I've just got back from a great weekend with my mates from the Cheshire Branch of the BSAOC. There were ten of us altogether, of which, six were A10's. We left Cheshire early on Saturday morning, arriving in Chichester (240 miles south) at about 5.30 p.m. having stopped a few times for cups of tea, fuel and lunch. On arrival at the hotel we got the tools out for the first time as one of the A10's had developed a clutch problem, the typical 'slippy-grabby' thing. On removal of the chaincase it appeared that the Bob Newby belt drive had completely lost one of its screws and springs which were floating about in the chaincase. Miraculously there was no other damage, so we screwed it back in, balanced the clutch, and had the bike running again in about 40 minutes - the owner stating that it ran like a 'new bike'. During an evening run we had a clutch cable failure which was an easy fix, ten minutes at the side of the road. I always carry a couple of universal cables and various solderless nipples so I remove the inner from the universal cable, drag the inner out of the broken cable (it had pulled the cable out of the nipple at the lever) and simply slide the universal inner down the existing cable so there's no need to remove the existing outer cable from the bike. My mate, who was borrowing one of my bikes had a sticky throttle cable which we fixed by taking the tank off and rerouting the cable so that the bend above the carb wasn't quite so sharp. Also, on that bike the sidestand spring seemed to get a bit weak so we cable-tied the sidestand to the frame and just used the centre stand. I think I reported that I'd had to fit a new wheel rim to the rear of my bike on the Thursday afternoon before we set off; I was pleased that gave no trouble en-route. During the return journey, the centre bolt on a petrol tank came loose so that was another easy quick fix at the side of the road. And that was it as far as maintenance issues are concerned, barring a few top-ups of oil. During the weekend we visited The Sammy Miller Museum with our friends from the Hampshire Branch. We also visited Tangmere Military Air Museum and the famous Goodwood Racing Circuit. It was altogether a fantastic weekend and, on return home yesterday (Wednesday), I'd clocked up just over 700 miles. I think that's quite an achievement. So, a cumulative total of 4200 miles and only a few trivial maintenance issues. Note, no magneto problems! Photos are of my bike minus back wheel on Thursday and my bike with others at Goodwood.
