What did you do to your bike today

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 1:25 pm

smurdoch wrote:

Chris, you have a mechanic that will actually work on these old dinosaurs?
Are you still dealing with Terry at Wolfe?

No I'm not, he has left London. The last time I took my bike to Terry,(spring 2020) he let a new younger mechanic work on my bike. It was an absolute mess when I picked it up. I won't go into all the details, but I had to take it back 2 times to get it fixed. Never again.

I'm taking my bike to an ex Wolfe Worx mechanic, Matt Wieckowski that has his own shop now, called https://bigdreammotorcycles.com/

He loves working on old bikes and also does restorations.

Chris

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 5:48 pm

That's disappointing to hear about Wolfe Worx.
I had heard he moved to Blenheim but didn't know the shop was going as well.
Glad you found somebody else you trust. There are so few of them around.

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 7:23 pm

Basmn called me up and wanted to talk about electric cars ..... NOT! Laughing

He suggested we go for ride this week. It's a humid 31C today but what the heck, we rode north into the hinterland. Little traffic so riding was great and the Canadian Shield makes for lots of lakes and swamps which in turn creates super twisting roads. We found most of them freshly paved to boot!
300km's later we split off into our separate directions and are back home in refreshing air conditioning.

Red CB1100F Joined: Jul 19, 2010 Posts: 6422 Location: Ct

Fitter wrote:

Basmn called me up and wanted to talk about electric cars ..... NOT! Laughing

He suggested we go for ride this week. It's a humid 31C today but what the heck, we rode north into the hinterland. Little traffic so riding was great and the Canadian Shield makes for lots of lakes and swamps which in turn creates super twisting roads. We found most of them freshly paved to boot!
300km's later we split off into our separate directions and are back home in refreshing air conditioning.

You guys didn’t call me??!!! Laughing

It’s a great summer so far on this end. Enjoy and ride safe 🇺🇸🇺🇸

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2023 12:23 pm

Well, a few days ago I got auto canceling blinkers working on the bike. I had been putting it off because it's not something I really felt I needed, but there have been a few times where I forgot to turn them off and probably looked pretty stupid driving down the road. I can tell you it's pretty neat. Then the next day I got stuck waiting in traffic and overheated the damn thing, so now I haven't ridden until I get a chance to check everything out and make sure nothing got ruined. Too bad cause I had just changed the oil.

Hawk Joined: Jul 14, 2012 Posts: 420 Location: New Zealand

Decided to revisit the brakes on my 900.
Replaced all rubberwear as a shop nearby make them up and can do stainless.
Stripped calipers and master cylinders as well.
Going to silicone brake fluid the same as the rest of the Hondas so will last .
No more corrosion worries.

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2023 4:16 pm

Went to the VRRA Races in Mosport yesterday and watched the Vintage Road Racing Association competition with Gabe and Basmn.
1st time I saw sidecar racing and I found it quite entertaining.

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2023 7:44 pm

Synched the carbs on my 750/810. They were within spec, but I adjusted 1 and 4 a smidge to get them in spec-er. Made a difference!

Steve

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2023 7:53 pm

Nice pics Tom! I wonder when the last time that 3 beautiful F bikes graced Mosport at the same time??

I haven't been there in years!!!!

Chris

Hawk Joined: May 20, 2006 Posts: 332 Location: england

Managed a few hours ride out over the North Yorkshire Moors, taking advantage of our Indian summer

Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2023 1:46 pm

Nice F

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2026 6:54 pm

I've been working on mine for a few of weeks now, slowly. A few hours in the afternoons, not 8 hour days Very Happy

I've stripped and cleaned all three brake calipers, twin pot calipers all round. New piston seals in, cleaned up all the sliders, new rubber boots on the sliders, fresh red rubber grease in them all too. Fresh DOT4 brake fluid through them. On a push test, both wheels lock up when the lever/pedal are pressed, and they release well too. Road testing is now required.

I bought a pair of new brake discs for the front, from EBC, on a high discount day, quite some time ago. EBC are a British brake manufacturer. When they arrived, they are fully floating discs, so I phoned EBC to check. As you'll know, we have fully floating calipers on our bikes. I'm sure I remember reading that you shouldn't mix floating calipers with floating discs, only one should float. They were very insistent that they'd sent me the right discs for my bike, I even checked their part number against their fitment list. I've got the right discs....
I took my front wheel out, to take it to a tyre shop for a new tyre. An opportune time to fit my new discs, so I did, and had the tyre shop check the torque on them.
Next day, I refitted my front wheel and caliper carrier. Spun the wheel and CLUNK, the floater buttons are catching my caliper carriers by about 1mm, both sides Evil or Very Mad

The air turned blue, caliper carrier off, wheel out, nice new discs off. Scruffy old, worn, discs back in, wheel back in, brakes back in. Spin tested good. Push test on brakes, good.
Nothing more I can do for now.

I've now had my carbs out and squirted carb cleaner everywhere. Everything I can see looks good. So my carbs are now back in.
I didn't like the way my choke cable looked, it looked slightly stretched, so I've tried several re-routes and settled on the one that looks best. What an absolute pain it is to hook up Mad

I'm race marshalling at Knockhill Race Circuit all this weekend, so nothing will get done until Monday at the earliest.
It's the No Limits Endurance Races, including an open class UK Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) set of races. That's going to be 'interesting' to see Shocked

Plan for Monday - Check my carbs, make sure I haven't missed anything, push-pull cables are the right way round etc Wink

Check everything electrical is connected up properly. New plugs in. Fit battery (and have my car n jump leads on standby). Put a gallon of fuel in. Press the button and see what happens 🤞
With any luck, it'll go chug chug chRARRRR! It WILL be loud, there's no muffler on it at the moment. Music, sweeeet music Laughing

Here's a link to a short (5 min) YouTube video of the last Scottish Championship race meeting at Knockhill. This was 3 weeks ago, going the wrong way round.
We do one meeting wrong-way-round per year, because there are only 2 circuits in Scotland suitable for road racing. This makes for a change Very Happy

Knockhill Bike Racing
The other circuit is East Fortune, an airfield circuit, like Silverstone. I marshal at both circuits.
We run Junior Twins (300cc) and 125 2 strokes, Lightweights (300), Pre-Injection 600s, Supersports (600 - 900), CB500 twins (cheap racing, no slicks, no mods), Superbikes and Sidecars.
It's a full, busy weekend.

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2026 7:54 pm

Carbs are now back in, again, and my airbox refitted. I screwed up and didn't fit all the cables to my carbs before reinstalling the carbs Rolling Eyes

, so they had to be uninstalled and turned so I had access Mad

But that's all done now.
I also took everything off my battery box, including its mounting bolts, to try and get a bit more room for getting my carbs out. That was a waste of time, and wasted even more time trying to get it all remounted. Those two rear mounting bolts are a real pain Shocked

but that's also almost all done. Just the other electrical parts and connectors to refit around the regulator/rectifier.

I ran out of time, I had to house sit for my Mum. She was going away for the evening, to audition for another choir, and the fire brigade were coming at some time this evening to fit new, interlinked, smoke alarms. She's 85 and qualifies as a 'vulnerable' person, so it's a service that our Scottish Government pays for. (Well we all pay for it through taxes, but you know what I mean Smile

) Vulnerable? For a small, 85 year old woman, she's pretty formidable tbh Smile

Hopefully I'll have more progress to report on tomorrow.
In fact, hopefully, it'll all be back together and running.

The racing went well too. Apparently No Limits is the class below British Superbikes, which is the class below World Superbikes. This weekend was their first ever visit to Scotland. Knockhill Circuit is a small, tight, technical circuit, 1.57 miles. Most English circuits are much longer I believe. There isn't a flat inch on Knockhill, everywhere is either climbing or dropping away. The only 'rest' is the back straight, which is a gentle curve, into the hairpin. The hairpin leads into the start/finish straight, which is mostly a 'gentle' up hill climb to the line, then the last 1/3rd is a gentle downhill, which leads into Duffus Dip. You enter Duffus blind, it's a sharp right left with a steep drop off between the right and left. We had quite a few riders come join us at the Duffus marshals safety area, no injuries other than grazes, but some rather beaten up bikes. 3 came in to us together, right at the start of 1 race Shocked

The endurance race was 500km/300miles or 240 laps. It was almost 4 hours from start to finish, they were lapping at an average of 56 seconds. That's including rider changeovers, 4 riders in a team, minimum of 3 changeovers. Scottish Championship Superbikes lap at 52 seconds for our usual 8/10/12 lap races, so these endurance riders were not hanging around at all. The gap from 1st to 2nd place was 7 seconds, after 4 hours of racing Surprised

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2026 11:33 pm

Simon_CB900 wrote:

Hopefully I'll have more progress to report on tomorrow.
In fact, hopefully, it'll all be back together and running.

Well, SHE'S UP N RUNNING Cool

I hooked my car up to her with jump leads, just to have plenty of juice on tap.
Churned her over, gave her some choke, that made things worse, choke off, still churning over, 1 & 2 chimed in, then 3 & 4 very soon after.
I left her at a fast tickover for 5 - 10 minutes or so, while I tidied everything away, because it was getting late.
Shut her off for a few minutes while I moved my car out of the way. Pressed the button and she fired straight up. So rode her down the parking area, U-turned and rode her into my garage.

She's secured for the night.

Tomorrow and the weekend, there's some minor work to finish off
And a Major cleaning n polishing to do, but other than that, she's good to go Very Happy

Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 8:00 pm

Don't have much to show for today, but achieved a fair bit.
Yesterday when I fired her up, I had a strange electrical fault. No indicators, but one sides indicators lit up when I hit the brakes.
Obviously a crossed wire somewhere. So I took my Haynes up to the garage, checked and hooked all the wires up the right way round.
Still no indicators, but my horn works now, brake and tail lights come on when they should AND go off when they should, that's a result Very Happy

I think my indicator switch has failed, time to spend money on new switches I suspect Crying or Very sad

I also did some bike cleaning, mainly wiping the left side frame with an oily rag and other bits where an oily rag will help. It's looking pretty good Smile

I did the same on the right side last week Very Happy

Plan for tomorrow:-

I might not torture my neighbours quite so much, and fit that pipe first Laughing

List of parts needed has just got longer and much more expensive Crying or Very sad

List of parts wanted has just become shorter, but still a LOT of money. I'll have to go eBay hunting I think.
Tail light unit (the previous owner chopped the wires off very short). It works, but it's a huge pain to work with.
Headlight, the whole thing. Any modern(ish) headlight will do. Mine, it turns out, is off a Yammy SR500. It won't even take a halogen H4 bulb. 2 candle power Crying or Very sad

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 8:15 pm

Simon_CB900 wrote:

Plan for tomorrow:-

I might not torture my neighbours quite so much, and fit that pipe first Laughing

Today didn't quite go to plan Sad

As I was getting everything lined up to fit my new pipe, I realised the bag of springs were not in the box Surprised

That means they're in the house somewhere, although I have got a rough idea where. Unfortunately, my 'rough idea where', is, in the spare bedroom.
The spare bedroom is now a box room, and it's almost full of stuff, mainly in boxes. It's going to be a full day of searching Embarassed

I did bring my bike down to the house and gave her a good wash, but it started raining so the polishing was put on hold.
My neighbour did receive the full beautiful sound of an air cooled, 4 cylinder 900, without a muffler Surprised

I kept the revs down, 3 - 4000 max, so she wasn't on full song Very Happy

And she does look much better with all the crud washed off Smile