reverted to the smaller-bore early slide-type carbs with the right-hand one mounted on a longer cylinder stub. They work just fine, despite the extra cable. When you’re seated, the view of the instruments is all GT750, complete with the central temperature gauge, but a glance down reveals that the radiator has more volume. This is an aftermarket item and matches revised coolant plumbing in the engine. Phil has fitted a fan to the rad, but the engine’s never got hot enough to activate its use.

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Riding south on lanes through the Medway valley, we ended up at Aylesford and joined the A229, climbing the North Downs in the return to Rochester. Phil tore off into the distance on the dual carriageway, leaving a trail of blue smoke from the 750, but even though I’d been caught on the hop, the GT1000 swiftly reduced the gap. I knocked it off at an indicated 80mph and glanced at the rev meter to see the needle at a modest 4000 in fifth. The GT1000 is geared very high.

Like much else on the GT1000, Phil has changed the transmission and final drive. The five-speed gearbox is from a later GSX750, which fits with minor modification, the benefit being that the lower ratios are closer, and you don’t get that sudden shock when slipping down into first. Also the final drive ratio has been raised with a smaller 41-T rear sprocket (two down on the stocker), a modified Honda item.

servicesguide CARBURETTORS

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MAIN TEST

I built the Suzuki GT1000…

Phil Baldwin, who built the four-cylinder Suzuki GT1000, has been involved with motorcycles for more than four decades. At 21 in the early 1970s he started as a mechanic in a bike shop in the Rochester area where he still lives, and went on to manage a Yamaha dealership, and later a car garage.

That was followed by a period as a ship engineer based in nearby Chatham. “It was really interesting,” he says. “I was in a team working for a specialist

52 / classic motorcycle mechanics

diesel engine company and we’d fly out anywhere in the world to rescue broken-down ships, mostly merchant vessels, who’s owners didn’t want to pay the cost of a tug towing them back to port. We’d sort out all sorts of repairs just to get them going, sometimes removing massive broken pistons and connecting rods from engines or, as

we did once, using an auxiliary generator connected to the prop.”

When we met Phil, he was furloughed from his job as a driver for a car rescue firm, but he’s been busy for many years rebuilding and modifying Suzuki GT750 triples for himself and fellow Kettle Club

members, based in his tidy workshop at the bottom of the garden. Although Phil’s had other motorcycles, his favourite is the GT750, currently owning three in addition to the GT1000: the blue minter in the pictures that was first built from parts 25 years ago, a second that he uses in all weathers for going to work, and a third that belonged to his best mate in the 1970s and is stripped, waiting, as he says, “to be rebuilt for when I retire”.

LEFT: Phil with his creation and (above) pics of the build.

RIGHT: Spot on the factory look and (below right) Nutters rides Phil's labour of love.

All the engine and chassis hardware has added about 20kg to the weight of the bike, much of which is at the front (51.6% in fact because we measured it on some bathroom scales), so that may have had some effect on the steering. But Phil’s got used to it and is happy with the bike.

Clearly the building of the GT1000 has been a labour of love for a dyed-in-the-wool Kettle fan, with Phil facing a series of challenges on the way and overcoming them with a bewildering range of impressive skills, from professional-quality machine work, welding, paint spraying (the beauty of the pearlescent red finish brings a gasp) and to the crafting of the authentic-looking badges on the side-panels.

One really fiddly task was the adaptation of the oil-pump that supplies lubricant to each of the crank throws. An additional feed had to be fitted precisely,

along with the delicate feed pipes. It didn’t go precisely to plan, because just before we were due to ride the bike one of the big-end bearings failed because one of the oil feed pipes had slipped off its union. Undaunted, Phil stripped the engine apart, rebuilt the crankshaft and had the bike back on the road within days. And he didn’t go over budget by that much.

“It cost me about £500 more than I expected,” Phil says, with most of that being for a chromeplated rear mudguard imported from a custom-bike specialist in the US to match the extra width of the rear tyre.

But that’s the kind of attention to detail which is necessary to build a special to fool the experts into thinking that the GT1000 could be a factory prototype.

www.classicmechanics.com / 53

servicesguide TRAILERS

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80 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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WITHOUT WHOM

Art in motion…

Let’s face it, a beautiful classic motorcycle is a rolling work of art.

Meet Bob Spendlove, the biker who can put your pride and joy down on canvas for posterity.

I

“

have been painting and drawing for most of my life. When I was five I can remember drawing a Foden lorry at primary school things,” says Bob Spendlove.

For many of us, doing what we truly love as a day job means we are blessed – and Bob knows how lucky he is. “I love doing what I do, really, I do and I’ve been lucky enough to do this for 40 years,” he says.

But how did it all start, Bob? “Things moved on from that first drawing. I served an engineering apprenticeship with good old Joe Lucas (well, Lucas Engineering) and continued painting as a hobby in my spare time. I moved to Telford, Shropshire (lovely biking roads) and painted in my spare time. I had a few different jobs and was asked by a local college to run art classes for mature students. One of those students asked me to paint her Triumph 500. This was many years ago, but that’s how it started, really.”

Bob’s already hinted that he’s a motorcyclist at heart, having first had a

56 / classic motorcycle mechanics

BSA Bantam. “It was a D7 Deluxe, bright red and chrome tank with gold line work, wonderful in the eyes of a 16-year-old kid. I sold it for £50, but look at the prices now!

This was followed by a much faster and more reliable grey Honda 175, followed by various Yamahas, Suzukis, Hondas and more recently, Hinckley Triumphs.”

We’ll allow him this admittance: he claims that a Hagon-suspended Honda CB500 twin from 1999 was his favourite, or at least ‘best’ bike he’d ever owned. He says: “That suspension helped my rather vertically challenged stature! I have toured Scotland, Wales and Ireland with friends and with my Japanese friend Tada. I have been on many adventures to Europe over the years with many tales to tell and memories of the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Route de Napoleon. My present daily bike is a Triumph Street Twin, which is a great bike that I’ve fitted out for touring. The brilliant low seat sold it to me.”

So, how does one go about getting a beautiful Bob Spendlove original hanging

on their wall? He explains: “All my paintings are commissioned by customers who would like their motorbikes immortalised in water-colour. I’ve been painting classic bikes and cars for four decades and just enjoy the whole scene.

The customers are charming and really appreciate the time and skill that goes into creating one of my paintings. I have found that my display of full-size paintings enables perspective customers to see the detail and the range of colours used. It’s always interesting discussing with the customer their ideas and the different scenarios that we can come up with to help create the different compositions.”

When commissioned, Bob will visit the customer and do a photoshoot of the vehicle – this can take a whole day. “The visit starts with a chat over a coffee as to any ideas that they may have and any props that they may want included in the painting,” says Bob. “These vary from an old Avery Hardoll petrol pump to vintage enamel signs advertising Park Drive Cigarettes!”

Sometimes the customer will know exactly what they want – perhaps the bike needs to be placed in a local beauty spot, or perhaps they want their machine to ‘go back in time’ and be placed in a setting typical of the days when the bike was new.

“Once we’ve established some rough ideas it’s time to start the photo shoot,” says Bob. “This is best done on a dry, sunny day so that we have interesting shadows which give greater clarity and contrasts and helps me to produce a more striking painting.”

Anything up to 40 or 50 pictures are taken during the shoot, from a number of different angles for more varied lighting effects. One of the pleasant perks of the job when it comes to painting classic cars is that Bob often gets invited for a spin! He says: “I’ve been lucky enough to drive in old Bentleys, E-Type Jaguars, Healys to a Messerschmitt, and even a 1954 Birmingham City Corporation bus – that was great fun!”

Together Bob and the customer will look at the pictures, decide on the right angle and get an idea of what they want in the finished painting.

“The main object of the day is for me to understand what the customers envisage and to get this down on paper,” says Bob. “I then produce a pencil drawing to show

the composition of the final painting. At this stage we can move things or add objects, rub out areas or change the position of the vehicle, etc. Once the customer is happy with the sketch then we discuss the size and where they want to hang it. I then sort out a price and once agreed then a deposit is paid.” Then the real hard work begins.

Bob uses top-quality water-colour paints, which are hand-made by Wallace and Seymour, based in Horton, Yorkshire.

“I find their intensity of colour helps me to get the effects I want,” says Bob. “By using only high-quality materials it means that the paintings could last for hundreds of years!”

So, how long can a commission take to complete? Bob says: “A painting normally takes two or three weeks to complete, depending on size and complexity. Some very large paintings have taken up to four weeks to complete or just over a month to finish.” And – like a full-size restoration, there is that feeling of trepidation when it’s complete… eh Bob? “You more get that feeling at the start, actually,” says Bob. “I always feel slightly apprehensive when starting a fresh picture, as you’re trying to get the under-drawing right first; the proportions and perspective.

There’s generally plenty of rubbing out

before I’m happy to continue with the water-colours.”

With different bikes from different eras, how can he accurately replicate the colours, hues and mediums that make up a motorcycle? He says: “Over the years my painting techniques have developed, and I have honed the skills and ideas to reproduce the effects of chrome surfaces, such as exhausts, wheel rims and car bumpers. Painted surfaces are also very challenging and much of this is achieved using wet-into-wet techniques and layering of washes.”

However he works his magic, Bob knows he’s a lucky chap. “I find the process of taking a blank sheet of paper and creating a 3D scene still very exciting and very rewarding. I feel privileged to be lucky enough to earn a living doing something I enjoy.”

• Bob Spendlove will be at the Stafford Classic Bike Show on July 3/4 and again on October 9/10. For more go to: www.bobspendlovearts.co.uk • Do you want YOUR company to feature in a future ‘Without Whom’ article?

Perhaps you supply engineering services, stock classic bike parts, paint bodywork, or create amazing artwork like Bob? Either way, we want to hear from you.

Email: bsimmonds@Mortons.co.uk cmm www.classicmechanics.com / 57

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SACHS ROADSTER 2004, 650cc, black genuine mileage, 1384 miles, one lady owner, 10 years in storage, needs recommissioning, £975 Tel. 07768 684259. Dorset

SUZUKI B120 8000 miles, very quiet motor, great runner, vgc, open to sensible offers or swap why? would like Kawasaki KM/ KE, Yamaha DT/TY or RD200 cash either way Tel. Tony 07968 071472. Derbyshire

SUZUKI BANDIT 1200 1997, 27k miles, Holeshot racing engine 138 BHP Short akrapovic system, Harris rearsets, MoT, slightly scruffy cosmetically, £3000 Tel. 07584 575903. Hampshire

SUZUKI DR650 H reg, good engine, gearbox & sparks, needs some recommissioning eg brakes, off the road for a few years, good project, carb needs sorting, loads of spares, £750 Tel. 07984 706372. Stockport

SUZUKI GS750 1977, rebuilt, 2016 powder coated frame, not used, needs good home, does not need MoT, nearly brand new, loads money spent, £2800 ono Tel. 01158 755159.

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SUZUKI GSX550 1985, 32,415 miles, new indicators, front tyres, on Sorn, kept in dry garage, very good chrome & paintwork, started on regular basis, £1350 Tel. 07903 292220. Durham

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SUZUKI SP600 1985, rare US import, restored to excellent condition, 6535 miles, with MoT can deliver at small cost, thousands spent, £2900 Tel. 01254 605501. Lancs

SUZUKI SV1000 2004, 1900 miles, very good condition, years MoT, good tyres, brakes, £2250 Tel. 01403 241413. West Sussex

SUZUKI X7 1979, good working order, V5 present, reg as historic vehicle, many new parts: tyres, battery, shocks, fork seals, front brake lines and cylinder, chain, £4200 ono Tel. 07768 122530. Surrey

TRIUMPH Street Triple, 2012, 6400 miles, vgc, garaged, service history, MoT August, good tyres, recent battery, £4250 Tel. 07549 998817. Lincs

TRIUMPH T120 Bonneville, 2017, showroom new condition, 3400 dry miles, only ridden in summer, runs and rides beautifully, a great bike for cruising, £7000 Tel. 07365 297414. Hampshire

TRIUMPH THUNDERBIRD 900, 16,400 miles, hard luggage, original rear indicators, screen, centre stand, Borrani rims, MoT October, some service history Tel. 01933 311605. Northants

TRIUMPH TRIDENT T150V, 1974, sold as a running project, needs a seat, exhaust pipes, air filter & clutch cable, around £500 of parts to turn this bike into a £10,000 machine, £6000 Tel. 07365 297414. Hampshire

YAMAHA DS6 Street Scrambler, 1969, Candy Apple Green, good condition, nice bike, £4200 ono Tel. 07860 824454. Northumberland

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YAMAHA SR250 1982, mileage 2113 from new, genuine and complete, runs perfectly, petrol tank has a few rust bubbles & might benefit from a repaint, have kept it original, £1450 ono Tel. 07970 472266. East Sussex

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Suzuki TL1000R

Why are prices of the fat and frumpy TL1000R rising? Could we see a revival of a Suzuki sports V-twin?

WORDS: BERTIE SIMMONDS

PICS: MORTONS ARCHIVE

C

an it really be the case that the previously much-maligned Suzuki TL1000R is undergoing something of a renaissance?

If you don’t believe me, then check the prices: what the heck is going on? They are starting to look stronger than its sisterbike the TL1000S! Thing is, the S model (£7999 in February 1997) should be the cool one. It was 1997’s wild and wayward child, it was the bad-boy. It was powerful (125bhp) and it had a fierce image, sadly thanks to some tragic accidents. So-much-so, it needed to be tamed with a steering damper, which was a recall item for later in that model year.

The TL1000R (£8514 in January 1998) just looked and seemed ‘safer’. It was wide, almost like a four; it had a beefier ally beam frame and while it had the almost wasp-like tail of the-then current GSX-R750 SRAD the changes and words ‘V-Twin Superbike’ emblazoned on the fairing, Suzuki weren’t fooling anyone.

Despite what went before with all the bad press, Suzuki knew they had a monster motor – people even slot these things into Ducati 916 trellis frames.

Suzuki then gave the R a more solid braced swingarm and then talked of taking the thing World Superbike racing. It was all BS: sure, the Yoshimura team in AMA ran it for one season, before switching to the GSX-R, and the motor did win a World Superbike Race in the hands of Anthony Gobert in the Bimota SB8R in 2000, but it was always a road bike…

TL1000Rs had the same sort of geometry as the Yamaha YZF-R1 of the time (wheelbase 1395mm 23-degree rake) but then every TL1000R came with a steering damper. The bike was also around 10 kilos heavier, but it did have 10bhp more than the S thanks to mapping changes, cams and twin-injectors. Chassis changes were important too – as the TL1000S’s rotary damper and separate shock spring came in for a lot of stick with all the incidents that occurred, including a tragic death. The R had a temperature compensator, which saw the oil in the damper move through smaller holes as it increased in temperature.

Some people clearly loved this V-twin Suzuki superbike, which was deleted in 2003 but was still sold up until 2004 in the UK. Eight years back, you could find these out there for less than £2000. Today they start at £3250 and head north to £4500-£5000 for low milers, with the S model still down around £2500… strange! Perhaps people are starting to see the allure of this big V-twin? cmm www.classicmechanics.com / 59

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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.

2

WINNER LEVER BENDING

Q:

Just a quick comment about the bent clutch lever on Mark Haycock’s TX750.

Mark says that he wouldn’t advise straightening it, but I have successfully straightened them in the past. The issue with alloy levers is that once bent they ‘work harden’ and become brittle so any attempt to straighten them runs the risk of them snapping. The solution to this is to anneal the metal by heating and quenching it before bending it straight. (Rub soft soap on the alloy and heat it with a blowtorch till the soap goes black, then quench).

Get Mark to give it a go; he’s already fitted a replacement lever so has nothing to lose and a bit of original quality to gain. The same technique can be applied to copper washers to allow them to be reused in an emergency, but I wouldn’t advise trying it on brake levers as the risk of one snapping in use is best avoided for safety reasons!

Mike Brown

A:

This was Mike's letter from last month, so I decided to see if it works! I must say I was a little dubious as I wondered if this aluminium alloy is really the normal rather brittle composition used by the Japanese manufacturers for engine cases as it works well for die-casting. I was thinking that this alloy would be probably something along the lines of Zamac (usually called Mazac in this country, although they are not quite the same thing) which is an alloy of zinc, aluminium, magnesium, copper and other things. Or is it, because on reflection that surely would not be strong enough for a handlebar lever?

Let’s start by comparing the two levers (Photo 1) and you can see that the old lever has been bent at the outer end, so to preserve the 60 / classic motorcycle mechanics

original shape this is where the rebending needs to be concentrated. What I propose to do is to hammer the lever near the ball end on this heavy block (Photo 2) which will act like an anvil – after the annealing, that is! Now, about the temperature measurement. I didn’t have any soft soap so I wondered if this scrap of ordinary bar soap would do (Photo 3). This type of infra-red thermometer (Photo 4) can be useful for this sort of temperature measurement, but unfortunately it does not work properly on shiny metal, so it will be no good here.

I held the lever at the pivot end with a pair of grips and used an ordinary butane blow-lamp as I did not need to get the lever very hot. I can tell you that the solid soap was useless so I just had to go on the appearance of little bits of smoke and welding-type smells, as well as a slight discolouration of the shiny parts of the lever, to gauge when the lever was well and truly hot. After quenching the lever in water (Photo 5) I followed my hammering proposal and – how about this! (Photo 6). Not a bad result! So Mike’s idea does work (ostensibly, because I should have tried it on another lever without the annealing to get a definitive result), but I do agree that you would need to be braver than me to use it on a brake lever.

By the way, annealing does work and is one I use regularly to renovate copper parts such as sealing washers, but my understanding is that it is only actually necessary to heat the bits up to a bright red heat. The quenching is not actually part of the process as it is with steel, but it does help to remove the scale which will have formed on the surface. The lever alloy might well have similar properties, but of course the quenching does avoid unthinkingly picking up a very hot bit of metal!

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KAWASAKI ZRX1100

Q:

I recently had the wheels of my Kawasaki ZRX1100 powder-coated and new Metzeler Roadtecs fitted.

Unfortunately the stick on balance weights that were used came off within three days.

I then had the wheels rebalanced and new weights put back on, and my bike was parked in the garage due to lockdown. On checking my bike a week later I found the balance weights lying on the floor of the garage. Help this old pensioner to get the balance weights to adhere to the wheels!

Dave Hewitt

A:

I am assuming, by the way, that the adhesive is detaching from the

wheel rather than the weight? If the latter, then your tyre workshop must be using poor-quality weights, but if the former the powder-coated surface must be extremely smooth and impervious, so I am afraid the only way that I can think of to make the weights stick is to make it less so, but of course only in small specific areas. That means getting the balancing done yet again, then if you manage to get the wheels home without the weights dropping off, marking the position of the weights – probably masking tape would be best – then levering off the weights and giving that small area a rub with a bit of wet and dry and cleaning it carefully with solvent.

Then get all traces of adhesive off the weights and similarly sand and clean the sticking surface. You could then use a good epoxy adhesive, but I would not recommend that because it will be very difficult to get the weights off when they are next rebalanced. Better would be good double-sided sticky strips such as UniBond No More Nails, which is okay for exterior use and (it says here) will hold 120kg per roll. That works out to 4.2 grams per square millimetre, which does not sound much but I have just measured a 20-gram weight at 15mm x 37mm and according to my calculations the strip can hold 116 times the weight it is carrying, which surely must be enough!

WIN £50 Control cables and hydraulic lines form vital links between rider and machine; directly transmitting instructions to brakes and engine at all speeds and in all conditions.

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At Venhill, we’ve spent the past 50 years thinking about cables and hoses, developing and manufacturing them to the highest quality standards in our factory, close to Box Hill in Surrey. We make pattern cables and hydraulic lines for modern

and classic motorcycles, DIY kits, and even offer a madeto-measure service.

Our goal is to combat common cable problems like catching, wear and stretching, as well as issues found with hydraulic hoses, such as bowing, stretching and leaking. We aim to ensure all our products perform better, for longer.

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www.classicmechanics.com / 61

Counting the cost Used fuel tank Samco coolant hose kit (www.racebikebitz.com) Samco oil hose (www.racebikebitz.com) NGK iridium spark plugs (www.feridax.com) Silkolene Comp4 (4 litres) HiFlo oil filter AP Workshops Air Box Kit (www.apworkshops.co.uk) Used rear shock and linkages Used Fireblade stand Used fairing kit Used GSX-R 750 L1 forks Used offset yokes Used sub-frame Wheel, swingarm and head bearings Wheel acid-dipping and blasting (jpwheels.co.uk) Replacement wheels Racebolt UK Footrest bolt kit (raceboltuk.com)

With engineering, things are either right or they are wrong, and this case smacked profoundly of the latter. I had reached a dead-end, and now the challenge is on to get a new, longer stem made so we can get the front-end of the bike built up. It’s all way over my head, but there are folk out there smart enough to machine such a thing so I’m sure it’ll be a job we’ll tick off sooner rather than later.

My attention soon turned to the rear of the bike, and the fitment of the swingarm.

The bearings were in place, and after lavishing the needle bearing and the swingarm’s spindle with lube, in it went.

Soon after the shock and linkage joined the mix, and the Mille suddenly started to look less neglected with its rear-end partially assembled.

The polished, lacquered swingarm actually looked a near-identical finish to the anodised frame, which was a real result. It was my first real chance to take

Yokes swap.

88 / classic motorcycle mechanics

£60.00 £155.66 £30.54 £41.70 £43.21 £6.22 £120.00 £40.00 £30.00 £175.00 £500.00 £200.00 £20.00 £85.00 £48.00 £150 £27.94

in the new look of the bike and I liked what I saw. I was so enthused: we’ve all had those moments when we finally see some progress after many back-tracks!

I decided to fit the pegs and hangers, which was anything other than straightforward. When I’d bought the bike both parts in question had been sprayed blacker than a Goth’s bedroom, so I’d had the hangers powder-coated and the pegs blasted back to plain ally. It meant the pegs and springs needed reassembling on the hangers, and figuring out how to get the pegs folding as they should took an embarrassing amount of guesswork. I was armed with two separate workshop manuals but neither offered any pointers for this problem, which turned out to be straightforward in the end. A lot of the nuts and bolts on the bike are knackered or missing, so the decision to invest in a few kits from Racebolt proved a sound choice. I’ve got everything from screen

Almost as 'Dangerous' as Bruce...

Clips in refurbed wheels.

Dangerous and yucky stuff!

The stripped carbs.

Time to clean a pilot jet.

checked I started to reassemble the parts in sequence one carb at a time.

I rechecked the float heights and adjusted where needed until all were set to 24mm from the base of the carb body gasket surface to the bottom of the float. At this stage I always check the operation of the petrol shut-off valves by attaching a piece of petrol pipe, blowing into the pipe and listening for a hiss of air. I then invert the carburettors and the hiss should stop and it shouldn’t be possible to blow through the pipe.

With the carbs reassembled I set the throttle stop screw so that the distance between the throttle stop lever and carb bracket was 10mm, then I synchronised the throttle slides using a small drill as a gap gauge. I placed the shank of the drill under the throttle slide on the inlet side of the carb and adjusted the slides individually until the drill just slid in on all six carbs. I still have my special carb adjusting tool that I made in 1985 to

Now we are checking the float heights.

adjust the throttle bodies on my GPZ1100B2 and it works on a lot of 1980s fours that have 8mm locknuts, including the Z1. The tool allows the central adjusting screw to be turned, lifting or lowering the throttle slide.

Then the central screw can be held still while the locknut is tightened.

With the slides set I decided to check their operation under a vacuum to check the linkage was working oay.

When the engine is running the throttle slide is sucked against the front of the carb which can increase friction and the effort required to lift the slide. This is easy to check using my old Dyson vacuum

Here we see the different style carbs.

www.classicmechanics.com / 63

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10/ This was one seriously filthy sump! 11/ Using my new scraper to scrape a well-stuck gasket off the sump. 12/ Another tool in the armoury of gasket removal is the Stanley knife blade. 13/ I initially released all the 6mm bolts with a breaker bar.

I loosened all the crankcase bolts with a breaker bar. A few wanted too much torque so I used the propane torch to warm up the part of the casting where the bolts were threaded in and dribbled in some ACF-50 which is really great for corroded aluminium alloy and is the best of all penetrating oils I have used. Despite this care, one of the really long M6 bolts snapped. This isn’t uncommon particularly with the long bolts from on top around the final drive area; they’re often knackered by being stretched by home mechanics who don’t use a torque wrench. The crankcases

already had a number of snapped off screws and bolts for me to repair. Once the bolts had all been loosened, I whizzed them all out with the cordless impact driver Sealey gave me to test a while ago; so much quicker and easier than a ratchet.

The crankcases have some M8 threaded holes into which bolts are screwed to push the two halves apart. These were seriously crusty with years of corrosion so I lubed up an M8 tap and cleaned them up. Always check, double check and then check again that you have removed all the crankcase bolts before even thinking about using

these. I had a fellow who had missed some bolts and absolutely creamed these bolts in and smashed the front of the crankcase.

That was another set of Zed crankcases that would never be used again. Once the crankcases were split, I carefully put all the parts into storage boxes and labelled plastic bags ready for the rebuild.

As with almost every Zed I have come across, someone had snapped off one of the four final drive cover screws. I have repaired them on a bike and it is a right royal pain in the botty. I left this one until I had the cases split for minimal grief.

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14/ Once all the bolts had been released with the breaker bar, I whizzed them all out with the battery impact wrench. 15/ The zinc plating corrodes to protect the steel bolts.

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www.classicmechanics.com / 65

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GARY WARD AND RALPH FERRAND

Metal magic!

TOP LEFT: The Laser Tools aluminium repair kit.

TOP RIGHT: There’s no way that you would weld this fracture.

ABOVE RIGHT: Cleaning off the powder-coating with my Sealey two-inch sander with a 120-grit disc.

ABOVE LEFT: Using the supplied stainless brush to clean off oxidisation.

LEFT: Heating the workpiece with the Laser Tools butane torch.

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I

have a better equipped workshop than most home fettlers and I justify my over-the-top toy buying habit by repairing the odd bike for a small financial recompense and writing in this august organ.

Many years ago I treated myself to an AC/DC TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) welder, which is pretty fancy pants for a home workshop and will, combined with the right skill level, weld aluminium. TIG welding, however, does require not only a high degree of learned competence, but also regular practice, even if one has previously achieved a decent level of proficiency in the dark art of fusing alloys. Many cheap die-cast alloys with a high zinc content are pretty much not weldable, even by a TIG God! Laser Tools gave me some magic sticks that claim – with no flux or fancy torches – can be used to repair pretty much any aluminium-based alloy. Some years ago I broke the back fence of my sliding chop saw. It was made of some ultra-cheap Chinese die-cast and whilst the saw worked fine, despite its great age and abuse suffered, the back fence was no longer available as a spare part, rendering the machine about as valuable as a hedge fund manager to humanity. I was pretty confident that the magic sticks would join together nice fresh bits of aluminium, but this part, that was broken at least five years ago, was a serious challenge!

I probably should have practiced on some scrap ally first to get a feel for the job, but as I had only a limited time frame with a second pair of hands to help with the photography, I marched straight on in.

I removed the powder-coat from around the break using my venerable Sealey two-inch air sander and used the supplied stainless wire brush on the somewhat oxidised fracture faces.

I used a bit of aluminium alloy angle to clamp the two parts together in order to keep them in the correct orientation. It was soon discovered that two two-inch G-Clamps were required for each side. I put an old paving slab down on my bench to protect it from the heat. Although I have a posh Sievert propane torch, I wanted to test drive Laser’s affordable butane torch. It runs on a standard gas canister available from pretty much everywhere, apart from any of the wholesalers we use, so I grabbed one from a local Camping Gaz stockist.

Even though it is a cheapy, I was somewhat impressed with it, particularly the self-lighting bit which one doesn’t get with the big grown-up industrial bottle-fed torches. Because of its sheer convenience I have been using it loads in the workshop recently.

Because of the shape and form of the workpiece, it acted as a giant heat sink and was difficult to heat

TOP LEFT: Using the brazing rod like a stick of solder.

TOP RIGHT: I brazed the inner webs for maximum strength.

ABOVE LEFT: Filling the hole I managed to burn.

MIDDLE RIGHT: Not going to win any beautiful weld competitions, but a good, strong repair has been made.

BOTTOM RIGHT: A quick tidy up with the two-inch air sander and the job is a good ‘un!

up, as all the heat being put into it was being dissipated very rapidly, like an old two-stroke cylinder head. Because the temperature at which the rods melted isn’t that much lower than that of the alloy we were repairing, great care has to be taken. To get decent fusion it is important that the work piece is heated with the flame and not the alloy brazing rod.

Once the workpiece reached the correct temperature thenthe rod was melted on to it, in a manner somewhat similar to soldering. The heatsinking properties of the workpiece made it difficult to maintain a specific temperature and at one point I melted a hole in the side of it. I finished repairing the inside sections and then cleaned up the mess I had made on the outside and was able to fill the hole with the alloy braze.

Once I had finished, I quickly cleaned up the repair with the two-inch air sander and may at some point blow some black paint over the repair with a rattle can.

Even though I have professional aluminium welding equipment, this very affordable alloy brazing kit will repair things that simply can’t be welded and is therefore invaluable. When I eventually use up the sample pack I was given, I will certainly buy some more. www.classicmechanics.com / 67

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WORDS AND PICS: MALCOLM SHAW

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Project Suzuki TR750 part 13

Lucky for some!

Has it really been more than 12 issues (and much longer than a year) since we first saw Malc? He’s still on with his Suzuki triple special!

T

ime has flown by and here we are at part 13 and it’s somewhat of an anniversary. It means I’ve been writing about my build for over a year now!

I realise that sometimes I only cover making a few bits, and even then I don’t always cover every detail. It’s surprising what it takes to describe making something. Anyway, I hope it has been of interest and informative, and inspired some of you to start your own builds. Let’s see what I can cover this time.

A little more on the powder-coating.

Three more casings blasted off and masked up (photo 1). I don’t buy the heat-proof masking tape. I found the sticky silver foil you use to join insulation boards works fine, it is cheap and you get lots on a roll. It sticks well and is easy to cut and shape round components. The only down side is it can leave a sticky 68 / classic motorcycle mechanics

residue which requires acetone or thinners to remove, which if you get on your powder-coating goes soft! I was pleased with the look of these casings (photo 2).

I decided I wanted a billet top yoke. It’s beyond my machining skills and really these days it is a CNC job. I think the price of CNC has really come down in this country in the last five years and if you look about there are various people offering the service. I take no credit for this as my friend Darryl the toolmaker took the GSX-R top yoke, measured it, incorporated my requirements, drew it up and one of his machines did the rest. I pay the going rate as it’s his business, but for time, accuracy and quality, it’s a nobrainer (photos 3 and 4).

I knew the electrics were going to sit in the only space available, under the seat unit, and I wanted them housed in a ‘box’.

Sometimes I build things and although they seem okay at the time, a bit later on

they don’t work! I had three goes at this one (photo 5). My first effort was an ally welded up box, which is now a parts’ dumping ground! Second was a GRP effort. I found a plastic ice cream carton fitted exactly. So, I used it as a mould for matt and resin. On a lot of these type of plastics GRP doesn’t stick. I made an alloy collar to fit it in, but after a time it became clear I needed all the room available. The final effort was the simplest.

I chose stainless steel as thin sheet is quite ridged (1mm). Also if I don’t scratch it there’s a nice finish on the underside which if laying down you might see! It was again a case of lots of measuring, cutting the sheet with 1mm slitting disc in the angle grinder making sure it did not get too hot and discolour, marking out and bending (photo 6). One of those benders in the photo is not too expensive but do have their limitations. For years I’ve used two bits of angle iron in the vice; with care

3

5

it works well enough and is inexpensive.

A bit of fettling to fit round the frame and the ‘box’ was clamped in place, threaded ‘transfer punches’ wound through the fixings (photo 7), leaving fairly accurate marks to drill through (photo 8). I tend to mark things as it helps me reduce mistakes, hence the two arrows. Age has clearly caught me up!

That was basically it, maximising the space available and although not watertight, (not that I have any intention of going out in the wet) it’s given me somewhere to mount various components out of sight. It will need to have holes drilled in it to take the wiring as that develops when I build the loom.

I had mulled over whether to have a

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headlight or not: the same with regards to a fairing. I knew I did not want a period TR fairing or anything modern. The closest I got to it was a later shape XR69, but then all my engine and pipes would be hidden. I tried a half fairing from a Ducati, but that didn’t work for me. Once again in my collection of parts was a reproduction GRP YPVS handlebar fairing. Once held in position I thought it had possibilities. Strangely, those that have seen the bike don’t seem to be able to identify it... bonus!

I ordered a fairing, screen and front mudguard from Skidmarx. The fairing and screen were reasonably oky, but the front mudguard just would not fit. To be fair I had a number of conversations regarding

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this with Skidmarx, trying to sort out the issue. I the end it was returned with a no quibble refund. I took a chance and bought a £25 injection moulded front mudguard off the internet. It looks good, fits perfectly and appears up to the job!

A search of the internet turned up this LED beast (photo 9). It was not silly money and when connected to a battery appears to give good light and an okay beam pattern. It’s E marked and meant for UK roads; once up and running I’ll get it checked on a beam setter.

The fairing obviously dictates the headlamp position, so it was a case of holding the fairing where I thought it should be on the bike. The question then was how to mount everything?

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www.classicmechanics.com / 69

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Luckily the GSX-R bottom yoke has a couple of M8 threaded holes in it, so a plate was made and bolted up. The fairing is mounted by two holes in the bottom and lugs bonded on to the GRP about twothirds of the way up. It was fixed to the plate through the holes. This plate had to be made and bent at different angles a number of times before it was right. Using epoxy resin I also bonded in a half-inch piece of aluminium with matching holes to the bottom of the fairing to add strength.

At the same time I added a strip of carbon fibre to the top of the fairing where the screen fixes and with epoxy resin plus a filler beefed up the mounting lugs and filled round the headlamp ‘hole’ where there is a recess (photo 10). Once the fairing is fully fitted and shaped, I will probably add a complete layer of carbon fibre on the inside for strength.

The plate was not going to be strong enough by any means to hold the fairing and headlamp, plus I needed a mounting for the headlamp bracket. This took some time and resulted in a couple of bits of threaded solid round alloy and a ‘platform’ on which to mount the headlamp bracket.

70 / classic motorcycle mechanics

I needed to figure out a way of altering the headlamp beam direction. A single bolt hole mounts the headlamp bracket and gives left and right adjustment.

The platform gave me another mounting point and 10mm, thick-walled alloy tube was bent to shape and length, bolting up to two of the five threaded holes under my new top yoke. Two other mountings were made to fit to the fairing lugs. Getting these bent correctly and at the right angles took quite a few goes and a fair bit of wasted tube! I use an automotive pipe bender meant for a soft brake/fuel pipe (photo 11). It works okay and again is a relatively inexpensive tool.

I wasn’t going to waste all my hard work with my poor ally welding sonce again I enlisted the help of Shaun, a local fabricator (photo 12), to weld it up plus the mountings for the rad which I’d made some time ago. As a slight aside here’s a picture of a virtually full-size scooter Sean sculpted from steel discs (photo 13). Here is the finished fairing mount (photo 14) which has had a few tweaks along the way, but seams quite solid. It’s taken ages to make, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel! cmm

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Thanks to: Shaun: Faraday Fabrications.

Skidmarx: 01305 780808

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will emerge later. The book does not mention that the coils must come off (Photo 5) as there is no clearance for the engine to lift. Then it sank in that my coils were not standard items but generic replacements. This was a popular mod as the original coils are said to be a bit unreliable. I found it also easier to take off the oil-tank to give more room.

Just under the tank was what appeared to be a mounting lug on the frame which was stopping the engine from coming out. A closer inspection under the dirt showed that it was in fact a bolted-on plate which, when removed, turned the impossible into the possible, I am glad to say.

Yamaha tell you to lift the engine using the kick-start and the left-hand exhaust port, but as I could only get two fingers in

there, that was not much help. A much easier technique was to lift the engine with a little trolley jack, guide it out with the kick-start and right-hand cylinder and allow a controlled descent on to a soft surface (Photo 6).

The engine is quite heavy to lift but a little while later I had it on the bench and ready for action. The first operation is to remove the valve cover (Photo 7) and here I want to point out a couple of things.

A few purists will be horrified to see that I have not cleaned the whole engine before starting work. My stance on this is that everything will be dismantled, right down to individual components, and thus it will all be comprehensively cleaned later on; there is no point in doing the job twice. The other point to note is that the engine is facing me so that I can easily

reach what I need to access, so the left-hand side as I look at it now is actually its right-hand side. This is important when it comes to labelling parts such as valves and pistons so you need to have a rule to follow. Mine is that Right means the Right side as I sit on the bike.

You can see that the valve gear is very simple and conventional and the ‘special tool’ you need is simply an M6 screw to pull out the rocker shafts (Photo 8). One point here was that one of the inlet rockers fitted so tightly in its mountings that I needed a pry bar to get it out (Photo 9). Evidently these engines were assembled with the aid of a hammer. I always put the valve components together in separate labelled plastic bags (Photo 10) and, of course, RE here means Right (or left as I am looking at it) exhaust!

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WOR D PHO S: STEV TOS: E GAR COOPER Y ‘D ’ CHA PMA N

BUY ER’S GUID E

Laverda Chott Can a little 250 two-stroke trailie be mad, mental and thoroughly manageable all in one hit? Maybe this one can, says Steve Cooper.

CHAIN GAITERS

EXHAUSTS The fibre glass bash plate is infamous for collecting mud and rotting out lower half of front pipe.

Check condition at front end and inner faces; splits and tears will compromise efficiency.

GEARBOX Hugely robust and not known for causing issues; rumoured to have been originally for a 400cc prototype version.

72 / classic motorcycle mechanics

The old left-hand-side engine cover...

The old right-hand-side engine cover...

The new left-hand engine cover!

The new right-hand cover going on.

Thinking laterally I began some research as to what modern brake materials were available for the old school calipers. The really helpful people at SBS reckoned their 504HF ceramic friction material was the one to choose and Steve Jago, boss of Webbs of Peterborough, ordered me up a pair for very sensible money. A morning on the tools had the old, organic pads out and the new SBS pads installed. What a difference! Seriously, the feel, power and feedback were phenomenal right from the off and those Scandinavian Brake Systems pads are truly the business when mated to 70s stainless disc rotors. I recommend them to the house without reservation!

Everything hinges on these seat hinges!

One niggling issue that was present even before I’d ridden the bike was the way the rear right lower seat covering rubbed the top shock mount. Assuming the seat rubbers were shot I swapped out the existing ones for some deeper ones I found in the shed. Ultimately a pointless exercise as they did nothing for the vinyl’s preservation, just made the seat harder to latch down. Words with a fellow Yamorak delivered several sets of Yamaha seat hinges for ongoing experimentation. Hard to believe I grant you, but by fitting a pair of alternative hinges just a fraction taller on their pivot faces, the seat fitted and closed without issue.

Without question the bike’s original cosmetics were better than many of similar vintage but the outer engine case covers were somewhat on the well-weathered side of scruffy. Knowing just how easy it is to inadvertently scuff a case when changing gear or kick starting, I’d concluded a rattle can renovation wouldn’t be robust enough.

Therefore I managed to locate and purchase a set of early 1973 outer cases which were then dropped off with Mark Dunford of High Calibre Coatings. The old transmission case came off after a bit of jiggery-pokery, but eviction of the original gasket took ages even with the application of proper, rip-your-eyes-out, paint stripper.

Sympathetically blast cleaned, Mark

applied satin black Cerakote paint to deliver a really good, hard-wearing coating.

Suitably equipped with oils seals and gasket, both cases were duly swapped out and treated to a new set of fasteners, replacing the hotchpotch of cap head and butchered crossheads. You’ll excuse me if I abstain from using period correct, passivated, green screws but, frankly, I’d much rather see bright zinc than olive drab any day! With the correct decals from our good friends at Yambits carefully installed the cases looked substantially better.

The paintwork of the bike was OEM finish and before anyone steps up to their soapbox the bike and panels are correct for a 1973 RD350(A) which is most emphatically not the same as a 1974 RD350A… trust me on this one please!

The dark ruby red paint probably looks grand in the Californian sunshine but we don’t get much of that in Blighty and the old girl does tend to look a bit drab most of the time. Trawling the internet for inspirations I finally fell upon a Japanese domestic market brochure for the same model year and was instantly obsessed by the colour of the 250 which is the same hue as my much lamented RD200 – Virginia Gold (00M4) was ‘The One!’ The other reason for changing the tank was that the original only held some 11 litres of fuel which made a 100-mile trip a little www.classicmechanics.com / 101

TIMELINE:

The Chott and Beyond The original Chott ran from 1974 to 1976 pretty much unaltered other than paintwork schemes. Seeking to maximise return on their efforts the factory latterly revised and updated the basic design to deliver the 2TR. Focusing purely on competition now with minimal tarmac appeal the bike lost its gauges, the magnesium castings were replaced with aluminium alloys, and the previously stainless steel front guard became plastic. Now very much a niche market machine the 2TR was much more in line with a customer base that wanted a proper off-road tool. At the same time the Breganze hierarchy was looking to expand its markets and particularly within the dirt arena. Sales of off-road machinery were booming and quite reasonably Laverda wanted a slice of the action. The Italian factory linked up with Swedish manufacturer Husqvarna to produce Italian-built machines utilising Swedish-built engines. The subsequent LH125 and LH250 both proved to be very successful, justifying the partnership. Although profitable, the LH models alone were never going to be enough to keep the firm afloat and so, by the mid-80s, the factory was looking to build additional dirt bikes.

With limited funds the R&D team took the old 500cc Alpino twin motor from the roadgoing one, boring it out to 572cc, reworking the cams and reworking the old bike’s running gear.

This bike, marketed as a Laverda Atlas, was sold from 1986 to 1989, but its high price meant only some 500 were ever produced.

What to buy and how much to pay Some folk seem to think that just because a bike is rare such standing automatically confers high status and therefore high value – wrong! Laverda Chotts aren’t common now and weren’t especially so back in the mid-70s, but that doesn’t mean they are inevitably expensive. A quick Google whilst writing this guide turned up runners starting at just £2200 (with everything there) in the UK. If you look abroad to Italy a well-used example that’s still running can be snapped up for as little £1800. Even with import duties, taxes and shipping that’s still a lot of classic Italian for you money. We found an example of the rarer, competition orientated 2TR, (a beautiful, restored example) in Italy up at £5700, but you’d really have to want one very badly for that price. In good tidy condition here in the UK you’d be looking at closer to £3500. Given the price that even project examples of Yamaha DTs, Suzuki TSs, Kawasaki Fs and Honda XLs are going for the slightly exclusive, subtly exotic, impeccably well-mannered Chott actually starts to make a lot of sense – both financially and aesthetically.

The motor was very much a simple two-stroke with no disc or reed-valve induction, instead relying on proven piston-porting technology. Utilising modern (for the period) technology the Chott ran a high-end, German, Bosch electronic ignition system powering a pair of coils and two spark plugs.

With some relatively forward thinking on cylinder head design and the twin spark arrangement, the 250cc single was quoted as delivering 26 horses at almost 8000rpm making it a relatively pokey machine for the period.

The bike’s chassis was simple yet elegant and typically graced with reassuring manners like most Italian motorcycles; it was based around a full twin cradle frame constructed from narrow diameter, high quality steel tubing. Key to its predictable handling and general good behaviour was a series of carefully considered sheet steel braces or gussets at numerous intersections of any pair of frame tubes with particular care taken around the swing arm spindle mounts and especially so at the headstock.

The use of the narrow chassis tubes and precise triangulation of any potential flexing points via the minimalist reinforcements led to a creditable, all up weight of some 108 kilos, which included oil and fuel. Suspension was taken care of by top name Ceriani front and rear thereby leaving nothing to chance. And if any potential buyers were in any doubt as to the bike’s credentials the Breganze factory had also opted to fit a fully enclosed chain to

Chain-gaiters need checking before you buy.

74 / classic motorcycle mechanics

Tough as old proverbials, this one...

ease essential maintenance when the bike was being used in the heat of competition. At the end of long day’s enduro riding the last thing a rider spannering for himself needed was the chore of chain cleaning and re-lubricating. And yet if the chain did need attention, a wheel bearing required replacing or a puncture needed fixing, the factory had also considerately fitted in a discrete centre stand as well as the normal side-stand. In reality few enduro/trail/dualpurpose machines had ever been so well equipped; the only obvious omission was the lack of an oil pump for forced lubrication.

Ultimately the Chott’s public reception was a little subdued; buyers’ expectations were subtly at odds with Laverda’s market research. The latter had initially been carried out in 19691970 and probably on the back of Yamaha’s DT-1 250 and Suzuki’s TS250 successes. That the Chott was more competition/off-road focused was immutable and this arguably muted mass-market appeal. The 250 single was unquestionably a competent tool but arguably just a little too dirt focused to be a true trail bike. And with the gift of hindsight the use of premix-cum-omission of an oil pump was a major shortfall given that oriental strokers had been graced with such systems for a decade.

So why might you want a Laverda Chott now?

Quite simply because the supposedly flawed facets that diminished its appeal when it was new are USPs today. That chassis handles like little else of the period, the simple motor punches well above its weight, the quality of the engineering is almost peerless, and the bike’s honed and focused nature is the total antithesis of period Japanese trail irons – which, in our book, is reason enough.

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servicesguide To advertise in classifiedmechanics please contact: Simon on 01507 529310

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76 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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78 / classic motorcycle mechanics

servicesguide PARTS AND SPARES

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80 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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BMW 1150 GSA 2002 30, 417 miles, vgc, non ABS model, serviced and MoT Oct 21, heated Grips, Satnav, Touratech alloy boxes, Givi top box, £4000 ovno Tel. 07708466680. Edinburgh

BMW R1100S 1999, good condition, on Sorn, 42,051 miles, handbook, toolkit panniers and new battery 2021, current owner since 2010, £2100 Tel. 01858 419874. Leics

BSA A65L 1967, Spitfire Replica, Mk 3 engine, Mk 2 bodywork, runs, rides nicely, Boyer ignition, SRM upgraded oil pump, few spares, V5C, £4995 ono Tel. 07594 506435.

Kent

BSA D1 1953, running order, good condition, electronic ignition, £1200 Tel. 07522 983224. Essex

BSA D14 Bantam Special, 1968, 175cc new tyres, brakes, cables, battery, light switch, Hagon shocks, stainless chainguard, alloy rims, vgc, £1675 ono Tel. 07760 289747.

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DUCATI 750SS 1991, 12,500 miles, fully serviced, new belts, battery, brake lines and carbs cleaned, MoT, Termignoni exhausts, complete toolkit and 2 keys, vgc, £3750 ono Tel. 07860 100905.

HONDA 400/4, F2, 1977, metallic red, fine bike running well, fresh oil, new tyres, 33,000 miles, V5C, tax & MoT exempt, £4750 Tel. 01723 372219.

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HONDA BRITAIN dry storage for approx 10yrs, was running at the time of storage, not been tried lately, T reg, 22,000 miles, needs light restoration & recommission, £7500 ono Tel. 07538 601970. philipscronin@aol.com

HONDA BROS 650 1988, new disc and water pump, regulator, chain and sprockets, Gel seat, Hagon high bars, new Lithium battery and original Honda screen, 53,000km Tel. 01613 039604.

HONDA CAMINO DX, 1980, 5211 miles, one owner, not run 10 years, will run with petrol, £200 Tel. 07989 203965.

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HONDA CB550K US import registered, good condition all original except exhausts four into two, small dent in tank, ride or restore, 21,000 miles, £3795 Tel. 07811 756681. Cumbria

HONDA CB750F DOHC, 1981, recent refresh, showing 17k, some history, new MoT, tax and MoT exempt next year, runs and rides superb, wants nothing Tel. 07905 615968. Devon

HONDA CBF600 FA, 2007, excellent condition, ABS, chain oiler, heated grips, MoT 05/21, service history, 11,400 miles, three owners, £2395 Tel. 07952 826430. Leics

HONDA CBR600FY 2001, red & black, 31,500 miles, new tyres, battery, chain & sprockets, MoT, vgc, £1750 Tel. 07748 942271. West Yorkshire

HONDA CBR900 Fireblade, 1998, MoT August 2021, 32,000 miles, excellent condition, £3750 Tel. 07539 734447.

Bedfordshire

HONDA CBR900 RR-W Fireblade, superb example, originally a prize given by MCN in 1998, 9200 genuine miles, Blueprinted engine, Showa suspension, Remus exhaust, £5999 Tel. 07971 022197.

HONDA CBR900RR new MoT, new Michelin Pilot Road 4 2CT, freshly powder coated wheels, new chain & sprockets, down one on front & back for better drive, 48,277 miles, £5800 ono Tel. 07765 541000. South Wales

HONDA CD175 1972, bike undergone a total nut & bolt restoration, beautiful bike with 4100 recorded miles on clock, immaculate condition, £4250 ono Tel. 07861 702441.

Abergavenny

HONDA CM250T 1983, owned for last 11 years, been off the road for the last 3, 61,000 miles, new battery and plugs, runs well, tyres all good, needs tlc, £600 ono Tel. 07812 211643.

London

HONDA NIGHTHAWK 750 1997, 23,000km good tyres, chain, brakes and chrome, MoT 11 months, £1850 Tel. 01403 241413. West Sussex

HONDA ST70 1976, partly restored after being off the road since 1983, V5 in my name, front forks rebuilt along with a long list of other work, £2250 Tel. 07963 557069. Glos

HONDA VFR750 RC24 1989 good condition, stainless Motad, good tyres/brakes, 1 year MoT, inc spares, £1700 Tel. 01403 241413. West Sussex

HONDA XBR500 1987, single, good condition, £2000 Tel. 07970 063818. Derbyshire

HONDA XL500 1979, import on a V reg, been in dry storage, needs light refurbishment & recommission, possibly needs replacement air filter box & handlebar switches? £2600 ono Tel. 07538 601970.

KAWASAKI F7 175 1973, V5, excellent original condition, new tyres, throttle cable, sealed headlight beam, bore honed and new standard rings fitted, £2600 Tel. 07761 923584.

Hampshire

KAWASAKI GPZ500S D7, 2000, 3750 miles, four previous owners, time warp condition, MoT, rack, tank, cover, higher screen, £2150 Tel. 01797 320434. Kent

KAWASAKI W650 02, red and cream, excellent condition, 14,000 miles, £3900 Tel. 01291 423392. Chepstow

KAWASAKI ZX6R J1, 2000 on X plate, excellent original condition, 27,900 miles, MoT April 2022, new rubber front & rear, £1850 Tel. 07818 696899.

Edinburgh

KAWASAKI ZZR600 E7, T reg, 1999, 20,081 miles, spares or repair, currently non runner, new parts include battery, air filter, spark plugs, starter solenoid, £950 ono Tel. 02086 444998. Surrey

82 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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MATCHLESS G15CS 1967, clean tidy running bike, very good condition, fitted with single carb conversion in line oil filter, electronic ignition, V5C, £8500 may p/x Tel. 07876 704268. Norfolk

NORTON COMMANDO 961 MK2, 2016, 1400 dry miles, only ridden on dry days in summer, in immaculate concours new showroom condition, no test rides, £12,000 no offers Tel. 07365 297414. Hampshire

SACHS ROADSTER 2004, 650cc, black genuine mileage, 1384 miles, one lady owner, 10 years in storage, needs recommissioning, £975 Tel. 07768 684259. Dorset

SUZUKI B120 8000 miles, very quiet motor, great runner, vgc, open to sensible offers or swap why? would like Kawasaki KM/ KE, Yamaha DT/TY or RD200 cash either way Tel. Tony 07968 071472. Derbyshire

SUZUKI BANDIT 1200 1997, 27k miles, Holeshot racing engine 138 BHP Short akrapovic system, Harris rearsets, MoT, slightly scruffy cosmetically, £3000 Tel. 07584 575903. Hampshire

SUZUKI DR650 H reg, good engine, gearbox & sparks, needs some recommissioning eg brakes, off the road for a few years, good project, carb needs sorting, loads of spares, £750 Tel. 07984 706372. Stockport

SUZUKI GS750 1977, rebuilt, 2016 powder coated frame, not used, needs good home, does not need MoT, nearly brand new, loads money spent, £2800 ono Tel. 01158 755159.

Derbyshire

SUZUKI GSX550 1985, 32,415 miles, new indicators, front tyres, on Sorn, kept in dry garage, very good chrome & paintwork, started on regular basis, £1350 Tel. 07903 292220. Durham

SUZUKI GSX-R750 1996, Rizla rep, original dream machine paint work, new MoT, new tyres, 5 owners, never tracked or dropped, £2750 ono Tel. 07947 844180. West Yorks

SUZUKI GT185A 1975, 21k, original bill of sale, history, three owners, purchased 25 years ago with 1800 miles from new, excellent original condition, £3250 Tel. 07840 173833.

Essex

SUZUKI SP600 1985, rare US import, restored to excellent condition, 6535 miles, with MoT can deliver at small cost, thousands spent, £2900 Tel. 01254 605501. Lancs

SUZUKI SV1000 2004, 1900 miles, very good condition, years MoT, good tyres, brakes, £2250 Tel. 01403 241413. West Sussex

SUZUKI X7 1979, good working order, V5 present, reg as historic vehicle, many new parts: tyres, battery, shocks, fork seals, front brake lines and cylinder, chain, £4200 ono Tel. 07768 122530. Surrey

TRIUMPH Street Triple, 2012, 6400 miles, vgc, garaged, service history, MoT August, good tyres, recent battery, £4250 Tel. 07549 998817. Lincs

TRIUMPH T120 Bonneville, 2017, showroom new condition, 3400 dry miles, only ridden in summer, runs and rides beautifully, a great bike for cruising, £7000 Tel. 07365 297414. Hampshire

TRIUMPH THUNDERBIRD 900, 16,400 miles, hard luggage, original rear indicators, screen, centre stand, Borrani rims, MoT October, some service history Tel. 01933 311605. Northants

TRIUMPH TRIDENT T150V, 1974, sold as a running project, needs a seat, exhaust pipes, air filter & clutch cable, around £500 of parts to turn this bike into a £10,000 machine, £6000 Tel. 07365 297414. Hampshire

YAMAHA DS6 Street Scrambler, 1969, Candy Apple Green, good condition, nice bike, £4200 ono Tel. 07860 824454. Northumberland

YAMAHA MS 50E 1986, almost mint condition, no rust, runs and rides, project, 556 miles from new, all paper work present, £800 ovno Tel. 07810 030309. Lancs

YAMAHA SR250 1982, mileage 2113 from new, genuine and complete, runs perfectly, petrol tank has a few rust bubbles & might benefit from a repaint, have kept it original, £1450 ono Tel. 07970 472266. East Sussex

YAMAHA SR500 1981, recent MoT, with new rear tyre, front pads and new paint work, runs and rides nicely, £3250 Tel. 07963 557069. Glos

YAMAHA TRX850 8000 miles, 1999 T reg, yellow/black/white Kenny Roberts colours, £3500 Tel. 07789 740376. Email.

Daniel.mcmahon@hotmail.com Wiltshire

YAMAHA TT250R 2003, vgc, 57,177km, MoT Dec 2021, tyres like new, new pads, new seat cover, £2300 ono Tel. 07745 030062. North Yorks

YAMAHA TZ350E 1978, racing bike in first class condition, complete with spares, new fairing, front mudguard + seat, + spares, £10,000 Tel. Dave 07583 532153. Staffs

YAMAHA VIRAGO 250 (XV250S), immaculate bike, genuine 1814 miles from new, been dry/warm stored last 10 years, fitted with Givi screen & Givi rack/backrest, £2500 ono Tel. 07544 424153. Edinburgh

YAMAHA WR200 classic Enduro, 1992, matching engine/ frame numbers, recent rebuild from sandblasted frame up, lots of new bits seals/oils/clutch/ gaiters/tyres, £3000 ono Tel. 07990 720765. Gwent

YAMAHA XJR1300 2000, metallic green, in almost original condition, c/w useful bolt on extras, 20,000 miles, excellent working order condition, £3250 Tel. 07504 327299. Devon

YAMAHA XJR1300 2007, superb unmolested condition, only 12k miles, lots of history, MoT to November, £4300 ono Tel. 07761 469409. Leics

YAMAHA XT500C 1976, rare original exhaust, matching frame & engine numbers, 12V electronic ignition conversion, new clutch, crank seals, cam chain, re-bore with new piston & rings, £8750 Tel. 07921 169225. Staffs

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Parts For Sale

GARAGE CLEAROUT Honda CX650 Eurosport parts, frame (with V5), dismantled engine, engine block with pistons, plus 60% of bike. Tel. 07835 653986. Hants.

HONDA CB250 1997, classic commuter bike has clearly not had hard life at 17,500 miles, top box, MoT Sept, £1200 ono. Tel. 01469 518557. North East Lincolnshire.

HONDA CB450 5 speed, 1970, UK bike, 11,000 recorded miles, mine for 45 years with V5C and green log book in my name, very original (even the keys), good compression, no leaks, but a bit rusty in places and will need full recommissioning, £3750. Tel. 07971 515393. Cornwall.

HONDA NC50 Express, 1982, the title of express is being very optimistic, V5 in my name, some spares, lost interest, delivery possible, come and haggle, £5500 ono. Tel. 07989 237837. Staffs.

SUZUKI GSF BANDIT 2000, black, standard very good condition, new MoT, 68,000km £1800 ono. Tel. 07981 133865.

Hampshire.

SUZUKI GSF600 BANDIT 1997, 32,000 miles, all matt black fuel s/s exhaust, new oil + filter, new front tyre, crash bobbins, rental handlebars, strong fast engine, 10 months MoT, can send pictures, £8750 ono. Tel. 07704 343331. Cheshire.

SUZUKI GT500A complete engine stripped and boxed, includes two exhausts and headers, carburetors, kickstart, oil pump, electronic ignition (new) and full engine gasket set, £750. Suzuki X5 spares, including front and rear mudguards, both clocks and Binnacle, battery holder, foot rest, front and rear star alloy wheels, swinging arm, side panels, rear light cluster, side stand, cycle parts and both exhausts complete, £400. Tel. 07530 242424. South Devon.

SUZUKI RG470/RGV project, Stan Stephen’s engine side exit stainless GP pipes not yet fully run in most work completed test on road part striped to tidy up full RGV/M body work blue white, complete new chain and tyres needs t/c to finish, £10,500 ono. Tel. 07580 785779. West Midlands.

SUZUKI VS750 Intruder, 1988, 15,000 miles, on Sorn, will MoT if sold, £1950 ono. Tel. Richard 01243 948518. West Sussex.

YAMAHA FZR400RR 1993 for spares or repair, has Thundercat engine fitted at present, but comes with stripped down 400 engine with loads of spares, bike has lots of new parts including 4/2/1 S/S exhaust with new carbon end can, 520 chain & sprockets, fuel pump and battery, suspension has been modified with R6 rear shock, Hagon fork springs & YSS emulators. Tel. 07814 480269. Teesside.

GENUINE YAMAHA front right brake caliper assembly (Motorcycle), 4WM 2580T 01, Fits Yamaha 1999-2003 XV1600 Road Star, XVZ1300 Royal Star Venture (plus others), brand new, boxed, never been used or fitted, £80.

Tel. 02086 444998. Surrey.

GENUINE YAMAHA front left brake caliper assembly (Motorcycle, 4WM 2580U 01, fits Yamaha 1999-2003 XV1600 Road Star, XVZ1300 Royal Star Venture (plus others), brand new, boxed, never been used or fitted, £80.

Tel. 02086 444998. Surrey.

HONDA CR125 1990, clutch (22870KZ4P00) and throttle (17910KZ4730) cable, new, unused, £20 for both. Tel. 02086 444998. Surrey.

HONDA VF750 frame, forks, wheels, C reg with V5, £220.

250, G5 coils, stator & cover, points cover, side panels, £45.

Suzuki GT250 coils, clutch plates petrol cap, £35. Yamaha RD200, side panels, 50 coil, £200. Tel. 01524 424960. Lancs.

ZXR400L KAWASAKI registered 2001 on J plate, frame, swingarm and subframe, purchased as donor for race bike but never used, comes with V5 and HPI check (Oct 2019), in pretty good condition with no obvious signs of damage, just a bit of rust in places, £125. Also Kawasaki ZXR400H registered 1997 on H plate, frame for sale, again purchased as donor for race bike but never used, comes with V5 and HPI check (Oct 2019), in pretty good condition, no obvious signs of damage just a few spots of rust, £75. ZXR400 top & bottom yokes, front forks, although stanchions are pitted and the seals are shot and need replacing, comes with front discs, rear wheel with Pirelli Super Corsa 160/60/17, disc and rear shock which needs reconditioning. Also front wheel with 120/70/17 Pirelli Super Corsa, in good condition, £150, collection only. Tel. 07724 231968. Exeter.

RICKMAN Z1000 1974, plate in fare condition, some spare parts, also enough parts for a Honda CB750 version, £3500.

Tel. 01304 379211. Kent.

SPARES FOR HONDA SS50 CB250 350K, one pair side panels for CB450 black Bomber. Tel. 01291 423392.

South Wales.

SUZUKI GT750 kettle chain guard, rechromed, £85. Honda 750K1, crashbars, rechromed, £65. Tel. 01785 212878.

Stafford.

TRIUMPH 5TA chopper head gasket 70-4675, £5. Points plate advance/retard unit, £12. Heavy duty external fork springs, coded green/yellow, £5. Bar end mirror round glass, £8. Tel. 01925 491108.

Cheshire.

YAMAHA MIRRORS for XJR1300 or similar, new & unused, chrome oval type, £30.

Tel. 07504 327299. Sth Devon.

84 / classic motorcycle mechanics

YAMAHA FZR400 IWG radiator clocks, CDi loom, carbs, rectifier, disc front fairing brackets, lights, rear caliper, front rear master cylinders, Honda MC18, fairing seat and plastics, cylinders heads. Tel. 07816 043480. Staffs.

YAMAHA FZ600 1986, 1988, large amount of parts available for air cooled FZ600, contact with requirements. Tel. 07885 290761. Hereford.

YAMAHA RD250/350 parts gearbox, front rear hubs, fork legs, D model, headlamp, shell, vgc, alternator complete pair carbs, rear mudguard bracket, wants chrome, job lot offers.

Tel. 01942 512819; 07722 924444. Warrington.

YAMAHA TRX 1998 fairing panels, seats, plus more, £200.

Honda XII handlebars, £40.

Busa cam chain tensioner, new, £40, genuine factory parts. Tel. 02083 914067. Surrey.

YAMAHA XSR700 complete original exhaust system, very good condition, £70. Suzuki (Mikuni) oil pump small ignition coil new Suzuki GSXR750, £15. Tel. 01772 783774. Lancs.

Wanted

BRITISH & JAP BIKES wanted for a project anything considered good or bad top price paid. Tel. Tony 01704 331519. Lancs.

BSA BANTAM WANTED or any other lightweight two stroke project/rusty bike would pay around £500 with or without V5, can collect. Tel. 07493 115351. West Boldon.

BSA OR VILLIERS BIKE wanted in any condition good price paid also any other lightweight Brit/Jap bikes. Tel. 07845 732328. Lancs.

C10 C11 C15 BSA WANTED any condition with or without V5, can collect. Tel. 07710 757007. West Boldon.

CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE wanted in any condition anything considered British, Jap or Italian, good price paid by genuine enthusiast. Tel. Colin 07845 732328. Lancs.

GREEN LANE Brit bike wanted, complete bike or project with or without V5. Tel. 07583 716066. West Boldon.

HONDA CB/72/77 1966, wanted pair carbs suitable full race 30mm CB72 like concentrics but anything considered. Tel. 07971 515393.

Cornwall.

KAWASAKI KM90/KM100 wanted anything considered, even parts, can collect. Tel. Tony 07968 071472. Derbyshire.

HONDA SP1 damage repairable or a parts bike wanted anything considered, please email pictures or details of what you have. Tel. 07944 404152. Worcestershire.

HONDA WANTED for restoration project, anything any size/age considered upto 550cc, single, twin or four preferably pre-1990, road or trail, will consider other makes, your price paid and will travel to collect (or courier?) Tel. 07538 696157. Leics.

RETIRED ENGINEER looking for a project special or something unusual hybrid or standard, road or ex race running or not, just something interesting anything considered, need to keep my hands and mind busy, willing to travel anywhere, please give me a ring, also looking for a MX/ Enduro. Tel. 01613 350497; 07931 557018 anytime. Lancs.

SPARES FOR SUZUKI RV125K 1970s one, rear rack main stand, tyre, pump, service manual + parts catalogue. Tel. 01291 423392. South Wales.

SUZUKI DR400 1980 twin shock parts wanted, complete bike considered, non runner/ or runner project. Tel. 01305 826670. Dorset.

SUZUKI DR500 parts wanted, complete bike considered, non runner or runner project. Tel. 01305 826670. Dorset.

SUZUKI TS250 1969/70, points model, parts wanted, whole bike considered/non runner, or runner, project. Tel. 01305 826670. Dorset.

WANTED PUCH MAXI cycle master winged wheel, NSU Quickly, any Japanese mopeds, prompt collection and immediate cash payment. Tel. 07790 168224.

West Midlands.

WANTED SUZUKI GSXR750 J, K, L, 1988-90 wiring harness loom not bothered about condition, as long as its complete. Tel. 07852 509888.

Northamptonshire.

YAMAHA FZR400 IWG radiator carbs, CDI loom, switches, front rear lights, regulator, starter, disc, shocker clocks, head lamp bracket, seats, sprocket cover, Servo Honda NS400R spares. Tel. Dave 07816 043480. Staffs.

YAMAHA RD250/350LC complete bike, project or rolling chassis, cash and van waiting. Tel. 07949 715139.

East Yorkshire.

YAMAHA RS200 WANTED prefer single seat model and an unrestored runner, consider CS5 or CS5E, will travel. Tel. Norman 07788 715163. Essex.

YAMAHA XT600 1983 43F parts wanted, complete/ incomplete project bike considered, non runner or runner. Tel. 01305 826670.

Dorset.

Miscellaneous BOOKS The Britten Story, Felicity Price. Aermachi, Mick Walker. Joey Dunlop, McDairmid. Barry Sheene, Michael Scott. Down the Road, Steve Wilson, £10 each. Tel. 01543 425795. Staffs.

CLASSIC MAGAZINES 200+ inc Classic Mechanics, Classic Bike, Classic Bike Guide, Motorcycle Sport etc, offers.

Honda CB750/900 DOHC, original s/arm assy, £25. Tel. 01772 783774. Lancs.

HARLEY-DAVIDSON Polistil Die/cast model 1:15 scale, features fully sprung suspension and all complete including opening panniers, actual Police State Electra Glide in superb condition, including box, £95. Tel. 07504 327299. South Devon.

HAYNES MANUALS: Ford Escort ‘75, Owners Workshop Manual, covers new Escort models 1975, 1100/1300/1600, hardback, very good condition, £17. Triumph Toledo, Owners Workshop Manual, covers all 1300 models, 2 and 4 door, hardback, good condition.

Collection SM1 3NE or can post. Tel. 02086 444998. Surrey.

HAYNES WORKSHOP MANUALS: Suzuki GS500E Twin, ‘89 to ‘97. Kawasaki ZX600 & 636 (ZX-6R), ‘95 to ‘02. Honda CBR600F4 Fours,’99 to ‘02, all hardbacks, unmarked pages, £6.75 each, excellent secondhand condition. Tel. 07989 951895.

Canterbury.

JAPANESE CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MAGAZINES from 1992 only five issues printed inc postcards, buyer to collect or pay postage £20 ono. Tel. 07852 422434. Kent.

MILLERS 2 stroke oil, ten 1 litre bottles for all high revving bike and kart engines, £30 will split, £3 each buyer collects bargain or reasonable offers. Tel. 01582 601467.

Bedfordshire.

MOTORCYCLE CLOTHING: Ladies leather jacket, Akito Mercury Plus, hardly used, like new, size 18, £50. Ladies leather jeans, Akito T-Force, size 18, perfect, £50. Lewis Leathers gents western jeans, 32” waist, short leg, very good condition, £50. Vintage Rucka Barry Sheene PVC/Polyamide jacket, size 38, brand new, £40.

Furygan Sure security leather jacket, size 38, perfect, £100.

Tel. Tom 07804 219057. Tyne & Wear.

MOTORCYCLE RACK/ CARRIER Dave Cooper, very sturdy construction and will carry almost any bike (was used to transport a KMX 250), it mounts onto the towbar bracket and is fully adjustable, good condition, £65 ono. Tel. John 07843 156629. East Devon.

WORKING MODELS HarleyDavidson animated with sound, lights and movement with Father Christmas on bike, approx 14” long in box, great fun, superb condition, £25. Tel. 07504 327299. South Devon.

Workshop

WISDOM

To advertise call Simon on 01507 529310

Plodding on!

Lots of things speed up and slow down any restoration, be it boredom, laziness, a lockdown, family or otherwise. So much has happened in the last year, but Bruce is trying to get on with the marvellous Mille.

S

o, I bought a year 2000 RSV Mille for £550.Yes, it arrived in carrier bags. Yes, I nearly set fire to my garage trying to get the thing started. Yes, I realised almost instantly that I was farther out of my depth than a fish on top of a mountain.

Luckily for me, I’m surrounded by mates that know far more than I do about nuts

Cases will come up nice...

86 / classic motorcycle mechanics

and bolts and engines, as you will have seen with parts one to three.

Yes, I’ve thrown money at it and yes I’ve also lost a little bit of direction. As I’m sure you can all appreciate. Hasn’t this happened to us all?

Suddenly, I had some impetus once more. The plan is to get this bike fully running and finished before I’m old and frail, and work carried on through various lockdowns. Jim at Alonze Custom finished welding a plate on to the swingarm to give it a racier look. It was then handed over to Nightingale Vapour Blasting, where frontman Ricky gave it some serious deep cleaning with glass bead, removing all the scuffed, anodised finish on the arm in the process. Next in line with this never-ending production was my friend Craig Brocklebank, who polished its external faces to within an inch of their lives. I’ve got to say, the whole process left me questioning whether I should’ve just stuck

with the stock look of the item, but such crazy thoughts soon disappeared the instant Craig rocked up with a shiny, stunning swinger that simply needed fresh bearings and a coat of lacquer from Clive White at Rapier Paint to see it back at home on the bike a year after I’d removed it.

But then, a problem. If you’re familiar with Mille swingarms, you’ll know the uniqueness of the challenge, which sees an arrangement of doubled stacked, sealed bearings and a huge roller needle-type item blended into its DNA. I’ll admit, this was new territory for me, but searches on internet forums gave me a few necessary pointers and hammered home the necessity to replace the shock linkage bearings (all six of them). In total I changed nine bearings in this department, and not one of the originals looked fit for purpose. But what would you expect from a 20-year-old motorcycle?

I got all the bearings needed for around

WORDS: BRUCE WILSON PICS: GARY D CHAPMAN

Project Aprilia RSV1000 Mille part 4

He's in bits, is our Bruce...

£50, with some Koyo steering head bearings setting me back just £20 more. I forked out a further £15 on front and rear wheel bearings.

For those following the build from the outset, you might recall that Bry at Tecnicolour kindly blasted my original wheels in readiness for painting, but it turned out they were battered. Thankfully, there are plenty of parts for Milles available and I was able to pick up a straight, decent-looking pair for £150.

What I couldn’t have predicted was they were finished in powder-coat.

Because of our plan to give the whole bike (and wheels) a proper custom paint job they needed to be stripped, and Clive’s mate John of JP Wheels in Hull soon helped out. As well as bead-blasting and powder-coating, they also do acid-dipping.

While amino acids are good for the body, a blend of dichloromethane, methanol and hydrofluoric acid is anything but. I could

Griff Woolley is on fire!

tell as much from the smell it kicked out, buried in a bespoke-built corner of the wheel-prepping specialist’s workshop.

“Around five minutes in that and your wheels will look as good as new,” I was told before handing over my wheels for some unadulterated stripping.

True to John’s word, the process was done and dusted that quickly and the wheels were then entered into a huge chemical cleaning system to neutralise any nastiness. The final bit of prepping was in a bead-blaster, with a really fine grain of filing being fired at the wheels to etch them perfectly for Clive’s spraying. That was after I’d fitted some new wheel bearings (once Clive had shown me how to do that, of course!).

Before any wheels could be fitted anywhere, first the bike would need to be reacquainted with its forks and swingarm.

While Clive set to drilling and tapping a snapped bolt in the swingarm, I knocked

out the old bearing racers from the headstock. The Mille is a nicely designed and built bike, and it was great to see there were specific channels on opposite sides of the headstock to knock the old racers out. It was simple enough to do, and fitting new racers didn’t prove a challenge either.

That’s where the pleasure ended and the pain began. Rob Bean had kindly hooked me up with custom yokes for the Mille that would mean I could run my 50mm diameter GSX-R forks on the bike. Before first lockdown we’d offered things up and it looked as though the custom yokes’ stem was actually out of a Mille, sporting the same shaft dimension and everything, but fast forward to the present and the reality hit home that the stem was 5mm too short. Gutting, especially after Craig had given the items an awesome polish and custom fitted the Mille’s ignition barrel on to the donor yokes.

Wow! Check this out...

Sorting a linkage issue.

Cleaning the swingarm.

www.classicmechanics.com / 87

Counting the cost Used fuel tank Samco coolant hose kit (www.racebikebitz.com) Samco oil hose (www.racebikebitz.com) NGK iridium spark plugs (www.feridax.com) Silkolene Comp4 (4 litres) HiFlo oil filter AP Workshops Air Box Kit (www.apworkshops.co.uk) Used rear shock and linkages Used Fireblade stand Used fairing kit Used GSX-R 750 L1 forks Used offset yokes Used sub-frame Wheel, swingarm and head bearings Wheel acid-dipping and blasting (jpwheels.co.uk) Replacement wheels Racebolt UK Footrest bolt kit (raceboltuk.com)

With engineering, things are either right or they are wrong, and this case smacked profoundly of the latter. I had reached a dead-end, and now the challenge is on to get a new, longer stem made so we can get the front-end of the bike built up. It’s all way over my head, but there are folk out there smart enough to machine such a thing so I’m sure it’ll be a job we’ll tick off sooner rather than later.

My attention soon turned to the rear of the bike, and the fitment of the swingarm.

The bearings were in place, and after lavishing the needle bearing and the swingarm’s spindle with lube, in it went.

Soon after the shock and linkage joined the mix, and the Mille suddenly started to look less neglected with its rear-end partially assembled.

The polished, lacquered swingarm actually looked a near-identical finish to the anodised frame, which was a real result. It was my first real chance to take

Yokes swap.

88 / classic motorcycle mechanics

£60.00 £155.66 £30.54 £41.70 £43.21 £6.22 £120.00 £40.00 £30.00 £175.00 £500.00 £200.00 £20.00 £85.00 £48.00 £150 £27.94

in the new look of the bike and I liked what I saw. I was so enthused: we’ve all had those moments when we finally see some progress after many back-tracks!

I decided to fit the pegs and hangers, which was anything other than straightforward. When I’d bought the bike both parts in question had been sprayed blacker than a Goth’s bedroom, so I’d had the hangers powder-coated and the pegs blasted back to plain ally. It meant the pegs and springs needed reassembling on the hangers, and figuring out how to get the pegs folding as they should took an embarrassing amount of guesswork. I was armed with two separate workshop manuals but neither offered any pointers for this problem, which turned out to be straightforward in the end. A lot of the nuts and bolts on the bike are knackered or missing, so the decision to invest in a few kits from Racebolt proved a sound choice. I’ve got everything from screen

Almost as 'Dangerous' as Bruce...

Clips in refurbed wheels.

Dangerous and yucky stuff!

Racebolt replacements!

Sorting the linkages.

bolts to fairing kits lined up for fitment, but at this stage in the build I was only ready to add some shiny hanger bolts into the mix. The upside is they were the perfect length, a pleasure to fit and looked awesome. The downside is they showed up how crap and weathered the other bits of the OE bolts now looked. I’d love to change every nut and bolt on this bike, but that’d probably mean the kids would have to go without socks and shoes for a few years, and the missus probably won’t agree to that. In time, I’ll probably take some of the scabbier original items out and give them a proper clean-up or blast, but for now I’m just focused on getting the bike built back up.

I’ll not lie, it’s a daunting prospect,

because I can’t remember where half the bits I’ve got came from, but with every bracket fitted and every component reattached, there’s a real buzz to be had.

It’s like being a kid again and building an Airfix model: only one that makes noises and goes fast. Or at least that’s the plan.

I’m in regular contact with Griff Woolley at AP Workshops, and that man is the definition of ‘helpful’, so I know if I’m properly stuck I can always get on the blower and get pointed in the right direction. Yep, there’s still a bloody long way to go until we reach that finish line, but the wheels are once more in motion (hypothetically), and that’s all that really matters. Rome wasn’t built in a day… erm, or in a (lockdown) year!

Spindle time...

Stripped again!

He's only looking at the pictures...

Lovely finish on these...

To be replaced!

Thank you…

Rapier Paintwork Tel: 01482 212690 Web: www.rapierpaintwork.co.uk JP Wheels jpwheels.co.uk

www.classicmechanics.com / 89

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1/ Using mechanical advantage to get the heavy engine unit into the engine frame. 2/ The engine securely held in the Sealey engine frame. 3/ The inner clutch basket is held with a universal clutch basket holder whilst I remove the securing nut with my air impact wrench.

Project Kawasaki Z900 Stocker part 1

Stripping yarns!

Kindly given a box of old Zed bits, Ralph Ferrand is back on the case with one of his favourite four-strokes!

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ight now I’m the envy of my Zed Head friends, having been the lucky recipient of the extremely generous gift of a collection of boxes containing a 1976 Kawasaki Z900 from a fellow member of the Z1 Owners Club.

I gave my word that I would perform as good a restoration as I am able to and have been throwing money at the project from day one. Although the bike is mostly apart, the bottom-end of the motor was in one piece so it was time to pull that apart.

Many years ago I designed and made an engine building stand to hold bike motors whilst they are disassembled and rebuilt that allows the engine to be turned though 360 degrees. This was with an eye on selling them on, but with the top-quality parts I was using, they would have cost an arm and a leg. Sealey has just produced a new engine building stand and they sent 90 / classic motorcycle mechanics

me one to try out. Engines don’t come much heavier than a Z900 lump, so it seemed like a good test. It turned up flat pack and was easy enough to put together.

I tied lifting straps to the engine and attached them to the lifting arm over the top of my bike bench. I dropped the bench down, leaving the engine hanging from the arm. The engine building stand was placed on the bench and the platform brought up to the suspended engine. I lined up the arms of the stand with the top crankcase engine mountings and bolted the arms up to the crankcase. Once fully secured I raised the bench so that I could remove the lifting slings. It has to be said that the stand doesn’t have the rigidity of my own version, but will do the job allowing the engine to be rotated through 180 degrees, and is good value at £165.54.

I removed all the clutch plates and attached my universal clutch basket holding tool to the inner basket. Because I

have the facilities, I fitted a big socket to my AirCat super powerful air impact wrench which whizzed the nut off securing it all to the gearbox input shaft.

Because the engine was going for a deep clean everything had to come out and the next ball of fun was to remove all the cylinder studs. After soaking the bottom of the studs in ACF-50 for a day or two I locked together two M10 x 1.25 pitch nuts on the top of the studs. For those that were resistant to being extricated, I heated the crankcase part they’re secured in with a heat gun and for those most problematic, my propane torch.

I soon realised that the alternator rotor was wobbly. This is a common problem and whilst one could engineer a solution given enough time, there is little point given that Electrex World make a fabulous replacement. I used a pin wrench to hold the rotor on the crank whilst I released the securing bolt with a cranked ring spanner.

WORDS AND PICS: RALPH FERRAND

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4 4/ Locking two nuts together to remove the cylinder studs. 5/ Holding the rotor with an adjustable pin wrench whilst the bolt was released. 6/ A flywheel puller is screwed in to push the alternator rotor off the crankshaft taper. 7/ You can see here that the aluminium part of the rotor has worn where it attaches to the hexagonal steel part allowing it to oscillate. 8/ Removing what’s left of the transmission cover: never use split links! 9/ Sliding off the ground, hardened bush that goes through the oil seal.

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I then used a basic six-way flywheel puller to release the rotor from the taper.

Because there is a bolt hole in the end to anchor the rotor, I put in a round piece of metal against the end of the crank for the puller to push against. Once the puller was screwed in tight a gentle tap on one of the arms with a soft-faced hammer was all that was required to release the rotor, being careful to stick the woodruff key somewhere safe. I removed the transmission cover which had previously suffered the indignity of having a drive chain snap; a common issue in the past when people used split links as they’re easier to fit if you don’t have the tools to

rivet up a chain and can’t be arsed to remove the swingarm to fit the endless chain as was fitted originally. As always, the hardened bush behind the front sprocket was worn by the lips of the oil seal with fine grit flicked up from the road by the chain, and was added to the long list of genuine Kawasaki parts needed.

I next dropped the sump off and it was full of truly hideous crap from the oil that had festered for many a year. Plenty of degreaser was used to clean it and finished off with copious amounts of brake cleaner squirted from my chemical spray bottle and blasts of compressed air.

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10/ This was one seriously filthy sump! 11/ Using my new scraper to scrape a well-stuck gasket off the sump. 12/ Another tool in the armoury of gasket removal is the Stanley knife blade. 13/ I initially released all the 6mm bolts with a breaker bar.

I loosened all the crankcase bolts with a breaker bar. A few wanted too much torque so I used the propane torch to warm up the part of the casting where the bolts were threaded in and dribbled in some ACF-50 which is really great for corroded aluminium alloy and is the best of all penetrating oils I have used. Despite this care, one of the really long M6 bolts snapped. This isn’t uncommon particularly with the long bolts from on top around the final drive area; they’re often knackered by being stretched by home mechanics who don’t use a torque wrench. The crankcases

already had a number of snapped off screws and bolts for me to repair. Once the bolts had all been loosened, I whizzed them all out with the cordless impact driver Sealey gave me to test a while ago; so much quicker and easier than a ratchet.

The crankcases have some M8 threaded holes into which bolts are screwed to push the two halves apart. These were seriously crusty with years of corrosion so I lubed up an M8 tap and cleaned them up. Always check, double check and then check again that you have removed all the crankcase bolts before even thinking about using

these. I had a fellow who had missed some bolts and absolutely creamed these bolts in and smashed the front of the crankcase.

That was another set of Zed crankcases that would never be used again. Once the crankcases were split, I carefully put all the parts into storage boxes and labelled plastic bags ready for the rebuild.

As with almost every Zed I have come across, someone had snapped off one of the four final drive cover screws. I have repaired them on a bike and it is a right royal pain in the botty. I left this one until I had the cases split for minimal grief.

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14/ Once all the bolts had been released with the breaker bar, I whizzed them all out with the battery impact wrench. 15/ The zinc plating corrodes to protect the steel bolts.

92 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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16/ The M8 case splitter threaded holes were corroded so I cleaned them out with a tap. 17/ The knackered dowel covering one of the pre-snapped final drive cover screws was really unwilling to submit – propane taught it not to muck me about! 18/ Once the dowel was out a toolmakers button was used to centre the drill to drill out the remainder of the bolt. 19/ To drill out a bolt that has snapped flush it is best to drill the middle of the bolt with a centre drill initially in the bench drill. 20/ The bolt remains were then pilot drilled 3.2mm for the extractor.

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21/ For the best chance of an extraction I broke out some more ACF-50 and the propane torch. 22/ The extractor was inserted in the hole and then I carefully turned it anti-clockwise to extract the screw.

The one that had gone was one with a dowel, which always adds another level of difficulty. The dowel was well stuck in, thanks to galvanic corrosion common with steel components in aluminium alloy castings. I made life easier with the application of some direct heat through the medium of my beloved propane torch and a drop or two of ACF-50. Once out, I fitted a tool maker’s button in the hole to centralise the drill. I drilled it with a left-handed drill bit and then used a screw extractor to remove the remains of the screw. I used a left-handed drill because it’s not unheard of for the screw or stud to

unscrew when the drill bites and generates a bit of heat; worth a punt. Once out, I fitted a Helicoil, not as a repair but as an upgrade to prevent further issues.

The bolt that snapped off flush with the face of the crankcase could not be removed in the same fashion, so I centre punched the remains in the middle. I then set the crankcase up on the bed of the pillar drill and centre drilled it to get accurate position. I then drilled down through with a nice sharp 3.2mm top-quality twist drill to ensure the best chance of a nice concentric hole. Old, worn or cheap drills can wander, which is

the last thing you need removing broken fasteners. As the old adage goes, ‘Buy crap tools and stuff the job up’.

Never use cheap easy-outs for extracting screws or studs; they rarely work and often snap off. leaving you with a piece of high carbon steel to remove and the only way that’s happening is by the expensive and inconvenient visit to one of the few engineering companies who still have a spark erosion machine.

Before starting the extraction, I again applied some direct heat and some ACF-50 with the propane torch to make things safe. cmm www.classicmechanics.com / 93

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1

Motor-mania!

Mark’s on the finishing straight with his TX750, but a little engine work now needs to be done to get it sorted. This is the first part of a two engine re-build. articles.

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ast time I made the decision that the safest course of action would be to take the engine to bits to inspect what was in there, if not to completely overhaul it. It might be helpful to know what to expect so let us take a look at what we know.

After I had fixed the starter mechanism, I wanted to see what sort of state the engine might be in so I did a compression check (Photo 1). Looks pretty good doesn’t it: 190psi. The only thing is that the maximum reading is meant to be 145psi, so how can it be more than that?

This was not a representative test as the engine was cold and the carbs were not fitted, but probably the most significant point was that I had poured oil through the plug holes to prevent corrosion some weeks before. Or, of course, the gauge 96 / classic motorcycle mechanics

might be inaccurate. A later test done when in running order showed the pressures to be 170psi which was at least more normal. The main point was that the left and right pressures were the same so it was likely that the bores, piston rings and valves were okay.

I had set the throttle valves to be exactly synchronised when cleaning the carbs out and the vacuum readings were surprisingly close when the engine was running – another good sign. The same applied to the ignition dwell angles.

But on with the work. The Yamaha manual shows what to do to get the engine out and as you might expect it is simply to undo everything that attaches the engine to the rest of the bike.

One thing I had previously not been very happy with was the mounting of the exhaust balance pipe (Photo 2) which did

not seem to fit. I had tried removing the bolts to re-seat everything but had been unable to move two of them. That was a pity because the pipe needed to come off for clearance to get the engine out. It was a bit of a job and eventually I had to force the lower two as there was no chance of getting heat or penetrating oil where it was needed (Photo 3). You can see that the exhaust joint had been leaking.

You need to drain the oil from both oil-tank and sump and because I had changed the oil just 15 miles earlier, the oil I had seen on the tank dipstick and the engine connections was clear and new looking (Photo 4) as you would expect.

However, the surprisingly small amount of oil I drained (bearing in mind that it was supposed to amount to three litres) was completely black. How that could happen I cannot explain, but no doubt the reason

WORDS AND PICS: MARK HAYCOCK

Project Yamaha TX750 Part 10

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will emerge later. The book does not mention that the coils must come off (Photo 5) as there is no clearance for the engine to lift. Then it sank in that my coils were not standard items but generic replacements. This was a popular mod as the original coils are said to be a bit unreliable. I found it also easier to take off the oil-tank to give more room.

Just under the tank was what appeared to be a mounting lug on the frame which was stopping the engine from coming out. A closer inspection under the dirt showed that it was in fact a bolted-on plate which, when removed, turned the impossible into the possible, I am glad to say.

Yamaha tell you to lift the engine using the kick-start and the left-hand exhaust port, but as I could only get two fingers in

there, that was not much help. A much easier technique was to lift the engine with a little trolley jack, guide it out with the kick-start and right-hand cylinder and allow a controlled descent on to a soft surface (Photo 6).

The engine is quite heavy to lift but a little while later I had it on the bench and ready for action. The first operation is to remove the valve cover (Photo 7) and here I want to point out a couple of things.

A few purists will be horrified to see that I have not cleaned the whole engine before starting work. My stance on this is that everything will be dismantled, right down to individual components, and thus it will all be comprehensively cleaned later on; there is no point in doing the job twice. The other point to note is that the engine is facing me so that I can easily

reach what I need to access, so the left-hand side as I look at it now is actually its right-hand side. This is important when it comes to labelling parts such as valves and pistons so you need to have a rule to follow. Mine is that Right means the Right side as I sit on the bike.

You can see that the valve gear is very simple and conventional and the ‘special tool’ you need is simply an M6 screw to pull out the rocker shafts (Photo 8). One point here was that one of the inlet rockers fitted so tightly in its mountings that I needed a pry bar to get it out (Photo 9). Evidently these engines were assembled with the aid of a hammer. I always put the valve components together in separate labelled plastic bags (Photo 10) and, of course, RE here means Right (or left as I am looking at it) exhaust!

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The cam-chain is not endless but has a staked link and as I did not have a suitable splitter for this size, a small grinder did the job instead (Photo 11).

Don’t worry about the grinding dust or swarf, like I said earlier. Similarly, I don’t need to bother stuffing rags in to stop bits falling down.

By the way, the reason why the head will not budge at this point is that you have forgotten to undo the two M8 bolts at the middle front and rear (Photo 12).

The combustion chambers look okay I suppose, but what is the significance of the rust on the exhaust valves (Photo 13)?

It is perhaps a result of running the engine for very short periods (not by me), when condensation has formed and been left there. The pistons looked okay – maybe a bit oily and I shall take a closer look later on. Removal of the cylinders and pistons is very straightforward.

The clutch is quite well specified with both a roller bearing (Photo 14) and a needle roller thrust bearing. We can see here an interesting feature of the primary gears. If you look at the outer clutch gear at the four o’clock position you can make out a hand-inscribed number: 48. The drive pinion (Photo 15) bears the number 53.

The gears were measured in the factory and the backlash between them is determined by these numbers. They need to add up to 139 or 140, so 48 + 53 is: 101. What has gone wrong here? Eventually I realised that ‘48’ is actually 86 when you look at it the other way round, with the centre at the bottom like reading the pinion number. So 86 + 53 is 139 and thus the gears are completely silent with no backlash – in theory, at least.

Now I am able to turn the engine upside down and take off the bottom plate to see what lies behind it (Photo 16). What we are looking at here is the balancer mechanism, which consists of two rotating eccentric weights driven by quite a substantial chain. And now I see that this 98 / classic motorcycle mechanics

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is the source of the rattling and banging noises because the chain is completely worn out: I can move the balance weights and see the chain moving up and down without turning the crankshaft. Maybe adjusting it a bit tighter would have helped? We shall look at that later. The crankshaft and gearbox shafts seemed okay

(Photo 17) but after removing the crank, I could inspect the plain main bearing shells which turned out to be a problem which I shall discuss separately.

Now I have the engine in bits, all I need to do is to clean everything thoroughly, assess what I have and hence what I need to buy. See next time. cmm

www.classicmechanics.com / 99

WORDS AND PICS: STEVE COOPER

Project Yamaha RD350 part 9

Simply stunning!

The final tweaks and a new set of panels have Scoop and others smiling at his classic stroker.

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he very fact I’ve not reported back on the early 1973 Yamaha RD350 for a while could be taken any number of ways.

It’s nothing bad. In fact I’ve done little else but ride it. Obviously the editor of this august organ has to juggle many articles so this latest episode was written some time ago. Either way I’ve not fallen out of love with the bike.

Even after the inevitable winter lay-ups, once the battery is given a quick boost this grand old dame fires up ready for another season of geriatric mayhem. The Power Dynamo alternator coupled to the Zeeltronic black box collectively delivers big, fat, juicy sparks and since swapping to Shell V-Power (other premium grade fuels are available) I don’t even bother emptying the carbs or tank – happy days.

Following the installation of fork emulators allied to the upgraded shocks, the RD350 has handled so much better 100 / classic motorcycle mechanics

than it did originally. The ride may be just a fraction too firm at town speeds but when, in the name of two-strokes, did anyone buy a Yamaha RD anything to ride slowly? Yes, precisely. You can now genuinely feel how taut the ‘Race Derived’ chassis is, which ought to be a good thing.

Well, it would be if only the brakes were up to the job. Finding that, thanks to the enhanced ride characteristics, I was entering some of my favourite bends a good 10mph faster than before highlighted the deficit in this area.

This led me to seriously consider one of the period, if unofficial, Yamaha upgrades.

Back in the 70s it was not uncommon to see 350s sporting TX/XS500 front wheels and left-hand fork leg. This ‘in-house’ tweak added a second disc/caliper combination which, when combined with the half-litre’s master cylinder, effected decent braking from speed. Unfortunately, it also added a lot of mass as well as a mandatory wheel rebuild. Now you could

These help massively with retardation!

negate some of the additional weight by skimming a couple of millimetres off the discs and drilling them, but you’ll have to excuse me here if I don’t seem too keen at the concept. Drilling and skimming Yamaha’s Kryptonite-like stainless steel requires a decently equipped engineering shop and a panoply of drill and cutting bits plus a large slice of time/money.

The old left-hand-side engine cover...

The old right-hand-side engine cover...

The new left-hand engine cover!

The new right-hand cover going on.

Thinking laterally I began some research as to what modern brake materials were available for the old school calipers. The really helpful people at SBS reckoned their 504HF ceramic friction material was the one to choose and Steve Jago, boss of Webbs of Peterborough, ordered me up a pair for very sensible money. A morning on the tools had the old, organic pads out and the new SBS pads installed. What a difference! Seriously, the feel, power and feedback were phenomenal right from the off and those Scandinavian Brake Systems pads are truly the business when mated to 70s stainless disc rotors. I recommend them to the house without reservation!

Everything hinges on these seat hinges!

One niggling issue that was present even before I’d ridden the bike was the way the rear right lower seat covering rubbed the top shock mount. Assuming the seat rubbers were shot I swapped out the existing ones for some deeper ones I found in the shed. Ultimately a pointless exercise as they did nothing for the vinyl’s preservation, just made the seat harder to latch down. Words with a fellow Yamorak delivered several sets of Yamaha seat hinges for ongoing experimentation. Hard to believe I grant you, but by fitting a pair of alternative hinges just a fraction taller on their pivot faces, the seat fitted and closed without issue.

Without question the bike’s original cosmetics were better than many of similar vintage but the outer engine case covers were somewhat on the well-weathered side of scruffy. Knowing just how easy it is to inadvertently scuff a case when changing gear or kick starting, I’d concluded a rattle can renovation wouldn’t be robust enough.

Therefore I managed to locate and purchase a set of early 1973 outer cases which were then dropped off with Mark Dunford of High Calibre Coatings. The old transmission case came off after a bit of jiggery-pokery, but eviction of the original gasket took ages even with the application of proper, rip-your-eyes-out, paint stripper.

Sympathetically blast cleaned, Mark

applied satin black Cerakote paint to deliver a really good, hard-wearing coating.

Suitably equipped with oils seals and gasket, both cases were duly swapped out and treated to a new set of fasteners, replacing the hotchpotch of cap head and butchered crossheads. You’ll excuse me if I abstain from using period correct, passivated, green screws but, frankly, I’d much rather see bright zinc than olive drab any day! With the correct decals from our good friends at Yambits carefully installed the cases looked substantially better.

The paintwork of the bike was OEM finish and before anyone steps up to their soapbox the bike and panels are correct for a 1973 RD350(A) which is most emphatically not the same as a 1974 RD350A… trust me on this one please!

The dark ruby red paint probably looks grand in the Californian sunshine but we don’t get much of that in Blighty and the old girl does tend to look a bit drab most of the time. Trawling the internet for inspirations I finally fell upon a Japanese domestic market brochure for the same model year and was instantly obsessed by the colour of the 250 which is the same hue as my much lamented RD200 – Virginia Gold (00M4) was ‘The One!’ The other reason for changing the tank was that the original only held some 11 litres of fuel which made a 100-mile trip a little www.classicmechanics.com / 101

The filler cap pin.

Paint stripper going on...

Mount rubbing seat!

The cleaned tap mount.

Hmmmm... saucy side-panel!

fraught looking for petrol stations. The larger replacement tank holds a much more viable 16 litres. If you’ve not tried finding spare panels for a round tanked RD I’d respectfully suggest you don’t; it’s both laborious and expensive. However, thanks to mates, autojumbles and word of mouth a full replacement kit of panels was obtained and shipped off to my soon-tobe-retiring painters. They’re not mega cheap or super-fast but, bloody hell they are good! The tank badges are OEM items I found cheapish on eBay, but the side panel ‘350’ chappies are reproductions from Badge Replicas in Australia.

Fitting new paint kit is, for me at least, both a pain and joy. There’s the ever present worry that something will get chipped or scratched, yet the end result is always worth the hassle.

The side-panels were fitted in minutes, the oil-tank took an hour, but the headlamp and brackets… just how much time can a job take? Wiring, clocks, hydraulics, brackets, rubbers, trim parts; the process took forever but at least it’s done, even if the headlight rim chose to have an argument with the freshly painted headlight shell! My profound thanks to my very good mate Wayne Allen for giving up his Friday evening to assist with sorting out Satan’s String, aka the rat’s nest behind the headlight.

Next up on the paint kit front was the tank which took much longer to populate with the various fittings than might be expected. Modern fuel really doesn’t like

paint and I’ve seen numerous resprayed bikes with blistering paint around the fuel tap where petrol has eaten away the paint and gone beyond the seal. Therefore I took the radical decision to carefully cut back the paint to bear metal; it may not be pretty but to date there’s no sign of any paint lifting. The filler cap hinges on a 3mm pin secured with an E-clip and is an easy fix once any paint is evicted from the mounting holes. Likewise, the lock mechanism is a simple swap over with just a single screw. What took the time was persuading the second 3mm pin through the two mounts and the spring-loaded cap clasp mechanism.

Two hours, two hellish, frustrating, dear-god-please-don’t-let-me-scratch-thepaint hours were lost fighting the tiny, but remarkably strong spring of the clasp.

Thankfully SWMBO was on hand to assist, add masking tape to key areas and stop me losing my patience. Quite why Yamaha saw fit to make both the cap mount and sprung clasp out of super-soft alloy is anyone’s guess, but it does mean you have to be super-gentle fitting that wretched pin!

Fitting the freshly painted Virginia Gold tank was a breeze other than having to take the seat off to get sufficient clearance. With the two carbs attached to the tap with a new, official, Yamaha, ethanol tolerant fuel pipe and the link pipe installed underneath it was time to fire up and go for a ride on the cosmetically refreshed RD. It’s genuinely amazing what a difference the larger tank made to the

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ride initially and it took a while getting used to its width. Plotting up at the local Shell garage a random motorist walked up and commented how smart the bike looked and then someone else said similar at a set of traffic lights. I was beginning to feel quietly pleased with the RD’s transformation. And then when I was shooting the accompanying shots on a quiet country road a youngish guy in a car stopped and actually commented: “I know jack about bikes fella but that is stunning!” Isn’t it amazing what a fresh paint job can do for an old bike!

So I’m not the only that’s impressed with the RD350 then! The plan now is just to ride it and enjoy it… which is surely what they’re for? The bike will probably remain work in progress for the foreseeable as there’s still a lot of tidying up to do, but I doubt I’ll ever strip it down completely to its component parts and restore it.

The bars would benefit from being replated, as would the silencers as they have battery acid scars, but where do you stop? If I end up carrying out anything serious to the old girl you can bet you’ll hear about it here in CMM. cmm

Thanks to: Badge Replicas – www.badgereplicas.com.au Mark Dunford of High Calibre Coatings – 07941 668265 Steve Jago of Webbs of Lincoln – 01522 528951 Yambits

104 / classic motorcycle mechanics

Next month IN YOUR MILDLY RESTORED CMM!

LIKE MAMA USED TO MAK MAKE: Moto Morini 3½ Sport, Ducati 500 Sport Desmo, Ducati Pantah 600 SL, Laverda 750 SF TRIUMPH CRK 1200 ROADSTER: John Nutting rides his creation CRK: We speak to Café Racer Kits’ Ian Saxcoburg WORKSHOP HOW TO: Fabricate a bracket! Spoke keys! And much more – if we can fit it all in!

BRIDGESTONE/CMM BIKE OF THE YEAR: Another one of YOUR restos/specials in the spotlight! It’s Yamaha RD350 time…

PROJECT BIKES: We will be showcasing some of the following (space allowing): Mark Haycock’s Yamaha TX750 or Honda CB450, Steve Cooper’s Yamaha C3SC and Suzuki Apache, Jeff Ware’s Suzuki RM80X, Ralph Ferrand with his Project Zed and maybe Fowlers of Bris to his Yamaha YZF-R6, Malc Shaw’s Suzuki TR750 and maybe even l bike clothing , Bridge s tone Taylor Mackenzie’s Yamaha TY80. goodie

WIN!

*The editor reserves the right to completely mess up the above flat-plan (as he did last month) in a bid to give you the best mix of 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s machines and fettling tips!

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AND MUCH MORE! DON’T MISS IT!*

August issue on sal JULY 21

s, S - DOC chain care go odies, T amiya kits and a Venhi ll voucher !

ALL OF THE ABOVE DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR SEE PAGES 94-95 FOR DETAILS

www.classicmechanics.com / 105

Ragtag and Bobtail I

’ve recently been disposing of a couple of bikes that belonged to brother Bill, stuff he’d obtained over many years from all four corners of the North West.

As I attempt to fettle each one into a reasonably complete item with functioning lights and controls, and then collect the relevant paperwork to support its lineage, I’m minded of similar events that took place on a daily basis when we had our little shop.

In the early days we kept a ragtag collection of scoots in varying states of readiness. To do battle on the greasy roundabouts and railway line riddled network of roads throughout Trafford Park was a test for anything. Riding a 20-yearold Matchless 250 with a top-box full of swag on those skating rinks required great ability and a healthy dose of good luck. The main centres of employment were historically concentrated in the area around the docks, a stone’s throw from a place where I believe they play the game where 20-odd blokes chase around after an inflated pig’s bladder. The other place, a couple of miles north of the Park, was at Agecroft, situated on the banks of the Irwell. It had that great resource essential to any post Victorian industrial centre: an accommodating river.

Within half-a-mile or so were three significant industrial giants, Pilkington’s tile works, the chloride battery plant, and Magnesium Elektron where much of the magnesium used in the aeroplane manufacturing industry during the large disturbance was processed. My mum told me about ‘The Mag’ lighting up like a huge incandescent Christmas tree after an unfortunately accurate bombing escapade.

These large manufacturing plants, along with those in the Park, relied on thousands of bods clad in boiler suits to keep the wheels turning, and likewise, those same BSCBs relied on us (and many other similar bike shops) to keep their wheels going. This is fine if A, they are in good nick to start with and B, if they are serviced, lubricated and generally handled with a little care. But a pre-requisite of heading ‘A’ above is far easier to attain if the subject is new-ish.

Most of ours weren’t. In fact they were generally old-ish, frequently 10 years old and sometimes significantly older. Nick, sadly, tends to diminish with age, it’s the law. In the case of heading ‘B’, well, those BSCBs, possibly used to handling a five-ton cupola of molten lead or possibly hobbing a 20-foot diameter gear on one of the biggest gear cutting machines in Europe, were not entirely sympathetic to a loose gear lever on a C15 or a baggy drive chain on an old Panther. And so when one of the BSCBs entered our little shop it was essential to match the machine with the new potential owner. Not much point in balancing a 17-stone Skunge Wacker (I made that up, but they always had weird names for their particular area of expertise) on a Puch Moped if we could avoid it.

Better to perch him on a Rub-a-Dub-Dub (Tiger Cub) or a C15 (BSA 250cc single, forebear of many more BSA singles via 350cc B40 and its shiny sibling the SS90 all the way up to 660cc in later CCM moto-crossers, over double the capacity and three times the power output!), It was essential to ask, with sensitivity of course, if the bike might be loaded up a little on the return from work, possibly ith some liberated flanges, or an occasional lump of phosphor bronze: and would there be just a single BSCB

Durkopp Diana, tough as titanium, introduced in 1953, expensive but reliable.

Durkopp are famed for the quality of their products, including bearings, thanks to their multi-stage Vacuum arc remelted alloys.

106 / classic motorcycle mechanics

Puch Cheetah, typical of many a scrofulous wee time bandit before Honda was invented.

on board or might he be joined by another one of similar girth?

This wasn’t simply a selling exercise, it was a psychological and physiological evaluation. The consequences of plonking two big blokes and half a hundred weight of clobber, slummy and other assorted debris on a Puch Cheetah were none too appealing, having said that there was the occasional one who took huge liberties and got away with it for years.

One such bought a Durkopp scooter off us and the combination of disc wheels (no spokes) and German build quality gave up a workhorse that just kept on giving, poor thing.

But most of them suffered greatly.

Reliability was always a problem, and pile on that a helping of neglect (these blokes were working 60 hours a week in hideous circumstances and were hardly likely to spend Sunday morning adjusting the tappets and topping up the battery.

Tappets: bits that rattle and open and shut the valves...you don’t need to know; likewise battery topping up, doesn’t happen now, hopefully), plus a toxic atmosphere of coal dust, corrosive everything topped off with an endless rainy season (it always rained in Trafford Park then) didn’t leave the poor timorous beasties much chance of survival, and then they’d come in and buy another, usually leaving the earlier version to gently expire behind the coal shed.