Honda-SOHC

For a change some good news, Ian Brady is dead, long overdue, unfortunately he took the location of Keith Bennets body with him, they should have tortured that out of him years ago.

Took the 350 for it's MOT this morning passed no problem they adjusted the headlight aim, took it for a little run to warm it right through after, little bit of smoke, not unexpected as it had probably stood for many years doing nothing very happy with the old girl but i will change the front sprocket for a 1 tooth larger to give it a little more on the top end.

After deciding to come back to riding a SOHC Honda, i recently brought a 350f from the Triad small van centre in Brighton unseen but with many assurances it was a little gem with MOT and road ready, i find i am a little PI**ED off because after taking delivery and applying petrol to the tank i found that the fuel flowed freely out of the over flows straight onto the floor not really surprised by that as sometimes this happens with older bikes, i was told the mans macanac ( spelt like that because to call him a mechanic would be a travesty ) had fully serviced and re-furbed the carbs, so i was even more surprised to find the O rings around the jets and valve in each carb were completely shot, not been touched and along with copious amounts of crap in the bowls the floats set to around 30mm no amount of float setting was going to cure the flow, so i have re-furbed the carbs myself and now it runs really well, so anyhow i was also assured by this very nice man Neil or ( C**T ) as i now perceive him that the left fork leg oil-seal was weeping this weep actually was a-kin to the Torrey Canyon spewing it's cargo onto the floor of my garage when the front end was pushed down a couple of times, new stanchions seals and a now a decent re-furb done, now i have moved onto the caliper which also had a rebuild so out with the pads that had more chips taken out of them than mccain's send out of their factory in a week, i can see there is a new piston in there, relief i thought, so new pads in, checked today and there is brake fluid on the caliper bottom, so piston pumped out caliper removed  and oh my god enough wire wool to rub down the hull of the Queen Mary the seal was also new, upon removal i run a magnet around the inside and it ended up with a hairstyle like a 1970's Harlem Globetrotter and as for the seal groove or grooves as it has now, this sort of work beggars belief, so new parts for this have now been ordered, still has a sticky clutch which will be addressed as soon as possible, so do not buy from this Man, the bike has not done a single mile since he had it MOT'd by K.C.Carter of Vehicle test station V110128, Unit 3 Freemans Road, Portslade Brighton, BN41 1SL, it really is my tough luck for buying without a long trip to see the bike but it also shows how far people will go to make a buck without any consideration for other peoples safety.

Stripped the carbs this week as bike would not run, old o-rings letting by, new rebuild kits from the states, i found that heights set at 21mm the carbs overflowed and at that height the floats appeared to be too close to the upper body, so i reset floats to 23mm this gives them a better upper clearance and the over flowing has stopped, i had them set up on he bench with a fuel supply for about 4hours and no let by, i measured a new needle valve seat and compared it to an original and the new ones are 0.3mm longer than OEM, has anyone else found this and overcome the problem, also has anyone else reset the levels to aid this and with what results, also new manifold and air-box rubbers going on, valve clearances done all were tight, with any good fortune a start up tomorrow.

Anyone here know where it is now it was in Aylsford in Kent earlier this year, i was the first UK owner of this bike in the late 90's, at the time i put a boyer ignition system on it and replaced the exhaust's on it as it had a horrible 4 into 1 at that time, i also converted it to twin disc, i remember this one very fondly and in over 40 years on bikes it was the most reliable i have ever had.