… Part 2;
So last night – Thursday, is Classic Bike Night at that self-same country pub down the road from me. We’re talking of a trip of no more than two miles.
My pal Meatloaf (not the actual Meatloaf – his moniker comes from the metrication and bastardisation of his actual surname; Yardley. Seemed funny back when we were all engineering apprentices) had called in on his way out to pick up his Missus later so we rolled out a couple of bikes to take over. I couldn’t quite be bothered to pull out Brown, my Kawa H1, from under covers and he’s not used to right foot shift so I stuck him on the Camel I’m using as a station bike at the moment; and I rolled out the A10 again. Despite my best efforts the Camel has a ‘challenging’ clutch, so with some stalling coupled with the high seat height and left foot kicker it took us a couple of goes before we were formating down the road.
On the drag down to the pub I suddenly had the engine dropping away on the BSA. I was running fast enough to have time to try the choke slide, the tickler and even unscrew the gas cap before rolling to a halt on someone’s driveway. I spoke to the owner about leaving the bike there (two up on the Camel would have been fun – Meatloaf and I are quite chunky blokes and it only has about a 1.5 person seat and one pillion footrest). But figured I was suffering fuel starvation and after a minute or two got the bike fired up, razzed up the road and when it quit again managed to roll all the way in to the pub car park. Much hilarity there ensued.
No-one seemed to have any tools with them and we ran a sweep on how many float bowls full and hence stops would be required for me to get home – oh for a monoblock with the boy racer float bowl extension. And also whether I would get myself squished on the A120 roundabout I would have to cross before getting on to my road. We’re a caring sharing bunch.
So after another fine foaming ale, a bowl full of wild cherry and a juicy burger it was time for the return. The bike wouldn’t tickle at all and was reluctant to fire. But it did (and with that overly long roar again) and off we blasted. To pull up not so very far down the road. The float bowl challenge was looking to be a long one, so instead I left Meatloaf with the bike, whizzed back home on the Camel, picked up a rope, pulled out Zed my Rexxer, which would surely be a more suitable tug, and then headed back. From whence we tied the recalcitrant Beezer to the back of the Kawa and he dragged us home.
So a good night out for the more sporting gentleman, and just like being 17 again.
The problem is clearly fuel starvation and I’m thinking that the weird revving of the night before was in some way indicative of this. The slide sticking at the top of its travel will just be a red herring. So the bike will go up on the table and the filters on the taps and the carb will be checked and the slide will come out for a look. I have a tank liner, which looks good and hard where you can see it on the tunnel from the filler cap – but will there be horrors lurking lower down? It will be some weeks before I find the time to do this, but I’ll report back eventually.
