Bianco2564

Got my renewal through from Bennetts for my 5 bikes, last year £336, this year with no change of circumstances, £492 a 47% increase. I'm selling the Kawasaki as ive stopped commuting on the bikes, so asked how much for R1,380,RGV & SS without commuting, came back at £332. Asked how much without the R1 as i dont intend to ride it this year and this was a reasonable £168.

The thermostat should control the engine temp irrespective of ambient temp, that's its job. If you have an infrared pyrometer (£10 off ebay), run the engine up from cold and measure the temp at the thermostat housing, should see it rise to 80-85degC or so, stat should then open and start to cool the engine, temp will drop as flow begins. Will take a while to stabilise, then as eng temp increases until the rad fan kicks in, probably somewhere near 100C. All the while, watch what the bike temp guage is doing. If the stat housing only reaches say 50C ,I'd say your thermostat is fubarred. Got this on my car currently, doesn't have a temp guage but I noticed the heater wasn't great, checked it out yesterday and its only reaching 50C after 5 miles of driving.

Don't know anything about the Blackbird in particular but would look at; Air filter Water temp sensor, from what I can see online its on the thermostat housing next to the guage sender. Does it get up to running temp ok, thermostat ok. MAP sensor as you have already suggested. Rubber piping around throttle bodies for perishing. Fuel filter. Fuel pressure. Throttle balance Does it have an eml at all, can you run a diagnostic check? What mpg are you getting, what sort of riding are you doing, town, long distance? Is the bike ok mechanically, tyre pressures, chain condition, brakes not dragging.

Once you have your new rectifier, before you hook up the battery, connect a multimeter with the dial on resistance, positive lead to battery positive (hot) lead and the negative probe to bike earth, if there are any other dead shorts it will show up as no resistance, buzzer will sound if you have that function on the meter. If it does, would be a case of systematically going around the bike disconnecting everything to find the culprit/s ,don't assume there may only be one fault. BTW, when connecting a battery, bolt the positive on first, reason is, if you connect negative first then accidentally ground a spanner when tightening the positive terminal, you'll have fireworks.

If the thread has pulled you need to helicoil it, just sticking it back in with sealant isn't a fix, if it falls out you will wreck the engine and most likely come off as the oil hits the back tyre. Helicoiling in situ is probably possible but its not for the inexperienced , if you don't drill and tap it square, the new sump plug will be on the wonk and won't seal or tighten up correctly.. Drilling and tapping into a crankcase will naturally risk sending some swarf inside, this can be limited by putting grease on the drill and tap. . The tag to wind the coil in, can be snapped off to the outside rather than snapping off inwards. A couple of oil changes afterwards should flush out any swarf that made it inside. Otherwise it's an engine out and dismantle to helicoil it. Like I say, its not a job to take on if you havent done it before, see if any local bike shops can help, old skool type shops are generally a bit more adept at this sort of repair than main dealers

That's a particularly poor illustration of the 4 stroke cycle, valve opening and closing not shown, no form of ignition and it implies only one valve sharing the inlet and exhaust ports.

I owned one when I was 18 in 1982 so very attached to mine. The noise and smell of them does take you back....

Good to see another 380. This is mine, owned since 1996.

I run the Kawasaki on e10 ,did try a couple of tanks of e5, it did seem to improve consumption very marginally maybe 1-2 mpg better,but offset this against the extra cost and I was worse off. Bike didn't run any better or worse. I put e5 in all the classic bikes as they sit around for long periods between runs and as said older plastics and rubbers dislike ethanol. My M3 is designed to run on super unleaded but will happily use e10 as it has knock control, however some in the M community will only put e5 in their cars fearing they will immediately grenade their engine if you put the devils fuel in, and it must be Shell or Tesco super whatever their preference is,nothing else will do.. Lots of tests have been done to show a marginal increase in power using e5 which if you were on a track and using every last hp then it's worth it, but for just trundling around on the road its a waste of money IMO. When you smash through a gallon in less that 30 miles every penny a litre adds up. I've had my M3 for 4.5 years ,done 19k miles almost exclusively on e10 and its been fine

Thought the RRP on the ZX4RR was around £8800?

Started the year buying a new bike ,the Kawasaki 250 ninja, use this only for work and done around 6000 miles on it. Said goodbye to the Silverwing scooter I'd owned for 4 years. Attended a biker workmates funeral on the R1 in April. Decided to garage the R1 this year and run the RGV. Got it mot'd in May and attended the Rugby and Daventry bike shows on it, also went to a couple of bike nights at a local pub and the Long Itch diner. Took it to work twice aswell, not an ideal commuter. To end the year I've had to stop riding and driving for 6 weeks due to an operation.

Just to add to this. 2 strokes can have valves, just different sorts. On the inlet it can be a reed valve or disc valve. This controls the inflow of air and fuel into the crankcase. The exhaust can have a movable valve to influence the port timing, different manufacturers have their own ideas. Yamaha famously the YPVS, a rotating barrel. Suzuki had one which had sliding blades as on my RGV. 2strokes can easily make much more power than an equivalant cc 4 stroke. My RGV250 makes around 60hp at 11500rpm, my Ninja 250 makes around 30hp at a similar speed. RGV can do this with quite radical port tuning only made ride able on the road with the inlet and exhaust valves and exhaust expansion chambers. Downside is it uses twice as much fuel to do this. And they burn expensive oil. And they wear out quicker.

Just thinking about how the valve works, not familiar with them. Is the electrical connection a priming function, turn ignition on or crank it and 12v is sent to the valve to flow fuel? Once the engine starts, the intake vacuum takes over? Can you bypass the valve and just connect the carb straight to a fuel supply and check the engine runs.? Check what the 12v supply does when you switch the ignition on. Check that the valves earth is good.

A guy I used to work with had an extension built, he set up an account with the building suppliers so the builder just went and collected goods from the depot. Each month my friend would see an invoice from the supplier and check what had been bought then added more funds as required. Your man sounds well dodgy, best avoided.

Maybe it's a way of naming the different coins, like Americans call theirs dimes and quarters? A 50p will be known as a Salmon which is equivalent to two puffins and a capercallie. Seems like a massive waste of time considering all the cashless payment options.

Reading the T&Cs does sound like they managed the situation in their favour by sending some out onto the circuit, just to avoid calling it a total washout. With all the rain radar technology, I'm sure they could have predicted the outcome, but that would be bad financially for them. I think you've just got to take it on the chin and be grateful you are not hurt or looking at a smashed up bike. I used to go to Santa pod with my car on RWYB days, never guaranteed what was going to happen on the day with the weather, crashes, oil on the track etc. Might get 10 runs in, might only be 4. Or none.

The vacuum at idle should be much higher than that, as the dial indicates a min of 18 inches. Assume it was at idle, not a higher engine speed? I'd be looking for an inlet leak. On the 3rd pic, that looks like a cracked inlet manifold stub. On my gt380, the inlet rubbers weren't perished but had gone rock hard and not clamping up properly. Check for other perished hoses around the carbs. That perished cap on the airbox drain won't make any real difference. You are looking for something between the carb and inlet valve. A carb heat riser, various methods used to prevent the carb from icing over or fuel dropping out of the air and pooling in the manifold. Can be something passive as on a MINI A series engine where the inlet and exhaust casting are one piece , to flappy valves on the exhaust which direct exh gas onto the bottom of the inlet manifold. As it warms up, the valve diverts the gas straight down the exhaust. IIRC, some Kawasakis in the 90s had carb icing problems and they had to retro fit some pipework into the cooling system?

Just replaced the caliper seals on the Kawasaki, instructions say you can use brake fluid or rubber grease, they do supply a small sachet of grease aswell. Maybe the consensus in manuals is its safer to say use brake fluid as you can't really get it wrong if you put too much on the seals.

Check you haven't got a big voltage drop (12v side) at the coil when you first crank it, it takes a lot of effort to get a big single turning. Or a weak coil .On my ancient Honda 125, that became difficult to start, I replaced the coil and it transformed it.

Its happening in the Banbury area too. On my commute along the A361, one village called Wardington has recently changed to 20mph. https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23706759.oxfordshire-seven-20mph-schemes-approved/

I doubt you could get it road legal , Euro 5 and all that. If you could, its unrestricted at around 33hp, if you are on L plates you can't legally ride it anyway. Insurance would most likely be a problem. Like your ambition though, I love two stroke bikes aswell.

I'd guess at a Rudge. Forks look the same, exhaust dropping down into the silencer, shape of the tank, shape of the RH engine case https://www.spicersauctioneers.com/catalogue/lot/58ec1e413604cec54dd1a7d6c1f7cfce/2a6fa85538c56e3991b429b74f737ad8/classic-and-vintage-cars-motorcycles-and-automobilia-lot-662/

MOT'd the Kawasaki yesterday, new caliper seals on the front and a new disc on the rear. There was a fair amount of corrosion under the disc which took a bit of scraping and cleaning up.

Took the Kwak for MOT on Friday, got an advisory for a sticky front brake and a fail on the rear brake fluctuating. Rear brake was a bit of a surprise as I can't feel anything thru the pedal. Anyway ordered a new disc and front seal kit. Stripped the caliper this afternoon, found a load of corrosion behind the dust seals which was probably the cause , cleaned everything up and the pistons just glide back in. Hopefully the disc will get here in a day or two ready for the retest on Friday.

As suggested, replace the clutch plates and also the springs. My 53 year old Honda 125 clutch springs had gone weak and caused the clutch to slip. New ones were no longer available, but a bit of research found some Royal Enfield springs were pretty much identical and they worked a treat.