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Messages - matthewmosse
16
« on: September 28, 2021, 01:52:26 PM »
They can be awful, that my historic experience. However the other day I was pleasantly surprised, when I returned my sidecar to the road I just paid the tax by direct debit intending to sort out the historical taxvthing next time I was in town, 3 months later I still hadn't been arsed but 3 letters arrived within days to inform me they'd noticed I'd paid tax on a historic vehicle, they refund the overpaid duty, and they sent out a new logbook with class changed to historic tax class and finally a cheque for £18.18p.
Dvla offices sound like a bad place to work during covid, some bod in central government decided thsg as long as they sat back to back, that social distancing need not apply, so they were hauled into work in the office and had a massive covid infection rate, like 500 off at 1 time covid positive. I reacon its basically a massive hell hole of beurocracy. Incredibly frustrating to deal with, probably as bad to work in.
17
« on: September 21, 2021, 08:45:21 PM »
18v, definitely too much in my books. I've seen the mess after a car battery I had on charge in the workshop burst. It split the battery along 4 seams, nearly split in 2. I was quite glad I wasn't around when it went pop, and that it just lost the acid onto concrete - I imagine it wouldn't have done anyone or any machinery any good to get a spray of acid. I haven't trusted my Optimate charger since. Must have been quite a bang given the splits in the battery case.
18
« on: September 10, 2021, 10:45:15 PM »
Look at breaking point in Scotland, they had some switchgears for sale on Ebay in job lots, I picked up a few spares off there recently. I incidentally found I've had the 'wrong' swichgear on the left of my bike for years, keeping it though, the correct ones a bit more square and chunky looking than mine, which looks rather more like a mirror image of the 'correct' right switchgear. I did get offered a cb550 left switchgear via my mate the other day from a guy in Portsmouth I could find out more. He was picking up a top yoke for his cb350.
19
« on: September 10, 2021, 08:05:21 PM »
If just cleaning threads a crap set of plug or bottoming taps and dies is ok, not the very crappiest, they might not even be the right size! Having a good selection of metric fine and standard threads is st that stage more useful than boxes of extremely expensive top notch gear. That's if your just rebuilding a standard bike, in my opinion at any rate. Decent taps and dies are however very worthwhile if you start making parts from scratch, but go down that road and a lathe is surely also essential, plus welding and oxy acetylene gear. Soon the bikes get kicked out to another shed if you go down that route. I'd just buy the toos as required but a Tracey tools basic tap and die set is a good investment, despite a filing cabinet of better presto etc kit, my go to tap and die set is still the tracy tools basic £20 or so blue box of taps and dies for inperial, for metric I have a similar set by Sealey, while I'm very happy with their pro line sockets and spanners, their m6 to m24 metric fine and coarse tap and die set is not that good to be honest, tap and die wrenches fragile, taps fine for basic work but the bigger sizes I've needed to re grind using a diamond burr to even get to start cutting a thread, it was that or drill out to a larger size than stated in my Zeus bible, by almost 1mm. Not very good for fabrication, absolutely fine for thread cleaning.
20
« on: September 10, 2021, 09:55:23 AM »
Ted, articles on page 7 of that section of the forum.
Damn, sounds like the restorer was a bit of a cowboy to put it mildly. I'm afraid motorbike mechanics that are good can be hard to find, its basically why I do most bike repairs DIY these days, local big dealership were equally inept and unhelpful, I decided I could do incompetence at home far cheaper. Thing is I actually found I often did a better job than some pros, though I wouldn't advertise myself as a mechanic. It's not that I am very good, rather that some of the pro work I have had done was bloody awful and dangerous. A tyre with no rim tape on a cb550/4- spoked wheels, and a inner tube valve secured with gasket goo and 2 half nuts on dads bmw r80 mono stand out as prime examples of our main dealership 'service's.
There are some incredibly good mechanics out there too, it's just finding them. Sadly the one I found locally had to close after 3 breakins in as many years put his insurance through the roof, happened to two local independent dealers in town. Main dealership seems immune from these depredations. The thieves were pretty determined too, cut through brick walls and lifted roofs off to nick a few crosses. That is a tale for another time.
Hope the mk3 gets sorted, I loved mine, sorted those mk3 carbs deliver great fuel economy, they are a bit of a pain once neglected though.
21
« on: September 08, 2021, 10:22:22 PM »
I think its m10 x1.5 from memory so easy enough to get helicoil that size if my memory is correct.
22
« on: August 26, 2021, 01:00:28 PM »
I also found a new switch cured the problem in the past. I also found lightly nipping up the contact for the wire to the switch which was loose caused the switch to leak oil on one occasion. Just be sure to buy s decent switch intended for that bike so its calibrated correctly.
23
« on: August 22, 2021, 12:05:19 AM »
Box of bits bikes are great, my first 550 was collected as a pile of collapsing mouldy boxes full of manky bits of metal, I learnt a lot putting that pile of scrap back together into a running bike, looks like you've started from a more sensible point.
24
« on: August 13, 2021, 09:14:38 AM »
Would anyone have tried or could say whether perhaps electo plating or anodising might be an option? Say if one were to use the tank itself as both the vessel and electrode and either zinc or copper coat it? Is that feasible?
25
« on: August 09, 2021, 02:22:13 PM »
I don't think that ones in my shed but I do have a 500/4 that was last on dvla's computer that recently, I'm probably not the only one, in fact I know of someone not to far away with a whole barn full of old motorbikes and parts. If it's still in a barn it might only come to light if the owner chooses to dig it out and use it.
26
« on: July 19, 2021, 01:10:37 PM »
I get cover though my insurance, though I have used AA and rac in the past. All use sub contractors a lot. Of the Aa and rac I found rac better, they'd send recovery rather than fix whereas every time Aa insisted on sending out a repair guy - cue 2 hours wait, then he'd confirm it's not a roadside repair, cue 2 hours wait for recovery. A really irritating policy. Rac don't like sending recovery without a second oppinon but they can at least accept that a big hole in your piston and spark plug covered in molten alloy is not a roadside repair without sending a mechanic to verify it! Back when I used Carol nash, their recovery agent was about the only recovery driver who actually turned up with both the knowledge and skills to fix a bike, and a decently suited van, rather than a 16 foot flatbed. Wasn't a fixable breakdown though, gearbox was shot. BMW quality strikes again. Those old airheads got me very familiar with breakdown trucks. That driver said they carried more BMW motorbikes than anything else.
27
« on: July 15, 2021, 10:09:37 PM »
The handling is part of the joy of side cars, I found mine really hard to stop shaking its head at some speeds but eventually learned techniques to deal with it though riding style. I find if you try to hold the steering tight and steer by muscle power it will probably literally throw you off and into a hedge. However let it shake a bit and give it a bit of leeway and it becomes quite fun. When my steering damper let go I actually didn't bother replacing it. I did at one point have a sidecar combo with leading link forks and a host of other improvements that fixed the quirky handling, I actually found it a lot less fun as a result.
So far post rebuild I've put 22 miles on the clock, carbs flood a fair bit, and the fuel tap bowl sprung a leak, pitted from the inside, replaced that with one off another project. Have taken the kids for a spin, from fairly indifferent they both seem to quite like it after a quick trip each - the elder demanded a second circuit of the village. I might have to refit the rear seat and passenger window. Plenty of jobs to do on it still, but I'm chuffed to bits getting to take it for a spin again after all these years. The engines sweet, pulls well.
28
« on: July 15, 2021, 08:00:08 AM »
The springs were something I'm trying out as a more sophisticated way to compensate for the extra weight than 6" pre load spacers used previously. I honestly cannt remember if that means I actually used a different set of forks though - I think I did. Certainly didn't dare strip the 6" preload spacer forks. Does seem to handle a bit better. Sadly means I loose the gators.
An Arial square 4? At one stage that was my dream bike. These days this old bikes my ultimate bike.
29
« on: July 15, 2021, 12:10:25 AM »
Rides again, getting some random cutting out under power, starts after a few dozen kicks so a bit more setting up and checking. Spent the whole day fault finding wiring and so on, seems the resistor in the regulator was causing a short to earth, after much testing by my mate who understands electrical trickery. Luckily I had a pile of spares to swap out.
30
« on: July 14, 2021, 08:03:47 AM »
Might be worth looking at the cb250 nighthawk clamps, from what I recall they use the same collet system and very likely share the same hole spacings, I sold our own 250 nighthawk so cannt check but your clamp with no fins is starting to look like the stock 250 item.
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