Yeeha!

How long has it been? 23rd June... Oh dear. Sorry.

Had a bit of an Oh My God moment yesterday, when I opened the latest magazine from the MZRC and saw that they'd printed my article about my history with MZs which mentions this blog and the forum too. Hell, I'd better write another entry then, else they'll think I've died or something!

I needed to do some work on the Skorpion today anyway (usual weekend stuff, tyre pressures, chain, and a swift oil change for good measure). She's a lot happier with a tankful of new oil I can tell you, even though she's still burning enough that I reckon I replace it all about every couple of months anyway. Due to lack of preparation I had various ends of oil bottles lying around the garage, so she's got a rather heavier mixture that I had been using (I reckon around 15W-50 or so, there was some H-D v-twin oil lying around), I think she likes a heavier oil, so next time I go to Halfords it'll be something a bit "thicker" I think.

After finishing the Skorpion, which took quite a lot longer that I'd hoped due to the fact that I had to do a bit of fixing on the rear brake caliper, the pads were dropping and wearing the disc in a most odd way, I spent some time pootling around the garage. My garage suffers from chronic leaves. I guess it's something fairly common, but a sweeping of the floor was definitely in order as there were no bikes standing on it for a short while. Then I got out the labelling machine and started labelling up the various shelves and drawers of the toolkits and so on - a most satisfying task in a strange way.

Justin returned from a trip up town and held that poxy 125 frame for me while I FINALLY managed to get those headrace bearings out. Marinading in WD40 for several months seemed to have done the trick after all. So that's that for the 125. It just needs to wait for me to dismantle its stable-mates and start the building-up process again...

I also dismantled a random swing-arm that was lying around. It must've belonged to a bike that I acquired the rear half of when a mate was going to trike the front end (I don't think the trike ever happened - must see if I can get hold of the other half of this one, it was a fairly tidy ETZ300 at one point I think). I've certainly got an extra wheel and swingarm that don't belong to anything else. Managed to get the rear sprocket & carrier away from the chain guard this time without destroying the chain guard - I'm learning!!!

Guess that's all for today, with any luck I'll be spending more time in the garage now as Justin is back at Uni and we'll both want me out of the house more... Either that, or this project will take FOR EVER!!!.....

Nearly there...

Quick update before I forget what happened at the weekend...

Didn't do an awful lot on the 125 as the Skorpion needed a bit of routine maintenance, and I got all frustrated and edgy towards the end of the session so I thought it better to stop before I really broke something...

A word to the wise - take the top yoke off before bashing the forks...

Managed to get the forks out though! Turns out the WD40 had worked its magic - with the application of a small amount of rubber-mallet work. It would have been a bit more successful if I had realised there was actually a lip in the top yoke casting above the top of the fork leg - that way we wouldn't have knackered that bit. Hey ho, you live and learn, and the reason for dismantling this one first was partly to learn valuable lessons like this for the other two.

So now the top yoke is knackered, and it's not the kind of casting that's going to be possible to weld back together. We got both forks out though... And the bottom yoke is fine!

I didn't manage to get the headrace bearings out though, partly because Justin said "oh, that'll be easy"... Well, I got a long drift (that handy bit of bar that lies around awaiting these kind of jobs) and bashed and bashed and bashed. Did either of the bearings move? No. So I put the hammer down, got the WD40 out again and left it.

All that needs doing on the frame now is getting those bearings out and the spacer tube between them, and there's a rubber gromet been left behind by something in the swingarm/footrest area that needs to be prised off. And then it'll just be a bare frame ready for cleaning up & sending off for powder coating... Although in actuality it'll wait until I've got all the frames I'm going to send ready, so I can get a job lot done for hopefully a more efficient price

Then I can have a good old tidy up and start on another one...

Bored!

So I thought I'd make it three in a row...

Sent off the article for MZ Rider magazine, with a few photos that I managed to find. I've only got the one picture of the 251/301 hybrid in electronic format and that's the one I used here. It's a pity the Buell (ugh!) got in on the act but that's life, at least the MZ's at the front where it belongs. Perhaps in a few months time I'll send an update on the project to them as well...

As you can see I've been playing with the blog templates. I've settled on the same layout as before but in slightly less girly-pink colours. I'm not really a girly-pink kinda person.

Haven't done any shopping today (shock, horror!) as there's nothing on the list.

I may or may not get into the garage over the weekend as we're going to be spending a chunk of Saturday booking all the elements of the holiday (flights, hotels and car hire all separate as standard travel agents don't seem to know where St Johns is...) I've really enjoyed searching out some funky hotels and stuff on the web. What a marvellous institution this internet thing is turning out to be. How did we ever manage without it???

Oh dear...

Two posts in two days, I don't know it's like busses!

Been shopping again (there's a surprise). Got everything on the "to get" list, even the barrier cream I've been on about - hooray!

Made the mistake of spending more than 15 seconds in front of the shelf in WHSmith when getting new tags and itsy-bitsy resealable bags... Walked out (after paying, obviously!) with a lovely electric Dymo labelmaker (I've been meaning to steal the one from the office for a while) and a large collection of labels and tags and stuff. Also couldn't resist the cutest little purple stapler and coloured staples for my desk. I'm impossible sometimes!

Got a bit carried away in Halfords too, went in for brake and contact cleaner and came out with brake cleaner, contact cleaner, spray grease and some injector cleaner for the car... Ho hum.

Wahiba was right (thanks matey!), I got the barrier cream in the local chemists shop - NOT Boots, although I didn't ask in there I have to admit. Which reminds me I must send that article off for MZ rider. Hopefully I'll get to do that this afternoon, it's been a bit quiet around here lately... I'll struggle for pictures I think, but I'll see what I can dig out from the archive.

Toodle-pip. An email's just arrived...

Back in the garage - at last!

Well, lost a couple of weekends there, the lawns needed mowing, I got lazy etc etc. But I was back in the garage for about 4 hours on Saturday.

In other news, before we start, a friend of ours who owed us some money gave us some of his gardening and related equipment that he has no further use for, for us to sell on eBay or keep or whatever. One of the items included was a little electric air compressor. Very useful, even though it's only currently got a tyre inflating attachment. I'll be learning all about air tools sometime soon!
We've also gained a petrol lawnmower that just needs it's height adjuster mechanism fixing & that'll be ready to roll, so hopfully mowing the lawns should only take an hour rather than the half a day it currently takes with the poxy little electric flymo thing we currently have - can't complain about that too much though, it was inherited from my parents when they patioed their little bit of lawn.
We've also now got a slightly rusty beaten-up transit van with no MoT or tax on it, to get rid of... That's definitely an eBay job! I might even post a link to the listing in here when I get around to doing the eBay thing...

Anyway on to the bike... Finally managed to get that last piece of rear mudguard off (by breaking the bolt). I wasn't intending to break the bolt, it just kinda happened, a combination of years of rust and the brute-force-n-ignorance approach. I'm likely to be replacing most of the bolts anyway, certainly those kind of little ones, so it's no biggie.

Gave up on the brake caliper, the lengthy bleeding process didn't seem to have worked, so I bagged everything up and will re-visit it if I REALLY need the caliper at the end of the project... Six months in a bag of oil will do it no end of good... Or something. There'll be a new seal kit required anyway.

Had to cheat horribly to get the rear sprocket away from the plastic guard. The Haynes manual did it's usual trick... "Remove the sprocket and housing from the bike and separate them..." No clue as to how this was supposed to be achieved. I guess mine was just rusted together again, like the gearchange shaft on the engine casing. But the housing is plastic! Anyway, as the housing was already damaged in a different carelessness with a hammer accident, I just broke it up and dremelled the last bit off. I was hoping to learn how to do it nicely, for the other two times, but no such luck. I didn't find any retaining mechanism as such, so perhaps it was just rust.

Got the swing-arm off, that was really easy. But I'm having a dilemma about the swing-arm bushes. I'm going to have to remove them if I get the swing arm powder coated, but according to the Haynes manual they're very very difficult to re-fit without presses etc. I do have a friend who has a workshop so he might be able to do that for me when the time comes.

Then I attacked the forks. Hmm, they're going to be a job of work to get out. They've basically rusted in to the clamps. I've completely removed the two pinch bolts, taken off the two bolts at the top & removed the springs & fork oil (all over the floor - I'll explain how later...) but even after soaking in WD40 for an hour or so they still weren't budging. So I've done my usual trick with them, given them a good coating of WD and left them to think about their crimes...

Got the centre stand off, that's a nice piece of engineering with the sleeve cut away on the one side to allow lateral movement on the shaft for removal. Very sweet. Took me a couple of minutes to wiggle it in the right direction but ultimately an easy job.

Got the footrest bar off, again a piece of cake with enough WD40... I'm going to turn into a walking advert for that stuff if I don't watch myself. But it is bloody good stuff. At this point some wise-arse is going to say that there are even better products available, yes, I know. But Halfords don't sell them... And I'm too lazy to go shopping anywhere else, although there is a pretty good car accessory/parts/workshop type shop over in St Albans that I really should pay a visit to, or even one in Hatfield sometime when I go to the Farmer's Market there.

To get the centre stand and footrest bar off I had to turn the frame upside down, fairly obviously. I had earlier tried to take the forks apart, so instead of putting the bolts back in the tops of the forks I decided this would be as good a time as any to get the springs and oil out. I laid a couple of clean rags on the floor & put the springs on them (weeny little springs!) then I put a couple of other rags down where I was planning to put the heads of the forks (there's nothing else left on the headstock you see). Unfortunately I forgot that the oil would start coming out as soon as the forks passed through the horizontal... There's quite a few rags down now soaking up the oil!

I think my rags are going to go through three phases of life - "clean", good for polishing up stuff, wiping hands on, jobs that aren't too oily; "dirty", for mucky jobs like cleaning grease out of bearings so I can see the circlips etc; and "oily rags" for soaking up spills etc. After that they'll only be good to burn I think. Probably quite good for lighting BBQ's so long as we don't try to cook until they're completely gone!

I ran out of time at that point as we wanted to go up to town to arrange our holiday - 2 weeks on Canada's east coast - Halifax & St Johns. Lovely. Added bonus - 2 days in Montreal on the way back. I know nothing about Montreal, didn't they have a winter olympics there a few years back? so that'll be interesting. Justin ended up quite randomly in Halifax and St Johns on a sailing trip with a friend last summer and he thinks I'll like it out there, so I'm really looking forward to this holiday. I've wanted to go to Canada since I was a kid, not really sure why but I've always had a soft spot for the country.

Anyway, that's about it for this entry, sorry it's been so long but I have a hectic life! Catch you all anon