Eunos Chump

The CBR now has Brembo pads and new fluid; only had a short test run so far, but it's certainly better than before... but that's not saying much. The Berlingo has also had new discs and pads, and I've tightened up the exhaust and fixed the loose airbox.  An outer driveshaft boot is on the way out, couldn't be arsed to do it though.  I hate working on FWD cars.

The CBR has been making the deathly cam chain noise of late.  This evening I adjusted it using this handy YouTube video and it seems fine now.  I also adjusted the throttle cables again, so blipping the throttle no longer requires a huge handful. New gear lever fitted too, it's perfecto now.  Took more than 2 hours to replace it though, due to difficulty getting the shift rod out of the old one.  It's a bar, threaded at each end, and there's no real way of getting any purchase on it.  Usually you remove such a thing by locking together a couple of nuts, but this has left-handed threads and I had no suitable nut.  Locking the shaft into a thread extractor finally did the trick.

Roger takes to the track at RAF Odiham: It was all very frightening as I was a mere passenger, clinging onto Roger as he went about his manic business.  In many ways I feel like Rod Hull; Roger is my Emu, behaving in a wildly inappropriate manner while I ineffectively try to control him. Anyway, his brakes are absolutely atrocious, I'm going to try some Brembo pads and DOT 5.1 fluid. The wobbly gear lever was a real liability too, so I've ordered a new one. Went to Poole bike night this evening and spotted my old SV650.  I thought it was long dead.  Apart from a different exhaust and more stickers, it looks just as it did when I bought it 4 years ago:

After a few days tinkering, Roger is back on the road.  I removed the carbs and cleaned out the emulsion tubes, as I suspected they may be the cause of that big old flatspot - but no change. That's annoying as the job was a right load of faff, but it did at least mean reinstalling the throttle cable, which works nicely now. Also re-shimmed the loose gear lever with a couple of copper washers, which has helped.  A bit. Had to replace the battery too.  Non-functioning cooling fan turned out to be a blown fuse. Biggest change is the angry Warhawk -style stickers, which I made out of Fablon.  This distracts people, albeit briefly, from the paint finish on the fuel tank (at which point it's normally "WTF did you paint that with, a dead fox dipped in creosote?") Odiham next weekend, then on the 1st August it's Rockingham.

Taxed, insured, and street-legal, Roger is back on the road.  I had a couple of very local runs and nothing fell of, so I went for a 25 mile circuit to give him a proper shakedown.  Issues are: Gearchange lever has a lot of side-to-side play.  When going down the box, it's like stamping on a ball of wool for all the feedback it gives you.   Throttle action not very consistent, maybe needs new cables Big flat spot at 6000 RPM Front brakes rubbish, but the discs are cleaning up nicely so hopefully they'll improve Indicators flash very quickly, as these eBay ones draw less watts than the OEM ones The paint on the fuel tank is AWFUL, but the rest of it is quite acceptable in daylight. Other impressions: Surprisingly relaxed riding position, it's nothing like a CBR600RR or GSX-R Very nice, stable handling, with taut and well-controlled suspension Sounds likes it's going fast, but isn't actually

Roger is now in FINAL ASSEMBLY.  Spent all morning replacing the forks seals, it was very frustrating until I knocked up the tool below to drive in the bush/seal: That's a Miniline downpipe connector from Wickes (50mm internal diameter), with around 5mm sliced out of it lengthways (so it can be made a snug fit), with a big jubilee clip.  I've looked at a lot of online guides for doing this and it often involves a tool something like the above, but I reckon they concentrate too much on driving in the oil seal - it's actually the guide bushing (below) that needs banging in: I drove in the bush and back-up ring first - I locked the tool onto the tube, then gently nipped it up in a Workmate.  I was then able to use the fork slider like a slide-hammer.  Once they were seated (which took some force), I installed the new seal, then put the old seal on top of it to provide some protection: Then using the slide-hammer technique again, it was fairly easy to dri...

July 19th is Roger's first track day - well, airfield day, at RAF Odiham .  I'm looking forward to riding this loosely assembled pile of parts down a runway at 150mph I've painted all the panels in glossy black coach enamel - with a brush.  It looks pretty good... not brilliant, but quite presentable.  Certainly better than the pus yellow, anyway.  The paint is Tekaloid, it's pretty thick and covers most of the blemishes.  The enamel gives a nice 'steam engine' finish too :) All the parts are here now, so if I get my finger out he could be finished by the end of the weekend. Right now I'm replacing the fork seals, but this seems a good opportunity to repaint the lower forks... I keep getting the urge to do a complete nut'n'bolt rebuild!