Classic Motorcycle Mechanics January 2015

KING OF THE JUN J GLE! CARL FOG FOGARTY’S Y’S STREET-TRACKER BUILD! 33

ALL THAT’S BEST IN MODERN CLASSIC MOTORCYCLING PAGES OF W

ORKS

Knowledge:

Hibernate your classic

Skills:

Recommission an old bike

ISSUE NO.327 JANUARY 2015

HOP TIPS & PROJEC T BIKES!

PROJECT BIKES: NIALL MACKENZIE YAMAHA FIZZY, STEVE PARRISH FZ750, JAMES WHITHAM X7, SUZUKI DR600, KAWASAKI ZRX1100 ❙ BUYER’S GUIDE HONDA CB750 ❙ KNOWLEDGE RG500 DISC VALVES ❙ CLASSIFIEDS BUYING/SELLING TIPS ❙ Q&A YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

January 2015 Issue 327 Publisher: Steve Rose, srose@mortons.co.uk Group production editor: Tim Hartley Contributors: Joe Dick, Gary Chapman, Paul Bryant Design: Justin Blackamore, Rosie Ward Reprographics: Simon Duncan Divisional advertising manager: David England, dengland@mortons.co.uk Advertising: Sam Dearie, Lee Buxton sdearie@mortons.co.uk, lbuxton@mortons.co.uk Tel: 01507 524004 Subscription manager: Paul Deacon Circulation manager: Steven O’Hara Marketing manager: Charlotte Park Production manager: Craig Lamb Publishing director: Dan Savage Commercial director: Nigel Hole Associate director: Malc Wheeler 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 32 for offer): (12 months 12 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £49.20. Export rates are also available – see page 32 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. Distribution: COMAG, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QE. Tel: 01895 433600 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: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 Advertising deadline: Friday, January 2, 2015 © 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.

CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS (USPS:729-550) is published monthly

by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ UK. USA subscriptions are $60 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Wisconsin Rapids, WI. Postmaster: Send address changes to CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS, Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. 715572-4595 chris@classicbikebooks.com

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Biking multiculturalism!

Some things are best left in the past eh? Let’s rewind to the 1970s and adopt the vernacular of the older British bike riders of the 1970s: “Bloody Japanese! Selling bikes over here, ruining our British motorcycle manufacturing business.” This was real: a mate once told me how his dad’s time in the Second World War meant he wouldn’t allow his son a Japanese or German motorcycle.Thankfully we’ve forgiven.

The Japanese manufacturing model reinvented the British bike industry by having large, UK-based distributors over here and employing lots of people adding to our bottom line. So thank you Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Soichiro, Michio, Torakusu and KHI! And then (of course) this all showed John Bloor and Hinckley Triumph the way to go which is why we

actually have a decent mass produced British motorcycle industry – Triumph checked out Japan and Europe before they made a start.

And today? The thing is, with bikes like the Honda Britain featured in this month’s magazine all the way to the 50th Anniversary Honda CBR600s, VFR800s and CBR1100XX Blackbirds of the 1990s, we are really celebrating a fusion of like-minded motorcycling minds which crosses the multicultural divide. In a Britain that sometimes forgets that the Battle of Britain’s top scoring squadron was Polish when moaning about immigration, motorcycling revels in multiculturalism. And long may it continue!

s

Bertie Simmond

editor

Bertie Simmonds

Carl Fogarty

Chris Moss

bertie@classicmechanics.com 2015 has to be the ‘Year of the Project Bike’ no more wasting time with work or family! What’s more important?

editorial@classicmechanics.com The man who is (as we write) in the jungle is in this issue and promises to do a Monster-based special.

editorial@classicmechanics.com Our very own 50-something falls for a BMW Boxer twin. Who would have thought it?

Steve Cooper

Mark Haycock

John Nutting

editorial@classicmechanics.com The main man behind CMM is doing double bubble with a Classic Ride and Main Test! Go Scoop! Just go!

editorial@classicmechanics.com And this month he tells us just what the big thing is about valves and all that? What’s the score MH?

editorial@classicmechanics.com If tiddler twin two-strokes are your thing then there is only one place to go: JN’s pages on the RD200DX!

Stan Stephens

Paul Berryman

Niall Mackenzie

editorial@classicmechanics.com Not content with knowledge on RG500 disc valves, how about an RD1200 V6?

Stan is cool...

editorial@classicmechanics.com We shouldn’t snigger. Honest! But he’s fettled and fecked his DR600 and needed to be picked up by a van!

editorial@classicmechanics.com Ever seen a former BSB champ and 500cc GP rider crash an FS1-E on a ramp into his van? We have!

Don Morley

Steve Parrish

Sam Dearie

editorial@classicmechanics.com The best bike photographer ever!

Check out Archive and other pages for his most excellent work. Respect, Don!

editorial@classicmechanics.com Worked like mad to get his Yamaha FZ750 Superstocker ready for the Motorcycle Live show. Did he do it?

sdearie@mortons.co.uk If you want in to the best modern classic mag around - ring this guy first!

Just do it!

New Year’s resolution...

CMM’s engine room!

Lord of the RD V6 LC!

Ledgendary photographer

Jungle man joins us!

The Q&A King

DR Feelbad

Squadron Leader Stavros

CMM’s New BMW Bitch...

Master of Mira

Ramp-up refusal!

Lofty Ad sales Lad!

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Contents 06

ARCHIVE

08

1980 BMW R80/7

13

NEWS

The Prince of Speed and The King of the Mountain.

Mossy gets sensible about bikes with panniers.

Columnists, Freddie Spencer, New Year news and fun.

44

HONDA BRITAIN

52

KING OF THE (URBAN) JUNGLE

Scoop on the original Honda race-replica: or is it?

Carl Fogarty’s Honda Dominator-based special.

SAARINEN 56 JARNO REPLICA

CALENDAR

One reader’s tribute to a legendary racer.

20

FEEDBACK

60 YAMAHA RD200

22

SHOW US YOURS

GPz1000R 68 KAWASAKI TURBO

26

NOSTALGIA!

18

30 39

January’s jollies for you listed here. Chilly out!

You tell us how it is and we listen. Honest.

A cornucopia of cool bikes from your sheds and garages.

The best Turbo of the 1980s is rebooted for today.

110

HONDA CBR1000F

129

COMING CLASSICS

TREASURE!

130 NEXT MONTH

Steve Cooper on the magic carpet Honda CBR1000F. Bertie takes a peek at The National Motorcycle Museum.

❙ WORKSHOP NEWS

74

❙ PROJECT YAMAHA FS1-E

78

❙ YAMAHA RD1200LC V6!

82

❙ WINTER LAY-UP!

87

❙ RECOMM’ AN OLD BIKE

90

❙ PROJECT YAMAHA

Yamaha’s racy two-stroke twin recalled in MIRA Files.

HONDA CB750

Nutting and Stephens recall their 1983 attempt at cracking the ton on an RD125DX!

70

Steve Cooper’s buying guide on the legendary big Honda four.

It’s finished! Then Niall Mackenzie rides it off a ramp!

Stan Stephens builds a monster motor for a special machine.

Scoop’s skills on hibernating your classic for the winter.

The final instalment on getting a bike going again.

FZ750

Steve Parrish flies to Norfolk to get parts for his Superstocker…

92

❙ WORKSHOP: VALVES

94

❙ PROJECT SUZUKI DR600

96

❙ PROJECT KAWASAKI

Andy Bolas on the beauty of the Yamaha Thunderace.

Z1300 main test, Speed Triple quick spin, drills, V6 RD, Whitham, Parrish and more.

New metal bits and Pip Higham’s tales from the torque bench.

Mark Haycock on how to make valves. Yes... it’s not easy.

Paul Berryman has woes with his big thumper…

ZRX1100

Alan Dowds gets a box of bits for his mighty motor.

98

❙ SUZUKI RG500 DISC VALVES

Stan Stephens on what can go wrong with the vital disc valves.

124

❙ ENGINE CLEANING

We hear from an expert on how to do it properly.

126

❙ Q&A

Your questions, our experts answer!

A modern take on the Z750 Turbo – the GPz1000R Turbo!

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Classic Ride

A bargain, modern-classic with 130bhp for less than a grand?

That’d be a CBR1000F then.

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WORDS: STEVE COOPER PHOTOS: JOE DICK

H

urtle (vb): to rush violently; move with great speed: and that’s exactly what I’m doing on Rich Gibbon’s rather tidy CBR1000F. As a self confessed aficionado of smaller motorcycles or those of an overtly lithe disposition, the big water-cooled inline four has come as something of a shock. This bike may now be a quarter of a century old but it has more than enough power to scare the living bejesus out of most normal average riders like me.

The Honda CBR1000F is The Big Aitch’s precursor to the legendary FireBlade and later Super Blackbird, and if later sports bikes are your only point of reference then, frankly, you may very well be in for a white knuckle ride.

Treat the bike like you would a modern motorcycle and chances are it will be in charge and you will wonder what on earth has gone wrong. With a power output around 132bhp and a kerb weight approaching a quarter of a tonne this is one seriously potent piece of kit.

Contemporary road tests sometimes suggest the Honda was bland in comparison with the ZZ-Rs and Gixers of the period, but in all honesty anyone who pushed any of these machines to their limits was a hero in my book.

Taking time out with the owner as we get some static shots we chew the fat and conclude that, for once, history had genuinely repeated itself. You would have thought that the Japanese industry would have learnt from its mistakes at the end of the 1970s but apparently not.

Just like the leviathans at the tail end of the glam rock and punk decade, the bikes of the late 1980s and early 90s were becoming a triumph of ambition over ability.

Basic frames were struggling to cope with the power output, tyres were once again being pushed to, or beyond, the limit and brakes were being worked harder than ever before.

It can hardly be a coincidence that the same year our test bike was registered, the IoM TT was blighted by the deaths of Phil Mellor and Steve Henshaw among others.

Both were competing in the Production and the general consensus of the time was that the rules had pushed

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Yamaha’s 195cc two-stroke twins of the 1970s were just right for showing off your wheelying skills. John Nutting tries an RD200DX, one of the last of the line.

WORDS: JOHN NUTTING PHOTOS: GARY CHAPMAN

R

ekindling your misspent youth is as easy as a short blast on a classic 200cc Yamaha. The less expensive offerings in the Yamaha range of the mid-Seventies came with a secret ingredient – potency that their tiny frames could barely contain.

That made the RD200 a hooligan’s joy ride. Open up in the lower gears and the front wheel would reach for the sky; power out of corners indiscreetly and you’d find yourself wrestling with the handlebars to maintain control; on the open road, good examples could leave some 250s in a cloud of exhaust haze. The RD200 was brilliant.

Yet it wasn’t a bad handler; Yamaha had injected just enough power to make sure that your adrenalin levels were kept at the limit. Take a pillion with you and the excitement was cranked up even higher; just what you needed to show how crazy motorcycling could be to an impressionable bird.

It all came back in spadefuls when I took Paul Turk’s immaculately restored RD200DX for a spin.

This example dating from 1980 was the final version before the air-cooled range was replaced by liquidcooled singles, and it transported me back to a time when you didn’t need to fantasise about living on the edge. All it needed was a bit more than £600, or the hire purchase option, and you were on the road, ready to terrorise the neighbourhood. Of course, it wasn’t a completely authentic transformation. What was a small bike for a lithe twenty-something now feels a lot more diminutive, but the memory was just as vivid. This RD200DX delivered the thrills as much as it ever did.

With its ‘coffin’ shaped fuel tank and duck-tail

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Building the

ULTIMATE V6-LC! When a customer wanted a V6 two-stroke Yamaha, there was always only one person to go to. Our Stan.

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RIGHT The original – for many the ultimate expression of the twostroke race replica.

BELOW Disclaimer! This may well not be what Stan’s customer was after – but imagine a V6 1200cc two-stroke in this package?

Hmm...

L

ast January’s issue had the above Reboot of a new V4 RD500LC for the new generation and readers drooled at it. Just think if we could marry it up with a V6, 1200cc version of the venerable RD500LC powerplant, if only someone would make one. Well it looks like Stan has been asked to build such a motor. Take it away Stanley.

A couple of years ago I built a 750cc version of the RD500LC V4. I wrote articles on the building of it in CMM. I used two pairs of 350YPVS barrels and increased the stroke of the cranks by 4mm to 54mm. At the end of the article I said that next would be the 1200cc V6!

It was just a throwaway comment, although I had looked at the idea while building the 750. Then a few months ago I had an email asking me if I would build one and how much would it be! The caller was a guy called Ian Buxton and he was serious, although I told him I hadn’t really seriously looked at it and didn’t know if it was possible and I definitely couldn’t give a price.

He asked if I would have a proper look at the project and say if I would take it on. I had a set of scrap crankcases and an engine that I was working on, I spent a while measuring it up and decided it was definitely/maybe possible. I checkedup with the crank specialist that built the stroker cranks for the 750 and he said he could build the cranks. I contacted a firm that make ignitions and they said they could make the ignition. I showed the cases to my welder and he said he would undertake the welding. I phoned Ian up and said it was possible and two weeks later he arrived with an RD500LC engine and a spare set of damaged cases and a large

deposit! The RD 1200 V6 was go!

Ian Buxton is an ex-350LC racer from the early 1980s, he has a successful business, but instead of taking it easy, he races a Formula V car and has a Spondon RD500 based 680cc race bike (which I will be doing an article on later). Ian and I talked over a few options and ideas and decided on a very broad set of ideas to work to. As with the RD750 V4 I said I wanted to stroke the cranks to 54mm and use 350 Yamaha barrels but instead of YPVS barrels this time I wanted to use Yamaha Banshee barrels from the racing quad. Ian wanted to know what power I expected it to produce. I said that I get around 75bhp from a 350cc Banshee engine so with three sets of over-bored Banshee barrels 225bhp was possible but unlikely.

Although Ian was excited at the prospect of that much power, even he was worried that it may not actually be ridable! I didn’t care, I am only building it! We agreed that although the engine would be fully tuned and would be running large carbs, race ignition and race pipes I would tune the engine for midrange and keep the exhaust ports low. The 350 YPVS barrels have power-valves to spread out the power: however, the Banshee barrels don’t have power-valves and are a race engine!

The plan was to use the existing V4 cases of the donor engine, complete with gearbox and the left-hand pair from the damaged cases, which luckily were damaged on the right-hand side. I sawed off the left-hand pair on a mechanical saw, allowing myself a good safety margin to where I was going to machine them to. Next, the left-hand side of the donor V4 was machined flat then the inside of the cases where the seals are located was machined out to the same diameter as the main bearings.

I then measured the distance between the V4’s main-bearings and lab seal and www.classicmechanics.com / 79

Next month KAWASAKI Z1300: Jon Bentman on the behemoth Kawasaki six.

HONDA CB350: Steve Cooper rides a classic middleweight Honda.

DUCATI MONTJUIC: A ravishing reader’s special from down under.

MOT YOUR CLASSIC! What to look for when you go for an MoT. 1999 TRIUMPH SPEED TRIPLE: A fast, fast appreciating classic. Chris Moss takes a Quick Spin.

NOSTALGIA: That man Moss again on his early biking days of racing and dodging traffic as a London courier in the 1980s.

KAWASAKI GA2 90SS: Spicy Thai tiddler served up by Andy Westlake.

PLUS! WORKSHOP: Stan Stephens continues with the V6 RD500LC build and Mark Haycock gives us the lowdown on drills.

FEBRUARY PROJECT BIKES: Suzuki’s young apprentices carry on their GSX-R1100L restoration – honest, they do this month! Steve Cooper’s Project Rickuki gathers more pace.

Has Steve Parrish finished his Loctite Yamaha FZ750? Eee-ooop has James Whitham done owt to his 1981 Suzuki X7? And what terrible things have befallen Paul Berryman’s Suzuki DR600?

The poor southern love.

AND LOTS MORE... DON’T MISS IT!

ON SALE: JANUARY 21

All subject to changes because life’s like that, innit?

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