What have you done with your bike/s today?

[RDfella]

Had a variety of bikes since the early sixties - all British. All my current bikes are British (right foot change, lousy brakes etc etc. except one - around 12yrs ago I bought a Firestorm - 100bhp plus brakes that'll easily lift the rear wheel. Strange thing is I thought I'd keep getting mixed up feet-wise but it's never happened. Soon as I select a gear to leave the garage, from then on gear changing is automatic, never any prodding with the wrong foot regardless of what I'm riding. But that's changing. Can't swing my right leg over high modern bikes anymore, so my Honda rides look like a thing of the past. Pity, as the 'storm has a fantastic engine - smooth from tickover to 9,000 and with brakes to match. Not so keen though on the top-heavy aspect. Makes it a pain in slow bends, where it'll fall down unless you slip the clutch to keep things ultra-steady. Can't beat the A series for handling and general user-friendliness.

[muskrat]

G'day Fellas.
Haven't done anything on the A's lately except for starting to pump the oil around.
The rHonda has the lump out and top end off after finding #4 was 30lb down on compression. It's been a battle as I thought it was a ring problem (oil squirt down the plug 'ol and it came up) but all looked good there. Found a leaky valve so lapped it in. On assembly I found the guide had lifted a mm  . These were new guides fitted 50,000Km ago. Decided to heat the head on the BBQ to 200C and push it back down. It didn't want to drop so put it up to 300C. It now dropped in easy. It wasn't till assembly (valves, springs, collets on 16 of the little buggers) I noticed a few of the seats had dropped a tad. OK, if I put it back in the BBQ at 350C the springs will pull the seats back in. It did but now had to lap all the valves back in and replace the seals again.
So yesterday with the head on the bench I bolted the cams in to adjust the shims (had already bought a kit of 26 @ $330) and got'em spot on with only one problem. Two of the cam cap bolts wouldn't tension up to 10ft/lb. Bugga, back apart again to helicoil those. All back together, now waiting on a set of std rings coming from Holland 
Makes working on our A's a walk in the park.
Cheers

[berger]

wow and i thought my yonda was giving me problems. i think i'm in the shallow end and your well in the deep end

[Butch (cb)]

Worked out how to get the rear wheel out and the chain guard off of Jaws the Jawa 350 outfit. Found a bunch of shrapnel in there. Turned out to be self destructing chain rollers.

[Worty]

Yikes

[Black Sheep]

Checked over the Star Twin in anticipation of a few hundred mile run this coming weekend. Found a bit of play in the steering head races. 1/16 of a turn on the castellated sleeve and all is well again. Oh, and the stop light works once more. And it's even lightly polished!

[chaterlea25]

Hi All,
Got almost all the wiring under the seat sorted for the electric leg
Just the wiring of the solenoid , push button and security switch to do
A quick couple of wires and tested the starter, it certainly whizzed the engine around 

John

[Colsbeeza]

And it's even lightly polished!

Black Sheep- Don't overdo it.!!!
Col

[Butch (cb)]

Another estuary ride with the chaps last night. I was on Hardley again.

[Butch (cb)]

Estuary big sky.

[RichardL]

Rode 31 miles into Chicago for the Motoblot Motorcyle and Hot Rod Strret Rally. Got a nervous 30 minute test ride on a new BMW R18. Why nervous? Shift on the left, breaks that want to throw an A10 rider over the handlebars, Chicago traffic, 70 mph before you're thinking about it, etc.

Richard L.

(Pictures will be here i a minute. Stay tuned.)

Considering I entered my bike for judging in the Vintage British Motorcycle Class, you can see by the size of the rider that mine is the "Hardest Working Motorcycle in Show Biz."

Richard L.

[Butch (cb)]

Got the front wheel with its new tyre back into Blue the T3. Pulled off the pillion pad and set it up for solo touring with the hinge top US style hard panniers. Got a long weekend up in Scotland at the end of the month.

Parts had turned up for Jaws the Jawa outfit so put the new chain and sprockets on that. Fun and games with the all enclosed chain case. Still runs about as vibey as it was before. That's mostly about prepped for a trip down to the Elephant rally with my pal next January.

Said pal turned up with his Griso and we stuck that up on the table and changed all the fluids and checked the valve clearances. This bike has a sunken oil filter in the bottom of the sump - it mounts from the outside (unlike the earlier models) but you need a sleeve tool to get the thing in and out. Old filter was a 14 flat and the new filter was 8. What a pain and why can't we have some standardisation on these things?

A10 only went out for one run this year I think - some 40 miles maybe, and is unlikely to get another ride this year. I'll be investigating the non charging dynamo some time over winter.

[madsens]

Oil change all over on the A10, engine, gearbox, primary and forks (fork oil looked like a big cappuchino ;o) and treated her with a new drive chain after 25.000 km....

[Butch (cb)]

My Mother had voiced an interest in taking a spin in the Jaws sidecar - her generation having been brought up bouncing around in such contraptions and not being too precious about it. So Tuesday night I was round there and we gave it a spin - just a short ride but took in the house where she brought me up, and her parents old place. A small capacity Eastern European two stroke can't have chimed too well with her memories but she seemed to really enjoy it.

[davewes]

I went for a ride in the Cotswolds and saw Diddly Squat. That, of course , is Jeremy Clarkson's Farm Shop from the Amazon TV programme. It was closed but the ride was great.