A quick quickie

Aaaah, that's the stuff. The stars have aligned themselves advantageously, and the bike feels the strongest it's been yet. To recap, we're currently on:

Halfords 10W 40 semi synthetic oil.
Activ-8 friction reducer.
K&N cone air filter
95 main jet (down from 100)
Needle in centre position (down from 2 up and 1 up)
Idle screw about 2 turns out
DPR8EA-9 plug with the earth electrode cut back.
97 octane fuel
Stock CDI
Aftermarket coil.

There we go. I did file the electrode back a little more, and it doesn't seem to have harmed it (yet). Now the bike is happy all the way through the rev range, pulls away strong, revs smoothly right up to 10,500 and the plug is staying clean. It's perhaps a little too clean, and I may go back to a 100 jet or raise the needle, but for my current short commutes it's probably good enough.

Today's purchase was 5 Metrics of Halford's 5W 40 fully synthetic oil. I had a look at Castrol Power 1 GPS 4T 10W-40, but it's 4 Metrics for the same price and only semi-synthetic. I want to give filthy Nature a body-swerve on the next oil change to see if I can reduce the clutch drag a little.

I'm modest to a fault
I feel that it's my duty to mention again how much positive attention this cheap little hack gets from other bikers. A Honda CB750 pilot - a proper classic bike, so obviously a discerning chap - collared me at the shops to enquire about it. Apparently it's a "really tidy little bike", a epithet with which I can only concur.

Poor bike. Poor, poor bike. When will the madness end?

More entries in the Catalogue of Foot Shooting.

Bondage
The rear of the leather panniers on the bike would rub against the wheel given their druthers, so I made up an aluminium bracket to hold them away from it. It's a W shape, attached to what were the rear seat/luggage rack mounting points, with the centre of the W being an arch over the wheel. When I first made it, the arch was right up under the rear mudguard, giving plenty of clearance. However, after putting the custom seat on, the panniers are now slung directly on the rear mudguard, and are sitting lower down (which is generally a Good Thing). I had to extend the left and right corners of the W down, which meant "stealing" some length from the supporting arch. I thought it was still comfortably high enough...

You can probably guess the rest. Spotting a big ditch in the road, I stood up to smooth the ride. With the rear unloaded, the wheel jumped up, caught the centre of the aluminium bracket, and dragged it around - I mean, it actually pulled it into a U shape, until the bracket ended up wrapped around the front of the wheel.

Screeeeech, went the wheel as it locked up hard. I'm happy to report that I held it up, even got the clutch in and kept the engine running.

There was a little cosmetic damage to the ring over the sprocket, but the bike seems to have survived the incident just fine. I've kept and sorted the bracket - the panniers need something to hold them apart - but now the arch is running behind the wheel rather than over it. All seems OK so far, but it's something else to keep an eye on though.

Smut
The bike has been bogging down at idle, and every time I've pulled the plug (DPR9EIX-9) it's been sooted up badly. I changed the 100 jet (stock was 90) down to a 95, and leaned the idle out, but to no avail. Suspecting that the D*9* was running too cool (it transfers heat to the engine faster than a D*8*), I rustled up a spare non Iridium plug that I happened to have lying around, a DPR8EA-9. Something I've been meaning to try on a plug is cutting the earth electrode back so that the spark jumps diagonally. The idea is that this exposes the spark more fully to the fuel-air mixture and allows better combustion, rather than having to flow around the electrode. The effect - if any - is probably minimal, but this is a Project Bike, so here goes:



It's rather conservative; there's still some overlap of the electrodes. I think I'll trim it back a little more - you know, until it stops working. Note that the gap between the terminals should still be 0.6 - 0.7mm, just diagonally rather than flat.

Verdict: well, it works. I won't say that it works any better, but the bike started and ran just fine up to 10,000rpm, so if you fancy a fiddle, I'd say go for it. It'll give you something to bore the missus with, if nothing else. Update: my missus just read this entry, so Mission Accomplished.

Slipped disc
After my ride to test the trimmed plug, I pulled it and it was already sooty as a chimney sweep's nostril. Something's not right here, thinks I. I'd already moved the needle back from raised one slot to the centre slot, but pulled the slide to lower it again.

Ah hah! When I disassembled it, I found that the spring clip that should sit on top of the needle circlip and hold it down had found its way underneath the circlip - in other words, the needle was sitting way too high, and there was actually nothing holding it down except for the wafer-thin grasp of gravity. That explains the sooting, although the mystery of why I can't leave well enough alone remains unsolved.

This spring clip is really fiddly to fit, but I took my time with it and got it solidly in place, with the needle left in its stock centre position. Tomorrow will tell whether I've managed to "improve" the bike all the way back to its out-of-the-box performance. It could happen!

How low can you go?

How's that looking? Speak up? "Super Pimp", you say? Well, if you insist.

That's a custom seat made from a piece of spare floorboard, some upholstery foam, and cheap (but surprisingly nice) brown vinyl, courtesy of eBay again. It slots into the retaining groove at the front, and has two bolts and wing nuts holding it down at the back. It'll need a bit of re-jigging, but is basically sound, if not quite as supportive as the original. I may put another layer of foam in, as it's only medium density.

In other news, the bike was bogging down at idle and low revs. Pulling the plug after a period of idle revealed it to be blacker than a parking warden's heart, which I've attempted to sort by leaning out the idle mixture substantially. I'd forgotten that I'd been creeping it richer and richer during the Lang Way Roond to try and keep the engine cool (through evaporative cooling) but had taken a good thing too far. Now I'm running it really lean for a bit to see if I can find a happy medium. I suspect that I should be using the choke for a minute or so in the morning, rather than running it so rich that it doesn't need any choke while cold. Further bulletins as events warrant.

And in a further bout of en-tweakening, I've replaced the aftermarket "POSH" branded CDI with the stock one. The bike is very slightly less eager between 5000-7000 rpm, but runs smoother above 8500rpm, where the POSH was missing, allowing a higher push in 4th gear before the shift to 5th. I think the POSH was staying too advanced at high rpm, lowering the top speed. Xian now do a "Kamizake" CDI which they've developed themselves with testing from Forchetto from the Chinese Bike Forum. I may give that a try to see if it gives the best of both worlds.

Oops, I did it again

I whipped the seat off today, and the (probable) cause of the weird missing problem was immediately obvious. I've fitted an aftermarket POSH CDI, which is larger than the stock CDI and consequently needs a custom securing solution. I'd just wired it in place to the frame at the front of the seat area with the connector (actually a plug converter) supported on top of the mount that the old air box had attached to. So when I put weight on the front of the seat, it pushed the CDI down and strained the connector. D'oh.

That seems to match the symptoms that I'd been experiencing, and a quick re-positioning of the CDI seems to have sorted it, although I'll need to do another long run to confirm that. While I was fiddling, I adjusted and lubed the chain (it was seriously slack after the Truncated Way Roond), nudged the pre-load on the rear shocks up one notch and put the carb needle back to the middle position, since the bike had a thirst on it on the last leg home.

So yet again I've self-inflicted a problem on the bike. If I'd just leave it alone, it'd be fine. But where's the fun in that?

WIN!

(partial)



This is a £720 (+ pimping) Chinese bike half way up the 20% gradient Applecross pass, shortly before tailgating a Jeep up the rest of the way.

The Issues that dogged day #3 seem to be in hand, and minor. Here's the story.

I dropped the bike on day #3 (while dismounting, obviously) and later that day, it started missing pretty badly when it was hot and under throttle. It also had real problems pulling away from a stop, backfiring and dying in 1st gear unless I thorougly thrashed it (like, 7000rpm) and let the clutch out verrrrry slowly.

Fix attempt #1 was to pop the rocker cover and check the tappet clearances, which seemed fine (i.e. there were some, but I didn't bring feeler gauges). I loosened both tappets another 1/2 turn to be sure, and checked that there was an audible buzz.

The bike was just fine when cold, and started off strongly. However, when it had heated up, the problem came back in spades, and I this time I noticed that it was missing noticeably whenever it hit a bump in the road. Very curious. I suspected fuel issues because of that.

Fix attempt #2 was to strip the carb, check that fuel was getting to it, that the floats were free and the jets weren't blocked. While I had it apart, I richened the idle mixture a little more, and raised the needle one notch - I'd previously put it back to the centre position. All seemed fine, so again we carried on.

Oh dear. The bike hopped and staggered its way on to the remote village of Kinlochewe, where I charmed the natives into revealing that there was a Man Who Fixes Motors round the back of his (unsigned) farmhouse just up the road. After another cooldown, I thrashed the bike to within 200 yards of said house, when it just up and died. It was then a push-job to get it to the surprisingly well equipped little garage, where the spanner monkey highly skilled professional initially said "I don't do bikes" until I engaged his interest by assuring him that it was really primitive and old skool, and going through the things that I'd tried.

We had a good fifteen minutes of prodding and poking, with the bike (again) starting and running absolutely fine while cold, and refusing to misbehave. Eventually, the Man Who Fixes Motors noticed that the spade connectors on both the coil and rectifier were loose, and crimped them up. Off I went for a quick test run, expecting the bike to die any second, which it absolutely... didn't.

RESULT!

So just crimping the connectors seems to have sorted the missing problem, at least while running, and at least when I'm sitting towards the back of the seat. Yes, it's that weird. When I shift my weight to the front of the seat, the bike stumbles. You know what I'm thinking? The accursed side stand cutout switch, which I'd "cleverly" relocated under the seat...

Unfortunately, my confidence had taken a knock, so we bailed on our John O'Groats aspirations and headed back for civilisation, in the form of Inverness. You can tell that it's civilised because there's nowhere to park. We made it there, and slightly past, to Fort Augustus on day #3, then pushed the other 150 miles home on day #4.

There's not a lot to tell from the last day, since it was almost all on the A82. It's a nice enough road, with some stunning sights, but the winds down Glencoe were just vile, and it was a relief to get past there and into the central belt.

I'm confident that once I get the seat off, there will just be a bit of loose wiring to find and fix and the bike will be pristine again.

Overall, I'd say it did very well. It was caned on and off for 4 days solid while carrying a significant load, often in excess of an indicated 50mph with the throttle pegged up Ben and down Glen. The only wobble in the whole trip was when I hit a wet cattle grid at a slight angle and was forced to correct. Contrast with my chumrade's CBR125 which was reportedly quite twitchy in the bends, especially in a crosswind, so that said chumrade was slightly slower through the twisty stuff. On the other hand, while I was pegging it in 4th up a hill trying to reach 50mph, he got bored and just zoomed past, so fair play to the little Devil Machine.

We both had a blast, enjoyed our bikes, met some interesting people (fully half of whom weren't nutters) and saw some astonishing places. I've lived in Scotland all my life, but haven't seen more than a tiny part of it as an adult, mostly the central belt and A9 corridor. There's much more to see, and a bike is a brilliant way to see it. What are you waiting for?

Lang Way Roond: truncated

I had a delighted call from Mr Borg this morning - they were in Applecross having tootled over this rather nice road and had an absolute blast. Apparently he doesn't mind single-track roads now, not on his motorbike in any case. Next stop was due to be Ullapool.

Alas a text at teatime revealed things had not proceeded according to plan, and they were in Inverness. Later this evening he called to elucidate - he was having bike troubles and had had to stop a number of times to tinker with it, eventually having to push it into a garage. He and the bloke in the garage managed to get it going again but he didn't feel confident in crossing Mongolia heading into the remoter parts of Sutherland with it playing up so they'd made for Inverness, then headed down to Fort Augustus to a campsite.

They've decided to bail as Andrew's bike is also struggling a tad now and they're both knackered. But they've both had a great time and the trip is clearly labelled success from that point of view.

They're hoping to get home tomorrow, all being well, and he'll presumably update with pictures/stats/rants/road reviews himself.

Mileage = 279km or 173.3706 Mediaeval miles.

Running total distance = 279 + 210 + 349 = 838km or 520.7332 Renaissance miles.

"It's amazing scenery here - it really reminds me of Scotland."

Actually that's a picture I took at Loch Morlich last week but as Mr Borg informed me in today's telephonic update that it was a little rainy I thought this'd be appropriate.

Stats for the day:

Sheep - 4 (seen? run over? he didn't specify).
Dolphins - 4.
Rain - ALL.
Drops - 0.
Falls - 0.
Gearshifts fixed - 1.
Bikers met - 2.
Ex-bikers met - 3.
Knitting - FAIL.

Mileage: 2029 - yesterday's (1819) = 210km or 130.494 Prehistoric Miles.


This evening they've stopped at Kyle of Lochalsh, having travelled via Mallaig and taken the ferry to Skye. They took a little tootle around Skye - "Got to Portree, had a good pee, then turned back" and headed for the bridge. They stopped in Broadford to see if Teo's Handspun was open but it wasn't - 973 Excellent Husband Points for trying though. 'We were going to go to the Scary Fairy bit but were too scared' (No, I haven't the foggiest).

Oh yes, the title refers to Obi Wan McGregor's comments every ten miles or so of Long Way Round.