An Interesting Week.

 

An Interesting Week.

 

I had an email on the Thursday wanting volunteers to man the MAG stand at the Ace Cafe on the Sunday. This was to be a Seventies bike day theme. I agreed and duly turned up on the Sunday morning. It was baking hot at 10:30 in the morning. In the heat, and just off the North Circular I can understand why not many bikes of that era turned up. They do not stand heat and traffic well but lots of newer bikes were there to make up the numbers. I had a long chat with Mark Willsmore about military tactics over the last two centuries and the stupid waste of men in the First World War. It was too warm to do much and there was little activity at the stand. Selling more goods than memberships I went home around two when reinforcements arrived. It was a hot ride on the Buell that afternoon.

Monday was 2CV Club night and I went off to Bagshott for the meeting at Richard’s home sitting outside enjoying the evening talking about everything other than cars. When I got home and tried to park the El Cid it stalled and would not tick over so I pushed to its parking position.

Tuesday  I was up early to look at the carburettor on the El Cid and managed to drop the mixture adjusting screw collar into the engine bay. That would have to be retrieved when I take the sump protector off. I cleaned the pilot jet and started her up. Tickover ok I was now set to pick up George in Greenford. George is an old biker friend and I had  promised to take him to Whitewebbs Transport Museum. I picked him up from his home and headed off around the M25 to Enfield where the museum is located. The stalling at tickover had returned but it would easily restart and continued to plague me all day. At Whitewebbs Chris was manning the motorcycle display. He has done a grand job at reorganising it and he says there is still quite allot still to do and something I need to get back to doing. George and I had a grand day visiting all the nooks and crannies of the museum. I got home around five even with no tickover. That would be tomorrow’s job.

Wednesday was another early start and the job kept me going all day with the following list filling the day.

Remove sump protector plate and retrieve mixture adjusting screw collar and wipe out any residual oil collected there.

Remove top of carburettor for access to  float which I reset to the correct working height.

Removed the main jet and cleaned

Removed by-pass jet and cleaned

Removed pilot jet the offender with an insect leg jammed into the orifice. I could not believe it. How did that get there? How does an insect get into the fuel? I’m pretty sure it would not have got into my petrol tank voluntarily.

In the process of sorting things out I checked the spark plugs, ignition timing, and valve clearances to make sure everything was in order. By the time I had put everything back together the day was gone, the engine was running sweetly again and all that was needed now was a test drive.

Thursday and the test drive was to Asda in the morning. On return I nipped up the rocker box nuts to ensure the seal and gave the mixture screw a tweak for a bit smoother tickover and pickup. After the efforts of yesterday  I took the afternoon off and spent it with the grandchildren at Ruislip Lido watching them play in the fountains.

Friday  I was off early on the Buell to Walton and the camping shop while working on the El Cid I noticed  that the bungeys that secure the hood where a bit tired and not doing much. Time to replace them. CIT Camping has the materials to do the job even complete cord ready to use. I just bought the replacement cord and made them up myself. Back home I started the replacement program. I wanted to use the original securing wires but that was quite brittle and broke while bending them to remove the old cord. I used 2mm copper wire to bind the loose ends together so they would not pull through the knob. The copper wire is earth wire  from 6kw cooker cable. Tough but pliable. It took a few hours to make the ten require with custom lengths for each mounting point. I had time later in the day to write  the Soap Box missive that this is really the finishing off about things that have kept me busy this last week.