Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i Classic Motorcycle Mechanics

cmm Tested SEALEY DB04 DEBURRING TOOL Riding kit worn, tools twirled & tyres turned We’ve all been there – a bolt or screw that’s too long; easy enough to hacksaw the excess off but then its file time to regain a lead-in on the cut thread. If you have lot of fixings to sort out this can very be tedious…or not if you have one of these deburring tools to hand. Fit the DB04 into a drill, secure the fixing and then chamfer the rough sawn end in seconds. Unlike cheap versions, this one is happy to sort out stainless steel with ease and will even take on hardened steels. Used one and you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it… it really is that good! Steve Cooper www.sealey.co.uk…

cmm News 60th SUCCESS AT SAMMY’S! The Honda Owners Club enjoyed a fantastic 60th Anniversary celebration at the Sammy Miller Museum at the end of June. CMM’s own Allen Millyard joined the HOC crew for a great event. Honda UK were also present, supplying the show with a current CRF1100L Africa Twin, a current CBR1000RR Fireblade and a heritage 1992 CBR900RR Blade. The overnight rain persisted into the morning before easing off and the HOC crew had a busy morning setting everything up to ensure a great day ahead. Sammy and Allen treated the HOC to a cacophony of marvellous motorcycles when they started up their RC181 and RC374 replica; both then took a lap of the car park! There were prizes up for grabs in the bike show with…

FEEDBACK Post to Mechanics, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ or email your pictures to editorial@classicmechanics.com WIN BRIDGESTONE KIT Every month, we’re giving away a Bridgestone Oxford Products Oximiser 3X to the winner of our Star Letter! No cash alternatives, before you ask! Simply get in touch by sending emails to: letters@classicmechanics.com or direct to the editor at BSimmonds@Mortons.co.uk or post your letters to the normal address, giving contact details in case you’re the lucky winner. No Harleys! Harleys you say? You’ve just lost a subscriber. Has your marketing department decided to seek the Surrey stockbroker shilling? Mind you, as you seem to be going for more of Ralph Ferrand’s views about ‘the right-on liberal dogooders’, it’s just as well I won’t be reading it any more. Winding up…

CMM BIKE OF THE YEAR READER’S SPECIAL Release ‘valve! Having made a pound or two from a few standard Elsie/Valve restorations, Greg Skett decided to treat himself to a very special special… WORDS AND PICS: DAVE MANNING Given the value that many classics are now realising as stock machines, it’s little wonder that so many Yamaha Elsies and Powervalves are restored as standard, yet back in the day you’d be hard pressed to ever see one that had remained as it rolled out of the Yamaha factory… Even those folk who had owned a modified bike back in the 1980s – who have since regained an interest in owning those self-same models – tend to gravitate towards keeping them as the factory intended, essentially just because that’s how they retain…

“This one is mine!” Malcolm Macaskill “I’ve had Honda Blackbirds since they first launched in 1996/97. As a taller, more robust fella they always felt like a perfect fit to me. I got a new one every two years until they stopped making them in 2006. I hoped that Honda would one day release a new Blackbird but that never happened so I went over to the dark side and bought a Hayabusa; it was never the same… “When the V&M Blackbird was launched in 1999 I drooled over it but it was too big a financial commitment for me at that time and I always regretted not buying one. Later, with only 22 being made from the proposed 50, it made the search all the more difficult. Later I…

cmm Tool of the month special with BIKER’S TOOLBOX Tough Torque! Ralph Ferrand works with tools all day long – he sells them too at bikerstoolbox.co.uk so he knows what works. I was recently doing some business with a company in County Durham who calibrate torque wrenches for a living. As a massive advocate of the use of the venerable torque wrench, it suddenly occurred to me that I had not had my faithful (and bloody expensive) Snap-on torque wrench calibrated, for not only a long time, but if I’m honest, ever! After 30 years I thought that it probably was time to have this splendid tool’s accuracy rubber stamped so I could carry on tightening down cylinder heads and the like to perfect settings, safe in the knowledge that…

THE TWIN BEATING HEARTS The bike that made the GPz1100 obsolete was the GPZ900R and a totally different beast to its late uncle. The 900 ran a plain bearing crank not too dissimilar in design to the original superbike – Honda’s CB750/4. Plain or shell bearing motorcycle cranks follow standard automotive practices utilising split con-rods and replaceable white metal-based bearings or shells in the big-ends. These require clean oil supplied at high pressure. The GPz1100 crank followed Z1/Z900 standard procedure with a pressed-up crank running on roller bearings with a much lower oil pressure. The roller bearing crank makes for an extremely robust bottom-end that’s capable of taking heavy loads and can cope with drastic tuning and/or over bores; it’s also much more forgiving of dirty oil. The downside of…

cmm Pip Higham Tuner, engineer, rider Revvin’ up the HR194… Hmm, strange times. Recently I’ve been inclined, like most of you out there I’m guessing, to buy stuff on that internet. No real bother, I’ve even sold a couple of brother Bill’s flock, sight unseen (apart from a few digital pictures of course) to nice blokes up and down the parish. In a moment of madness I even bought a 56-year-old scoot from Alan in, oh, somewhere ‘darn sarf’, I forget where. I felt like I’d missed out, because although we spoke on the phone, I didn’t get a chance to clock his tribe (tribe: collection of disparate scoots, there’s always a collection) and I miss that. So when the restrictions started to ease a touch I was excited to…

Archive John Wyatt: an appreciation WORDS: STEVE COOPER PICS: JOE DICK, MORTONS ARCHIVE Sad news for the classic Japanese world – John Wyatt of Rising Sun Restorations passed away on Tuesday, 22 June whilst awaiting heart surgery. For anyone that needed advice on Oriental machinery John was a veritable font of knowledge and was both kind and generous when it came to sharing his expertise. His work was always top class and easily at ‘restorers’ reference’ level which, sometimes, accounted for delays in some customers’ commissions. If you visited his workshop there were generally numerous machines and engines in various stages of rebuild ready to be progressed as and when the correct components turned up. When we visited him back in 2012 John went to some lengths to explain he…

DEOX-C RUST REMOVER When the inevitable happens and that old ‘Fixer-Upper’ you start to work on reveals a rusty, scabby interior to the tank, there are a few choices to address the manky residue. Deox-C is one such contender. I gave it a try first on my B120 that had lain dormant for quite a while in a damp outhouse. As expected the inside of the tank resembled the tools found at the back of an old garage. I used a third of the one-litre pack on the 120; the process is simple. Make a bung for the fuel tap hole, either wood or plastic, put a kettleful of hot water in the tank, now add the Deox, gently agitate, now more hot water (the process works lots better with…

SALON PRIVE! Salon Privé will be welcoming some beautiful motorcycles to the fabulous surroundings of Blenheim Palace when it returns the first week of September. Whether in the Concours d’Elégance or elsewhere on the South Lawn, it will be a showcase for the finest two-wheeled machinery from past and present. A new addition for 2021 is the introduction of a motorcycle parade to open the event on the mornings of Wednesday, 1 September and Thursday, 2 September. Entrants will start outside the show field, then parade through the grounds of Blenheim Palace and into place on the South Lawn. There will also be the opportunity for Motorcycle entrants to take part in Tour Privé for the first time, on Tuesday, 31 August. The 100-mile route will depart the Great Court…

ROYAL APPOINTMENTS! It seems plenty of people are looking at Royal Enfield’s range for retro giggles if June’s motorcycle registrations are anything to go by… The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 sold 178 units, making it the highest-selling ‘Modern Classic’, while in the ‘custom’ class the new RE Meteor 350 sold 110 units. Interestingly, for June 2021 alone, Royal Enfield sold 508 bikes, pushing the mighty Suzuki into last place with just 445 sold… We will be reviewing the little Meteor next issue: www.royalenfield.com See next issue!…

Show us yours We want to see YOUR pride andjoy in our pages, so youcan share what you ride and restore with fellow readers. Email your hi-res shots to bsimmonds@mortons.co.uk or mail in some photos to the address at the front of the mag. Let us know what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and send before and after shots if you can. Do get in touch. Bertie. We’ve teamed up with SDoc100 which manufactures some of the best bike cleaning kit in the business! So, send in your pictures of your bikes and you could win an SDoc100 Chain Care Kit worth £50, which includes their new White Chain Spray 2.0 that offers four times more wear protection for chains and sprockets than the competition. Find out more…

CLUB FOCUS PAINT THE TOWN RED! At the back end of the 1990s, Honda celebrated their 50th anniversary, and Honda UK capitalised on this, by making a few limitededition models. One man, Danny Brown, wanted to get a few together… WORDS: BERTIE SIMMONDS PICS: GARY D CHAPMAN As locations go for a meeting of some very limited-edition (and pricey) Honda machinery, perhaps the coach park ofYork’s Designer Outlet off the A19 isn’t the most glamorous… But then if any machines are going to glam-up a coach park, it would be these special-edition bikes (along with a couple of classy interlopers). So what are they? Well, back in 1998 Honda was about to celebrate its 50th Anniversary and, to help make it special, some of its popular models were breathed on…

CLASSIC RIDE SEXIER SIX! Many mocked the CBR600F as a bit bland back in the 1990s, but this is still one very potent machine; more so when it’s Honda’s limited-edition 50th Anniversary model… WORDS: BERTIE SIMMONDS PICS: GARY D CHAPMAN Whenever you ride a CBR600F, and whatever model, it’s always plenty fast enough, exciting enough and yet also easy enough to ride. Many of us in the 1980s and 1990s would cut our post-test teeth on a CBR because, well, it’s a Honda CBR. This often meant that it was sensible, it was comfortable and it was reliable when other machines like Yamaha’s FZR/R6, or Kawasaki’s ZZ-R/ZX-6R Ninja or Suzuki’s GSX-R had (dare I say it) a dollop more character, more ponies hidden under the bodywork, were faster/sportier, or just…

WORK SHOP cmm Q&A Our very own wizened sages, Messrs Mark Haycock and Steve Cooper, are here to answer all of your woes, be they mechanical or spiritual. Every month we will be giving advice, as well as some general tips. Don’t forget to send in your own tips too. Sponsored by FEELING LET DOWN! Q: I recently had the back tyre go down on the motorway. Luckily it was ‘slow enough’ not to cause a serious incident. Years ago, I carried an aerosol that was advertised to re-inflate a flat tyre, in case of emergency. However, there were many stories of how this type of product ruined the tyre. I was fortunate never to have had to use it back then, but my recent experience has made me wonder…

BACK ISSUES Whether it's recent releases or vintage copies, step back in time and browse through the ages with the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics back issue collection. £4.95 EACH (inc P&p) For EU and Row, please see www.classicmagazines.co.uk/backcmm DECEMBER 2020 • Triumph revival • Real riding tips • Yamaha's YR JANUARY 2021 • Suzuki two-strokes • Kawasaki six appeal • BMW R80 FEBRUARY 2021 • Big bore blade • Suzuki 1 lOOL • Laverda Triple MARCH 2021 • 1970s triple treats • Stavros' first love • BMW Kl APRIL 2021 • Bimota V Due • Cool Ducati twin • Suzuki Hayabusa MAY 2021 • Sixes of the best • Svelte Yamaha LS2 • Kawasaki 2750 JUNE 2021 • Allen Millyard • EU Beauties • Bike of the Year JULY 2021 •…

SCOOPERMAN! The sunny side of the classic world, with the VJMC’s Steve Cooper There is now absolutely no doubt that the classic Japanese bike world has gone nuclear in terms of prices and costs. Do you remember when we all scoffed at the mythical six grand Fizzy? Well, hold on to you hats ladies and gents because the £12,000 example has just entered the arena! Mock, sneer, ridicule and pooh-pooh all you like but that was the asking price of one was being touted around in early spring. Whether it sold for 12 big ones is almost irrelevant because such apparent wishful thinking inexorably drags the rest of the market along with it. It only takes just one misty-eyed 60-something to throw, say, nine grand at an early SS model…

PRE-ORDER YOUR CMM! In these difficult times, it’s often the case that people of our age may not be outside, shopping or buying our favourite magazines so we’ve got just the thing for you: pre-order. Simply scan the fuzzy square thing with your smart phone c’mon, we’ve all got one) and off you pop! Alternatively, if you like what you see coming up in the June issue (see page 105 for more) then go to: www.classicmagazines.co.uk/issue/preorder where you can pre-order all of Mortons’ wonderful magazines. Even ones about trains, cars or towpaths……

cmm Allen Millyard Award-winning motorcycle engineer! Pan Problems and repairs I often tell people how reliable my 1991 Honda ST1100 is and that it’s never let me down in the last 22 years and 99,000 miles. This was true up to now. I generally keep up the required servicing and maintenance, but it’s a workhorse and used quite hard every day, in all weathers, usually loaded up with parts and even whole engines. I was riding the bike the other day when I noticed a slight loss of power, just briefly, then it was all normal for a few more miles until it happened again. I was then starting to think what the problem could be and possible road-side repairs that I could carry out with tools I keep on…

Next month IN YOUR MILDLY RESTORED CMM! WIN! Weise Stealth Hoodie, Bridgestone goodies, S-DOC chain care goodies, Tamiya kits and a Venhill voucher! MOPED MAYHEM: Alan Dowds and Dave Smith ride Yamaha’s FS1-E and Suzuki’s AP50! SUZUKI RG400: Andy Bolas rides a Barry Sheene Special! WORKSHOP HOW TO: Fabricate a bracket! When carbs go wrong! And much more – if we can fit it all in! BRIDGESTONE/CMM BIKE OF THE YEAR: Another one of YOUR restos/specials in the spotlight! PROJECT BIKES: We will be showcasing some of the following (space allowing): Mark Haycock’s Yamaha TX750 or Honda CB450, Steve Cooper’s Yamaha C3SC and Suzuki Apache, Jeff Ware’s Suzuki RM80X and Suzuki RG250 HB replica, Ralph Ferrand with his Project Zed and maybe his Yamaha YZF-R6, Malc Shaw’s Suzuki TR750 and…