Dunkield

I saw a load of references to Le Mans online and wondered how you got on. Sounded like a decent trip overall

Be interesting to hear what they have to say about it.

For that sort of money you can start looking at Gerber and the like

As I suspected, stick the standard air filter back in it to richen it back up, then get is setup with whichever one you plan to use.

If it is like many older cars and bikes it could well will be a fuel issue, they ethanol **** they sell these days is nothing like what that engine was designed to run on. A friend of mine has this issue with a '74 Midget, apparently it's to do with the calorific value of modern petrol, you may find it runs hotter as well. Swapping the stock filter for a K&N will only make it run leaner, which if anything could make the issue worse. Cheapest/simplest thing even you could do is get a Colurtune in one of the plug holes and see what it looks like, but I would get it someone who knows their old Mercs and get some analysis done on it. Or ... see if you can find a garage that still sells 4*, take a deep breath and fill her up, I run my bike on it and it loves it

To make the racing more exciting and watchable on the track, more power and narrower cars/tyres would be a start, that or no longer including circuits where overtaking is impossible.

Did you actually ride LeJog on that C90 TT? Cubs have become the bike of the moment, so even those are rocketing up in value. Is nothing sacred?

Surely that would depend on how old he is and what licence he has, nothing wrong with easing into it.

I have to agree about the space comment ameteur, if I had the space I would have done another car, so this would never have happened PS somethings never change ? Although these bikes aren't actually worth that much, theft is one of my biggest fears, i won't be going anywhere where it will be left out of sight without my big lock and chain.

I can provide advice based on a first timers good and bad experience. I rebuilt my first car (I had to) when I was 18, and have tinkered with stuff ever since, but have never done a motorcycle, so I just jumped in. It’s not that scary you just need space, time and money. If you look at what superstars like Allen Millyard achieve, it puts doing this sort of stuff into perspective.

Its the single cam chain motor and yes I spent plenty of hours getting the shimming spot on, so I too have a few spare shims now. I glossed over a lot of the rebuild process here as I wasn't sure how interested people would be. So, as bought it fired on 3 cylinders and smoked badly until warm, this was partly worn rings but mostly no gap on one valve until hot. Let me find some more pictures (this is actually good for me as they are all over the place) Hopefully the before and after sequence is obvious The 'jugs' were honed, pistons all cleaned up, new rings, head/cam cover etc vapour blasted and painted satin black. Valves lapped in, valve clearances gapped up properly and then all checked and assembled as per the workshop manual Piston broke, as the sayin' goes after

The TT will not exist in it's current format for many more years to come - it just can't, it's just way to close to the edge. Hopefully neither will F1 - but for entirely the opposite reasons ? MotoGP is literally what it is all about. OK it lacks real depth of field but that is because it is so prohibitively expensive, it needs at least two more factories to get involved IMO We watched the last race on the big screen at the Bike Shed and at times it was edge of seat stuff. This was just the support race Oh and that thing where one vehicle goes past another is called 'overtaking' without that just you have, well you know....

Thank you. In order: Its Z560 B3 1979 - I am always mindful of the fact a clean matching numbers bike has been chopped, but it was already hacked about when I bought it. Rear shocks are TEK - basically Ohlins copies at about 1/10th of the price, but they did they did fully adjustable in the height and rate I wanted, and are nice to deal with. I didn't have room to store (or frankly the budget to buy) a fancy hydraulic bike table, so that was built and flat packed after for a fraction of the cost. Riding it off was the only hairy bit!

From then on it was just case of getting everything cleaned, rebuilt, painted and assembled. Lots of waiting for others to complete work and lots of time shopping online. Didn't take hundreds of pictures in the end, maybe I should have done, this is it 'finished' which apparently is only ever a temporary state. I want some more black on the tank to break up the white but that can wait for now, I need to get out and enjoy it for a while. I only did a top end refresh on the engine, bores honed and new rings but it still needs a little time to settle in, once it has I will get it dyno'd as it the jetting still needs some tweaking.

I got the grinder out, as you do, and removed anything I didn't feel was absolutely necessary, bearings were removed and then the frame went to blasting and painting satin black and build up process began. I don't have a workshop as such to took over the conservatory for a 'short' while. Didn't fancy or need a motorcycle table long term so I made an organic one out of ply. Then it was complete re-wire - probably the worst bit, or certainly my biggest challenge, even though some work had been done by the previous owner I asked about regarding wheel building, and most said 'if you are handy you can do it yourself, just take your time' As I am quite handy I gave it a go, and they were right, they came out just fine.

A couple of times I have eluded to the fact I have working on this project in the background for some time now, 18 months on and off in the end. You know how it goes, you have an idea, see what seems to be right start and it later turns out to be nothing of the sort ? Anyway, short version is, it's all over for now at least as it passed the MOT this week having been off the road in a million bits for some time. This is the 'as bought' picture that got me interested in the first place, I was looking for a Kawasaki two stroke triple but this just caught my eye. Once I started pulling it apart, gently at first, it became more obvious (hence part of the delay) that it needed to be completely stripped and built from the ground up again. So it ended up looking like this

Topical, in the run up to the IOM TT this week ITV4 have been running a series of programs. Look up "Motorsports Mavericks" on catch-up and watch that, that's all you need to do.

The ejector is more of a consumable part than the action, I would look at fitting that to the gun rather than the other way round. It may have to go a smith by the sounds of it

Enjoy it, but as they say don't be tempted by shorts and tee shirt as and when summer arrives "dress for the slide not for the ride" I would try some on in shop rather than online

I was struggling to get an F1 fan to understand the ballast system in Touring Cars. He couldn't seem to get his head round the fact they adjust the odds to make the racing closer and even more spectacular. I agree with most of the comments above, I just don't get how 20 odd cars going round and round a road circuit in complete procession for an hour or has anything to do with racing?

Looks spectacular

Withdraw from The World Cup? yes please Mind you England United will probably only be taking overnight luggage to that one

What was it you were looking to make that you thought needed expensive tools? You can make knives for example with just a vice, or even a Workmate

Yeah I was thinking more of the classic Steve McQueen stylie 400CR

Or even just restoring an interesting bike back to original, Kawasaki two stroke triple or Husqvarna motocross bike would be my start points. I know about space, I built a few cars from the ground up, including a Lotus 7 road/race car, you need at least twice the footprint of the car to do those. I am just finishing a motorcycle cafe racer build that was in the conservatory most of winter Search for 'barn find bikes' on ebay not 'loads more spanners i don't need'