Steve D

Surely that only applies to a four stroke engine?

Why not try getting in touch with your local engineering college - I'm sure they'd be able to get one of the students to knock one up.

Sounds like hydraulic lock. As above, plug out and keep kicking until it clears. Probably caused by a sticking float in the carb draining the tank into the engine. Don't have the ignition on while you do it or a spark may set fire to the fuel!

Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly. This year was only my fourth European trip. The past two years we went to lake Garda. On our trips (there's four of us all on tourers with panniers - an FJR, a Tiger sport, a R1200RT and a MultiStrada). We always meet up and stay with our wives. So, last year to get there, we went via few countries - France, Belgium, Lichtenstein, Germany, Austria and Italy, leaving on the Saturday, stopping for two nights and getting there on Monday when the wives flew out. We then parked the bikes up for the duration and spent time with them until they went home. What we didn't like was going round these fantastic roads on the way there and back fully loaded down with top box, panniers, tank bags and tail packs and carrying half the wives luggage 'cos they only wanted to take hand luggage, the lazy cows! They were always moaning that they only got three days holiday so this year we tried something different. We booked a 4 bed villa in the South of France for a week, set off on Friday, slogged it out and got there on Saturday when the wives flew out. We could then unload all our luggage in the villa and have rides out each day without all the luggage to bog us down while they lazed around the pool. On previous trips we only blasted it home as getting there was part of the trip but on this one we blasted both ways as the 'holiday' started and finished in the south of France. Everyone was happy!

What model iPhone do you have?

I don't live in Calais. Stopping halfway from Chamonix to home is a two day trip, not three and there's not much 300 miles from Calais that warrants a stop. Like you, we all had beds to go home to. So sorry if you feel that my post is not of any use to this discussion but there are others on this site too you know. If that's how you feel, there's no need to waste your precious time replying.

Pure masochism.. and not uncommon either. Ive seen people post about riding to Austria in a day.. which strikes me as just as awful. why put yourself through this at the very start of what is supposed to be a holiday. .. Depends whether you consider your holiday to start from the moment you leave your door or arrive at your destination. Nothing wrong in getting to Austria in a day if that's where you want to be based for the rest of your break. There's plenty that get up at 3.00am, spend a couple of hours travelling to an airport, check in and then spend another 2 or 3 hours sitting at the airport, then get on a 7 hour flight followed by a 2 hour transfer to get to their resort. It sometimes has to be done. Unfortunately, the first and last part of many holidays is spent travelling to and from the destination/resort. If you've only got 7/8 days on a motorbiking holiday in the south of France, you don't want to spend 6 of them getting there and back - hence our 661 mile dash home from Chamonix - who wants to stop and book a room halfway along a French Motorway?

I've put on a bit of weight over the last 10 years since I stopped smoking and one of my students cheekily asked whether I work out in the gym. Playing along with him I said that I did. He then said to me "I bet your favourite machine is the crisp machine". Cheeky f**ker!

Well, I've never done Calais to the south in one day but believe me, if you are going to the good roads in the south, the first 500 miles of France are just shit, flat, straight, boring motorways and you just have to grit your teeth and get on with it. It helps that being in Essex, we are just over an hour or so away from the Euro tunnel. A few weeks ago without knocking our bollocks out we did Essex to Beaune on our first day which was 486 miles just blasting it on the toll roads and then the second day was spent getting to Tourrettes sur Loup in the south to a villa where we were staying for a week doing a bit of motorway and some good roads and then doing ride outs each day. A few years ago we got home in one day from Chamonix - 661 miles door to door - and I was on a 650 Burgman scooter at the time! If you were coming from up north and planned to just get across the channel on day 1 staying near Calais, the south would be doable in one day. Easy. Last year we went to lake Garda but instead of going through France, we went through Belgium, Lichtenstein, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Switzerland was the dirtiest, shittiest country we went through (at least the bit we saw of it) and the only country where they absolutely hate bikers - bikes are not allowed to filter in traffic and if you try to, they block you or try to knock you off! I'm not joking either.

Council tax re-evaluers now want to charge us more if we live in a nice area. That ought to mean discounts for those of us who live in rough areas. We have a huge council house in our area. The extended family is run by a grumpy old woman with a pack of dogs. Her car isn't registered or insured, and doesn't even have a number plate, but the police still do nothing when I complain. Her bad tempered husband, a mixed race foreigner himself, is always upsetting other foreigners with racist comments - again the police take no action. A shopkeeper in town blames him for the murder of his son and his son's girlfriend, but nothing has been proved yet. All their kids have broken marriages due to infidelity except the youngest, who everyone thinks is gay. All of her granddaughters haven't done a days work in their life yet one of them can afford to own and ride horses and two of them are permanently on holiday. Her two grandsons are meant to be in the Army but are always being seen out on the lash in nightclubs. They are always in the papers. They are out of control and have upset a lot of people. One of them got married a few years back and that 'do' must have cost a small fortune - no doubt funded by us, the tax payer. Honestly, who'd live near Windsor Castle!

I suggested to the wife that to spice things up we should swap roles one night. Okay, she said. You go and iron that pile of clothes and I'll lay on the sofa watching telly and farting! Doh!

Hey, I am currently considering getting a velosolex at the moment! Any tips on which model to get/avoid? Also, if I buy one that has not got a registration document or numberplates, how easy is it to get sorted?

Me and the wife left a knackered (drum rusted and leaking) washing machine out on the corner plot of our house for the scrap man to take and went out for the day. We called in at our parents on the way home and they said "Guess what? We were driving past your house earlier and someone had dumped a washing machine outside so we put it in the car and brought it home". Fooking pikies!

When we went through Austria last year, we went over the Grossglockner high alpine pass. At about 10mph because it was foggy! If we hadn't have had satnavs, we'd never had known when the bends were coming up! http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b602/Stevedalton57/67E8CBA7-9DDE-4516-A3BB-D129C6F91B3E_zpsu6ghcifs.jpg

In the 'old' days, Redex was an upper cylinder lubricant. It lubed the valve guides and piston rings. There used to be a dispenser in most petrol stations and after you had put petrol in you gave it a couple of squirts into the tank. You paid something like 2p per squirt when you were paying for your petrol.

Absolutely mahoosive ship. We went on a Caribbean cruise on the Azura on 11/11/11. We splashed out and had a bigger cabin with a larger balcony. Bloody useless as the balcony juts out further and every deck above us could look down on us - put a right kybosh on my naked sunbathing! Along with another couple, we booked more than a year in advance and at practically the last minute another couple of our friends decided to join us and got a huge suite with a bloody butler, fresh fruit, fresh flowers and canapés every day for less than we paid. Oh how we laughed! Still, they weren't big breakfast eaters so we shared their room card and took turns to have breakfast in the white room which was exclusively for those with suites. I'll never book a cruise that far in advance again. Have a good time.

That's only another 65cc for the OP so shouldn't be a problem.

When I took my cbt I was told by the instructor that there is only one thing you can 'fail' a cbt on and that was if you could not read a number plate from a certain distance. Some just take longer than others to reach a standard where you won't get squashed by a lorry first time out. Don't worry - you'll get there eventually. (A cbt that is, not squashed by a lorry)!

Just got back from the south of France on Saturday. While out there my mate picked up a puncture on the rear of his Tiger Sport. Filled it with that slime stuff and it worked fine and got him home at speeds of up to 90+mph. I also had the string plug kit but he said he wouldn't have felt safe at those speeds having reamed a hole in the tyre to fit the string in case the cords were weakened. The string/plug are fine as a get you home repair but some tyre manufacturers state that the speed rating of the tyre is no longer valid when you fit a plug/patch and he didn't want to do 900 miles at 50mph!

Just got back from a weeks touring in the south of France. Two of my mates had the yellow/black one-piece Richa suits. One of them had to be helped into it each time it rained and both if them ended up with soaked bollocks at the end of the day. Mind you, it did lash down at times and even washed a lot of the mountain onto the road!

My mate went over to Sierra Leone to help out in an Ebloa hospital but he was chucked out on day one. Apparently laughter is NOT the best medicine.

Never dealt with them but if they take PayPal there should be no problems getting your money back if goods don't arrive or are not what you expect.

I'm off Friday week. This'll be my 4th Euro trip first two on my Burgman 650. 2012, Nice, 2013, Lake Garda. 2014 on my FJR to Lake Garda again. Four of us normally take a few days to get there, the wives fly out and we stay with them for a few days and then home. This year we're trying something different. We've hired a Villa in the South of France. We are leaving in Friday and getting there on Saturday, the wives are flying out on Saturday. We are going to dump all our luggage in the villa and go out for some mountain road riding each morning while the wives sunbathe around the pool, shop or just generally spend our money!

Ha. A bread thread. Yep, I've got one - Panasonic SD2500. Make most of my own bread now days. My daughter bought one too and makes jams and pizza dough etc. I even bought a special bakers hat I have to wear when baking just to wind the wife up. Sad, I know http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b602/Stevedalton57/f79a085ca91c970358580c4edb7d5509_zpsfdfx0chy.jpg

Try signing up to http://www.turbosport.co.uk or just have a look around on there. There's plenty on that site that have fitted that engine to older classic Fords. I'm sure there's plenty of info on there that will help you with wiring and plumbing for that engine but I think most are using the later blacktop Ford twin cam engines nowadays. Hers a quick link to give you an idea. http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=85075