Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Classic Motorcycle Mechanics

It’s almost like we planned it… Ducati Darmah – named after a Tiger – and Triumph’s Tiger which is, well, a tiger… I’d chosen these two tests to be in this issue before I’d even heard of the fact that ‘Darmah’ was the name of a tiger in some Italian children’s books. But hey, I’ll take it, so please consider this a ‘tiger’-themed issue from me which was clearly and cleverly planned. Ahem… Talking of Triumphs, it’s been an up-and-down month for me: I’ve sold Doris. Doris is the 2002 Triumph Speed Triple my mate Cliff sold me a couple of years back. I always told him I liked her (and I love Speed Triples in general) so he gave me first refusal. But the recent need for space and…

WEISE AXEL TEXTILE JACKET When I first handled this jacket I was taken aback by its weight and thickness. It was certainly heavier than I had first imagined, but then it did come complete with elbow and shoulder armour and a back protector. Also, I’d ordered in my normal size but this did feel tight – but I guess any motorcycle jacket should feel that way and not ‘move’ should you hit the Tarmac. Constructed of a 600D polyester softshell outer with a fixed waterproof breathable membrane, the Axel is CE Approved AA, and comes complete with CE Level 1 back armour, and CE Level 2 shoulder and elbow armour. The jacket features a fleece-lined removable hood, reflective detailing and has a ribbed cuff and hem. Inside are: a Velcro…

Royal Enfield’s charming Meteor 350 is now available on a 0 per cent APR PCP deal. If you stumped up the 20 per cent deposit, you could have one of these retro machines for just £45.99 a month, based on the full asking price. The deal – which was launched in February – rolls on until March 31. With prices for the 350cc single-cylinder bike starting at around £4000, there really is no excuse not to get a new bike in your garage if you’ve fancied one of these pretty machines. Go to: www.royalenfield.com for more.…

If you want to buy a modern Yamaha YZF-R1 for the road, you’d best be quick… In a move similar to that of Suzuki and their sporting GSX-R1000R, which was discontinued at the end of 2022, Yamaha are doing the same with the R1 and R1M road machines. The YZF-R1 was first launched in 1998. Today, it seems that there just isn’t any point in developing a newer version to match to modern emissions. A Yamaha UK statement noted: ‘Yamaha Motor Group have taken the decision not to develop an EU5+ version of the R1 or R1M, instead focussing on other product strategies that will provide future opportunities.’ You should still be able to get the bike (cut-off for non-Euro5 compliant bikes is 2025) and if you race of course,…

Twenty or more years ago, the shrewd amongst us would often eschew the likes of sports-bikes or even sports-tourers for doing distance work and instead we used to enjoy going places on ‘big trailies’. Big trailies looked like the bikes that took part in the Paris-Dakar rally back in the day. So, they were big, tall bikes with long travel suspension but not light like dirt bikes were. They were often big and heavy and sometimes a little underpowered. They often had panniers on them, like a tourer did – or we would use throw-over soft panniers or tank bags. This made them practical and while not the quickest things on the road they were good for doing long distances on. Basically, the things that made their race brethren good…

As many of us do, I happen to have a garage full of bikes. I'm very proud to say most of them work, but there’s always that one, isn't there? If you’re lucky it’s under a bike cover, but it may be under an old bed sheet or even covered with lots of other stuff. You can’t just pump up the tyres and put petrol in the tank. It’s sat there because it may have very sentimental value or you promised yourself you’d get it working. One day. The bike in my garage like this is a 1991 Kawasaki KR1-S. I've owned this bike for a number of years and in that time it’s probably been fully roadworthy for about a year. My other half jokes she only ever saw…

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Giacomo Agostini’s critics (why he should have any is beyond us) would always complain that a number of his titles were against little in the way of opposition. Sure, he was often on the dominant MV Agusta machines in both 500 and 350cc classes, but you can only beat the racers and machines that are there. Fifty years ago he made a brave move, from the Italian four-stroke race machines at MV Agusta to the new two-stroke 500cc machines from Yamaha – it was (eventually) to prove to be a successful one. But why make the move? Well, in 1973 Ago gave MV another 350cc world title but lost out to teammate Phil Read in the 500cc class, who was armed with the newer four-cylinder four-stroke which outgunned Ago’s three-cylinder.…

Legendary TT hero and bike shop owner Phillip McCallen is set to feature as a guest at the Stafford show this April… along with racing icon and TV presenter Guy Martin. Following the announcement of Martin as a special guest on the Sunday of the two-day International Classic MotorCycle Show (see page 24 for more), McCallen has been confirmed as Saturday’s guest. The former road racer boasts an impressive track record that includes 11 TT race victories with a then-record four in one week alongside victories at the North West 200 and Ulster GP. The show, which takes place at Stafford County Showground on April 20-21, has become famous for being THE place to see thousands of fabulous bikes, hundreds of trade and club stands, plus the vast auto-jumble. Billed…

There’s no point in trying to conduct a normal, structured interview with Guy Martin; his brain just doesn’t work that way. Renowned for his riding and engineering abilities, the Lincolnshire man has also thrilled millions with his TV shows and world record attempts, but sticking to a script is not his way. Any conversation with Guy tends to veer off on tangents, but they’re always tangents worth listening to, and he always comes back to where he started. So, let’s get a brew on, mention a couple of subjects, then sit back and enjoy the ride. “Classic British bikes were where it all first started for me,” Guy says as he settles down with his first mug of tea and his three dogs clambering all over him. “The first race…

We think it’s time, we really do. Kawasaki, do the decent thing and build a four-cylinder retro recreation of the sweet and sublime Z650: pretty please? We know that their current model, the Z650RS, is a fine machine – we tested it back in the December 2022 issue. We’ve even championed it when people have complained that it’s ‘only’ a parallel twin. After all, the power from the 650 twin is about the same as the four-cylinder original from way back when. Gyoichi ‘Ben’ Inamura was behind the Z650 design – as he was on the original Z1. The original aim was to make a ‘650cc motorcycle with 750cc performance’. They did just that. The classic Z styling cues were there – teardrop fuel tank, duck-tail rear end – and…

What do they say, if you’re digging yourself into a hole? ‘Oh that’s it: STOP!’ However, there’s also: ‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish.’ I knew by now financially (in profit terms) there was not going to be anything in it, probably a loss, but what do you do? Cut corners in the hope of clawing something back? But that’s not me and having been victim to it, not something I wanted to perpetuate. Is it bad fiscal management? I think again not, but I do have too many ideas and get carried away! One evening over a pint in the local pub I was chatting to a friend who is an artist; she builds amazing lighting fixtures having commissions, etc., from the USA. It was something around getting a bit…

*and FB Marketplace, and Gumtree, and anywhere else we spot something we like… Yamaha DT125MX Asking: £525 Oh, I do like a nice DT-MX, and this one – spotted on Marketplace in France – has the air of not having been buggered about with too much, and looks a great candidate for an easy resto. It’s a runner according to the seller. It’s hard to tell without getting up close whether an MX is a 125 or 175 – the tiddler was just a small bore version of the bigger engine and the running gear is the same for both. I’m betting it’s a 125cc 2A8 version though – something like 40,000 of them were sold in France in this guise, with the round tubular swingarm (later models had a square…

There isn’t a great deal of point in me listing the bits I bolted on and what spanner I used; you all know exactly how to do that, but there are always tweaks and wrinkles to test the patience! One such was the pesky left-hand exhaust silencer/muffler, whatever. When I bought the Laredo I had unfortunately not been attentive enough to clock the nasty front bend, it was a right mess. I’d found the only other one in existence on eBay and after brief palpitations I’d hit the button. The big box arrived a few days later and at first glance it looked pretty good apart from a bit of surface grot. However, with the front flange nipped up, the rear fixing was miles away; my heart sank a little.…

Since first seeing images of a Ducati 750GT in 1973 I’ve loved the look of the early big twins from Bologna. Some years later I was standing outside Coburn & Hughes’ Luton motorcycle emporium in Crawley Road debating whether to part exchange my RD350 for a genuine 750SS. In silver and pale turquoise, the once hugely vaunted sports bike had rapidly become yesterday’s news. It wasn’t exactly cheap but I reckoned I might just possibly have been able to make the necessary payments on HP finance. Truth be told, the silver-tongued salesman had originally tried to get me hooked on a low-mileage 860GT or its makeover 860GTS cousin but, quite frankly, I simply didn’t get the new square-case motor or the odd styling. There was talk of a transformed so-called…

Suzuki’s biggest TS is gradually getting there as I work my way through the list of tasks. Unfortunately the inventory doesn’t seem to be decreasing pro rata; for every two jobs I complete I seem to find another one or The Gods of Restoration throw me a curved ball just to see if I’m still paying attention. A perfect case in point is the aftermarket speedo cable which fitted the gauge end impeccably but had the wrong end fitting for the hub. I was not best pleased as the description and year matched that of the TS250 item which shares the cable with its bigger brother. Thankfully cable number two fitted correctly. And then of course there’s the misremembered parts location game where you are 100 per cent confident you…

At the risk of going out on a limb here, we’d cautiously suggest the earlier Suzuki GT550s are very possibly some of the best half-litre stroker triples to have ever come out of Japan. Not wishing to raise the ire of Kawasaki H1 owners here we’d further add that, for the period at least, the Hamamatsu bike has better road manners as well. Yes, agreed, the GT550 was never a Tarmac-rippling missile but it had been designed and built to an entirely different criteria. The firm’s ethos had been to offer a range of bikes that presented a two-stroke equivalent to Honda’s range. The concept had begun with the range-topping 750 and percolated across the middleweight bracket as well. The ‘GT’ appellation was bang on the money for the triples…

Last time out (November 2023 issue) I was in a bit of a fix: testing at Cadwell Park and the bike suddenly died. With coolant and oil around the engine I was hoping for a ‘simple’ head gasket failure but taking the bike apart, the rattling sound from the air-box said otherwise. Pieces of valve and piston dropped out! I’d sold one of the three Speed Triples that made up the good race bike and the black bike; I still had made too much power for the race regs but then I remembered that I had another bike stashed in the garage: a 955i Daytona café racer project. I’d bought it cheap some years back and it hadn’t run in a while. It didn’t need much coaxing to fire up…

I previously mentioned in part 5 that I was fitting a CB900 oil cooler. The easiest way to do this is get all the parts needed (oil pump, sump casting, hoses, fittings and the cooler matrix) from a CB900 and bolt them on. I thought having 40-year-old hoses wasn’t a good idea and all this depended on what parts were out there anyway. In the CB750.com forum pages were details of how this could be done, so I started looking for the parts. Straight off the mark and I found a cooler matrix and oil-pump fairly local (the CB900 pump has an extra chamber to pump oil through the cooler, see Photo 1), so I bought them. A sump wasn’t so forthcoming though, but a look at photos and drawings…