Rideaway...on anything

[tripodtiger]

Since this is about 'members bikeS', here is what is tucked away.

The RD250.  This is a bit of a rarity as it is a fair dinkum Australian delivered drum brake model.  I saw another one, once.  Most of those that have been on the market recently are brought in from the US. Not that you could tell the difference.

The things that are wrong, in the photo, are the DS7 front fork sliders and guard, the seat and teh fuel tank.  The forks are now back to original after I scored a NOS pair in Adelaide and a mate gave me a front mudguard.  I've recently changed the seat over to a replica foam (from the US) and replica cover (from Sth Oz).  The tank was NOS back in the 90's, but it's from the A model.  ie it's 13 litres rather than 9.  I've got the original tank, severely beaten up, in the garage.



Tiger 'Trek'.  The Tiger is a 96 model, bought new in 97.  In 2000, my now mate Leigh (riding in the snap) built me a sidecar for this bike.  It was much larger and heavier and pushed the Tig to the limit of it's power, truth be told.  Anyway, Leigh and I spent a lot of hours since then talking about a proper all road touring outfit.  This was a concept drawing I did.  Funny thing was, Leigh did a sketch which was very similar.



The comprehensive story of a 2 year building period can be found here:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=458888&highlight=Tiger+sidecar+outfit
Lots of photos.  Lots.
And Leigh is building a blue one, same basic idea but different, because he can.

This'd be the 77 RD400 I was given.

The previous owner wanted the space to work on his BSA Rocket 3 and was never going to do anything with the RD.  I've just started to do some work on it.  It's in boxes and the frame/swing arm have been blasted / painted.  I've been cleaning the wheels.  I'll get the basic chassis back together before I start any work on the engine.


A fornight ago, in a rush of blood, I bought this.

It may have been a mistake but I wanted an historic race bike. And they are fairly few and far between.  It's far from perfect.  It's not air cooled, but it is a two stroke, twin cylinder Yamaha.  So that's near enough.  And it sounds quite nice with those hydra formed expansion chambers.  The pity is that I can't ride it until I get it to a race track, and that's not until I've got some leathers, road style boots, a different helmet and some full leather gloves.  Everything I've been riding in for the past 15 years has been for all road touring.
Oh, and almost all the original road gear came with the elsie.

The XS is also in bits.  The tank and seat strips are off at the metal cleaners.  I've stripped the plastic bits back to bare and my painter has the paint ready...

This is about the only photo of the W800 I've got.


A few weeks ago a couple of mates & I decided to ride up to Mt Buffalo.  Nice sunny day, but geez it was chilly.

[tripodtiger]

Yep, yep, yep!

It's running really well.  Four of us did around 280km along some nice country roads.  The batteries in my helmet camera and digimatic were both flat, so nothing worth posting from either of those.  Zac on his XJR12, Brownie on the 955 Tiger and Trowel on his GSXR750.

Wagga, Rosewood, Wondalga, Tumut, Brungle, Darbalara, Coolac, Jugiong, Cootamundra, Junne and Wagga.
Some really rough sections following a winter of rain.  But some fantastic winding sections too - especially Broadleaf Road from Rosewood to Wondalga.

The other blokes all shared the GSXR around and confirmed that it is quite hard to ride, and not real comfortable on some of the poor sections.  It works between 4 and 7 grand.

The pub at Jugiong served up some excellent hamburgers.  The Long Track Pantry, next door, is well known for good food, and it was chockers.  That's why we went to the pub - infact none of us knew it was even operating.  It does, Thursday (?) Friday (?) Saturday & Sunday only. The town is trying to recover since the freeway took the traffic away.

Jugiong is about half an hour north of the paper plasic food centres of Gundagai and about an hour or so south of the same food at Yass.  There is a free camping area across the road.

And, if you don't mind the gravel, you can head east to Canberra via Brindabella.

I was really happy with the way the XS ran.  Fantastic!!!

[steptoe]

isn't it great when a plan comes together ,,, some great pics too

[tripodtiger]

 


Just back from a short ride.

Yep.  Ride!

The clutch hooks up nicely and the old girls runs as smooth as silk.

I was re-assemblin the clutch and, well below the torque spec, one of the pressure plate bolts sheared.  Kick stones!!!
Freakish luck this time.  I put a tiny multi-grip head onto the tail of the broken bolt and it just smoothly turned it's way out.  No binding on the thread at all.  Work that one out.  I suspect the bolt, at 30 years old, may have been broken when I removed it.

I replaced all of the bolts.

Got it back together & adjusted the clutch free play, even squirted some lubricant down the cable and it seemed to be working smoothly.  But the weatheer was bad, so I waited.

I went digging in my pile of bits.  I found a plastic cover for the instrument lights in much better condition than the one that I broke in 1981. That was when I discovered what happens if you light up the rear, whilst turning right across 3 traffic lanes.  That was the first time I dropped my XS.

Anyway, bit of cleaning and shifting parts.  I even decided I'd give the instrument covers a quite freshen up.  Throw a bit of paint at them so they look the one colour from 10 feet sort of thing.  And some stainless acorn nuts to replace the rusted ones.

The lower part of the cover has some small cracks.  I didn't intend on repairing it but rather than just wait for it to break, I attempted a repair that I'd read about just yesterday. 

I cut some aluminium flyscreen mesh into a suitable patch.  The soldering iron was plug in and warmed up.  I used the tip of the soldering iron to press the mesh against the plastic.  As the mesh and plastic warm up, the mesh melts into the plastic providing re-enforcement.  And the soldering iron doesn't melt the plastic very quickly, so you don't need to be ultra careful, just keep the tip moving a tiny bit.  Worked a treat.  No, it didn't fix the cracks, but it did support them and should prevent it from falling to pieces.


This morning is sunny, and not too cool.

Start the old girl up and took it for a squirt.

Clutch is working fine.

It steers as slowly as ever.

The engine is smooth - I've been riding my RD, 690 & Tiger recently.  The XS is silk.  And it just has so much mid range.  I'm so glad I never had the money to replace it.

Funny thing is, neither the speedo nor tacho are working properly.

This weekend, I'm taking it for a decent ride with a bunch of blokes in the local classic club. Rosewood, Tumut, Brungle, Darbalara, Cootamundra and home.  Should be fun.

 

[tripodtiger]

I've had the keys to my XS since mid '81.  It was the first thing I bought when I joined the coppers.  I chose it over a CBX1000, probably because of the shaft drive but also 'cause it's a Yamaha.

After a few years I got bored with the grey & silver and had it resprayed - blue with a red pin stripe.  I wanted red and white pine stripes but the painter talked me out of the white.  Don't know why.

We lived in Lismore for a few years.  This was taken enroute to Dalby.


I whacked a sidecar on it, in the late 80's I believe.

Mine, with version 2.

A second sidecar, the third version built by Geoff, eventually migrated onto mine.  By the mid 90's I was back in Sydney and an active member in the SOC of Sydney



At one point, my eldest brother and younger brother also had elevens.  But they both made the mistake of getting rid of them.  The younger brother also made the error of thinking 0.8 litres (of middle gear oil) was 80ml.  He discovered that error when the middle gear suddenly failed whilst tearing through the NSW mid north coast

I eventually got mine re-sprayed & colour matched.  It was christened 'Wide Thing'

The colours were from the Mazda colour charts and were pretty close to the original.  Good enough for me at the time anyway.

After I'd moved out to Griffith, i bought myself a Tiger 900.  With work occupying just so much time, I didn't get to ride as often as I liked and the XS was pulled off the road.  I sold the sidecar from the XS and put that into one for the Tiger.

The XS did get an engine re-build - 1st over size basically - as it was using oil.  But it didn't go back on the road until after I'd moved here and wasn't working.  I had time to ride a solo, so it went back on the road for 12 months to see how it went.  And that was 'fine'.   Still as wobbly as ever.

This is how it looks at the moment, except I managed to score the horn support bracket and both of them are now back in their original positions.

The blue '94 Tig is the 2nd one of those I've bought. It now resides in Adelaide, awaiting it's own sidecar.  Mine is a black '96 model.

At the start of 2011 it went onto historic rego and it's only been out a couple of times.
At the moment the clutch is waiting for the centre nut to be re-torqued before it can be closed up again.  The clutch was slipping, I'm hoping due to dry plates.

I'm also waiting for a sump plug to be turned up.  Some numbnut bike mechanic - years ago during the rebuild - needed to repair the sump plug.  Without telling me they fixed it with a thread insert for a spark plug - metric ultra fine.  I discovered the spark plug had been used during the 12 months it was back on the road.
I discovered that the thread was different today, when I went to wind in my brand new sump plug that I got last week.
14mm / 1.5 mm pitch isn't common.  14mm /1.25 mm pitch is a spark plug.

A sparky sump plug.