June 2024

 

June 24

 

The beginning of this month has been quite busy with trips to work with Coops, hospital appointments, a clutch change on the Burton and one of the Wey Valley Bike birthday celebrations and the usual first of the month Observed Sunday.  First of all was Motor Bike day at Cobham on the Saturday with ride outs from Yamaha and BMW plus other electric models.

I was inside on the club shop to support the day. There was a bonus to the day in that other suppliers were present and I bought a Chainmate to assist lubricating the Kawasaki chain. It greatly helps in getting the grease into the chain and not everywhere else. 

On the Sunday I used the Buell to see if my home made silencer strap held together. It did but there was no high speed riding to really test it. This was a biking weekend and feeling fit enough I launched in to the Burton the following week and it took me that long.

 Like a 2CV you need to take the bonnet and wings off then take the engine out to separate the gearbox and gain access to the clutch. There is a lot of work to do that job. With new thrust race and diaphragm clutch reassembly took just as long. I am not as agile or as fast so the job absorbed six very long days. I could not entertain paying someone to do that job especially when some of the trim needed to be removed from the foot well to gain access to a captive nut that was no longer captive half way down the wing and a broken throttle cable. I put the captive nuts in place specifically to aid removal of the wings for work on the engine. Not necessary for a service A as the plugs can be accessed through ports in the inner wing and oil filter buy removing the sump plate. Doing all the is not a one man job and I have to mention my able assistant Ashish who helped me with the muscle power to make the job possible.

After many aches and pains from crawling or more like diving head first into the foot well I had a few days off before blasting down to see Coops in Whitchurch on the Kawasaki. I should have ordered the stuff before the visit, running out of thread and fabric. The hood has been completed for Registers Day, but not the sidescreens and these are proving to be much more complicated to do on an industrial sewing machine. So far one has been almost completed and the results are amazing with a zip in the screen for access to be able to pick up car park tickets or motorway toll tickets without having to work around the almost one metre wide side screen.