All our yesterdays...

[DaveB]

Where there's a will e t c

I was really taken by the blue/white SE I rode. Bowt time they did something about that bloody seat The standard 'reverse cone' cans look a treat too. The only way I'd have anything different would be if it were a cafe racer and Triumph already do a more than capable version out of the box (Thruxton). Still.. I thought about one a while back and decided the pain factor would probably be too much. Nice to have if I had a shed load of cash and a big garage but not functional for day to day riding.

Think about this long enough and you may well talk yourself into it

ATB
Dave

[J0hn]

It's not myself I have to talk into it, Dave!

I can do that easily - but I don't get the final say.

[DaveB]

It's all part of the fun. Eventually, you'll put her in a position where she'll be telling you to get it then.. if it all goes wrong, you'll know who to blame

To celebrate the bi-annual visit of the sun today, the old girl got an airing..

I must have nearly 30 miles on those new tyres now!

I cut the lawns too which was a trauma. It was still too damp to use the hover and the petrol wouldn't have been much better so I used my dad's old (well.. not that old) Qualcast Panther 30 with Bosch engineering! I'm not sure which bit Bosch actually did but there are some interesting features on this little 'push' mower. For example, if you hit the slightest bump, the grass box drops off. If, however, you try and take the box off one handed.. one side stays firmly in place forcing you to use two hands There's another fine design feature which means you don't have to empty the grass box as often as you might otherwise do.. the very slightest whiff of a breeze diverts the grass from the box before it gets there I'm sure it works fine on lawns which are set at an angle into the wind Anyhoo.. its done and as long as you don't look too hard, it looks ok

ATB
Dave

[J0hn]

I like the size of those front discs!

Wow - that colour is really a "love it or loathe it" one! Must be a bit of a bee to keep looking pristine (depending on mileage ridden, of course).

More bad news for me - found a nasty fork oil seal leak now, and the engine is running a bit rough and also making a very weird squeaky noise. I thought it was pinking at first, but seems it's something else. When I called my local fix-it bude they insisted all they could do was a full service, at a base price of £200 plus bits. Yes, that's the guys who messed up my first GPZ so badly that I had to sell it, at a huge loss to my wife, who had bought it for me. Unfortunately, they are now the only bike workshop in town.

I've ordered the bits and am doing the forks myself, and whilst I'm at it, I'll scour the block and see what I can spot - if anything. Might as well change the oil, filters, plugs etc as well. It's quite a few years since I last got my hands dirty on a motor of any kind.

btw - talking lawns - how many blokes does it take to mow a 15x15ft front lawn?
Four, so it seems! When I was walking the mutt at the weekend, I saw no less than 4 blokes doing a small lawn down the street. One on the mower, one on a sucking tube with a bag for the offcuts, one gathering up loose grass etc with his hands, and another putting gathered pile into a rubble bag! All working in perfect harmony. I was suitably impressed!

[DaveB]

Those stoppers do work amazingly well.. enough to snap your wrists if used in anger

Yes.. the colour! I was in two minds when I bought it. It only had 2400miles on the clock and low mileage was an important factor. When I told SWMBO I was looking at it as a replacement for the 955i and mentioned it was 'Scorched Yellow'.. her immediate reaction was 'You're not bringing a yellow bike here'! I then had to explain it wasn't yellow in the traditional sense.. more light gold. She likes it anyway

I understand your frustration with the bike and more so, with the team you have to leave responsible for it's repair. You must be thinking.. why don't I just sell it now and throw some money down the drain at the same time I enquired about getting a 'full' service at Stratstone Triumph in Wolverhampton last year and to be honest, I doubt there's anyone outside the rich and famous who actually go down this path. How old is the bike.. well.. this needs doing and that needs doing.. the top has to come off and these things checked.. e t c I walked out of the shop with a new oil filter and 5L of oil instead I noticed on Friday the buggers who changed the tyres didn't put the rear dust cover on the valve either. Not exactly the attention to detail I was looking for given the amount of time they spent doing it

Onward and upward!

ATB
Dave

[Jon.M]

If you're lucky enough to find a good mechanic treat him well. Send him flowers on his birthday, give him chocolates for Christmas.

I do have a good mechanic, he even charges reasonable rates. Unfortunately I don't know how long this happy state of affairs will continue. His workshop is under the bike shop run by his brother but they're both past pension age and given the difficulty in selling bikes in the current economic climate the shop is already shut, although the workshop is still open.
Paolo, my mechanic used to wield the spanners for his other brother who raced a bit. Gianfranco, the racer, can be seen in the podium shot about halfway down this page: http://www.eggersdorfer.info/brno74/gp- ... -teil2.htm He's the one standing between Phil Read, who won, and Barry Sheene.

Jon

[DaveB]

Some names I remember there Jon

ATB
Dave

[J0hn]

Well I'm lucky on that score, in a way, in that a good friend is a (Suzuki trained) qualified mechanic. The problem is that he is a very busy man. He used to run his own repair and service workshop, then started working as a teacher at the local high school. He was hardly ever able to do anything other than work (at which he was treated as "second class" due to changing his occupation, rather than being a trained teacher from the outset, even though his detractors knew bugger-all about the subject he taught), and after a couple of hard years, went to work at the local college, teaching automotive engineering.

Every time I phone him now, he sounds completely knackered and although we have an arrangement where he fixes the things I can't on my bike and in return I fix his computer problems, I just don't have the heart to dump every problem on him. Last time my forks needed doing, he did them for me, but this time I'm biting the bullet. I started today. The engine oil is drained and my new parts have arrived from Wemoto (absolutely excellent service from those chaps). I just had to pop down to those duffers at the local workshop for some new engine oil and this time the chief mechanic actually checked the weird noise problem with my engine. He says it's just the air intake valve squeaking (eh?), and that I shouldn't worry about it.

Well, after the minor service I'm giving it whilst the forks are off, I'll see if the noise is still there. If so, I'm going to my friend's for a second opinion so I can sort it before my 7 hour ride to Wiltshire in June (one way...). That's if I don't take a wrong turn and end up adding 1½hours to the journey, like last time.

I'm going to (RAF) Colerne, by the way. For the last time, we're running a special event amateur radio station from the training wing of 21 Sig Regt (Air Support). We've run it every year, but next year their role is changing, so this will be the last one, unfortunately. It's the cheapest 'hotel' I ever stayed at!

[Airspeed]

'Scuse the interruption, shipmates.
This thread has taken on a very two wheeled flavour.
The loose connection to all our yesterdays is that I last rode my Triumph over 50 years back.
I've maintained a passing interest, and stopped to look over a group of bikes in town this afternoon.
They'd been on a 250 Km cruise today and were happy to chat.
One that caught my eye was a YELLOW, and I do mean YELLOW! URAL, with a colour matched sidecar that resembled 1950s style.
Closer inspection revealed that it was built by RBITS in Russia.
The engineering looked quite primitive and there were numerous oil leaks. Looked something like a Douglas Dragonfly.
Of course, stupid didn't have a camera.
The best I can do is this link to the Australian dealer site; some photos there including the colour scheme I saw today:
http://www.imz-ural.com.au/
Haven't seen it around previously, but a couple of the riders told me that it lives locally.

[DaveB]

I don't know if they still make Urals but I've never seen one that looked vaguely modern. Can't say I've ever seen a yellow one before though

EDIT: Having read that link.. it seems the Ural is very much alive and well.. all be it the carb versions are on the way out. Fuel injection on a Ural.. whatever next

ATB
Dave