Two Stroke in the Barrels

Well. After the old two-stroke down the barrels it's time to see if (after a few weeks leaving it to seep through) the bugger will turn the engine over. By hand or foot of course. Plugs out and oil in the bores.

I have seen a few basket cases online going for decent money and that's what Mrs D would like to happen to mine!

She doesn't understand the deep relationship a man has with his bike.  I had hoped to get it sorted for this year in time for the 35th anniversary of buying it. But I suppose 2022 is a target when it will be 45 years old.  By then I'll be retired and even less of a distance biker than I am now.

So fingers crossed.

Coming Home 1993

Late July 1993. Time to leave Zastávka and head for home.

Tony and Heather were back with the kids. The plan to ride across to southern Germany for an overnight. I would continue north and they would split off and head south. 

Outside the flat on Sportovní

We headed west on the dálnice past Prague and into Germany. 

The overnight stop was in a youth hostel in a castle in Bavaria near Ellwangen. 

In those days in Bavaria anyone over 26yo couldn't stay in a YH unless they were part of a family group. We qualified and they had a family room and I got stuck in a dorm with three cyclists.

After breakfast I rode all the way home tugging the trailer. 

At the German border*

In case of fuel problems I had two cans bungied to the rack on the trailer. In the end I didn't need to use either.

This was the last long journey on the Kettle for a few years. 

I started at University in Luton in late September. To earn a few quid I signed up with a local courier company. 

After a horrific ride to Devon to deliver a letter I moved onto the vans in my non Uni days and weekends. 

The GT dropped to being No2 when I bought a 1990 XJ900F. Much better for occasional courier work when a bike was needed.

Moving on.

* Raining and wearing Rukka unlined waterproofs.. Yes. I still have that jacket. 

Smokin!

On the drive in Flitwick. In those days before phones had cameras and were able to make movies 

In fact before phones were portable outside the house and carried more computing power than Apollo 11!

Renaissance

After years of neglect things are starting to move.

I contacted a few bike restorers to see if I could get the bike to them to get it running. But not much came of that avenue. 

I am not expecting showroom or concours condition. Just usable. 

In the 80's. Me nearest camera.

As it is over 40 years old it is now registered as a historic vehicle with the UK authorities. 

As a result it is tax exempt and MoT exempt. It has to be roadworthy but doesn't have to undergo the test each year. 

In the end my old friend John Storrie made some good suggestions. 

The motor won't turn over and I suspect there is some corrosion in the cylinders. It wasn't a hot seize. Just standing too long. 

Removing the plugs reveals no corrosion on the plug electrodes and there is a healthy whiff of petrol. Hopefully the 2-stroke poured into the bores will permeate and free up the rings. 

There are a few other jobs to do and I have many of the parts required; carb rebuild kits, new throttle twist grip, exhaust gaskets. 

The choke plungers in the carbs are brass. The lifter is a steel V-shape like two fingers. The brass is wearing thin and the heads might drop off. 

The "new" Motobatt battery that went in before the lay-up is dodo dead. It might recover on the mains charger. Otherwise it will need a new one. 

Tyres. Were quite new but have sat so long on one place. Maybe them and the inner tubes will have to go... 

It all hinges on the engine not being seized.  

Fingers crossed!!!!!! 

Wasserbüffel Treffen 1993

A long weekend. Luckily it was the weekend at the end of the May half-term school holiday and so I was able to load up the bike and set off in good time to get across to Moosham.

The route via the Mikulov/Drasenhofen border crossing and around Vienna and then west past the Red Bull Ring, although then it was called Zeltweg, would be about 250 miles. 

Czech fuel was cheaper and I topped up before the border. With a range of only 130 miles to a tank fuel management is important.

On arrival at Schloss Moosham I had nowhere to stay. I met up with Thomas Wahle who I had "known" for a few years exchanging letters about Kettles. 

I had never met him before.  I was going to look at nearby Mauterndorf for a room or even a bed. Thomas and the Stuttgart area Büffel Herde had a large room and parking in the barn across the road. They also had a spare bed. As I was a poor "Czech" they wouldn't let me pay.

The weekend was a great success. A couple of the Austrian members got married. We had several rides out. My Kettle was the centre of attention due to the tow bar. 

The ride back was by a different route that took me across country to the north of the outward route.. 

The bike? Ran perfectly. 

Some background

Who knows how long this blog will exist for! I don't have the foggiest idea.

The Kettle in question is a Suzuki GT750A. First registered in April 1977. 

Some background. Sit down. This might ramble on.

I bought it in 1984 from the bike shop in Hanwell near Brentford in West London. It came with some paperwork that showed it had had some engine work done. Allegedly the crankshaft oil seals had been replaced etc.

I had other bikes as well. For a while  around this time I had a "Plain Jane" GL1000, and a  GSX1000SZ Katana.

So it was a complete surprise when riding home from work a couple of years later that the crankshaft oil seals went phut

By then we were moving from Weybridge in Surrey to Newington in Kent. I obtained an exchange crank from Robinson's then in Broadstairs.

A local guy in Gillingham was recommended to handle the engine rebuild. 

At this stage the cylinder barrel to use in the rebuild was one that I had bought off a fellow member of the SOC committee, Dave G. 

As I had had Craven Panniers on my GS1000G I wanted to use them on the GT as well.

Getting them on the GS1000 required a ride down to the Forest of Dean where they seem to have relocated from West London. The existing rack was mated to some pannier rails and the hooks fitted to hang the panniers on. What makes my Comets a little different was the QD kit on the back.

By the time I wanted them on the Kettle,  GS was long gone. But I had kept the panniers. 

I had some original exhausts but they were in poor condition. I bought some Swarbrick expansion chambers and these proved a bastard to set up. And kept cracking. The stingers falling off and constantly needing re-brazing.

Red tank and Swarbrick exhausts

Also at this point a few changes were made. A spare tank was painted in Ford XR3 orange red, another mistake! I still have the red painted fuel flap. I might put it on for a laugh. 

The pipes were later traded to Dave G in exchange for standard exhausts. These are still in use now. They are a little tatty but I don't have the budget to replace them.

The GS rack was very rusty and went to the tip. Sadly I didn't keep the pannier rails and the QD plates... 

Until around five years ago it had been used regularly as a second bike except for a couple of years when it was my only bike.

In the summer of 1992 I rode to Wisbech in Cambridgeshire to have a trailer hitch fitted.

In hindsight I should maybe have bought a cheap four-stroke and left the Kettle tucked up in the garage with electricity and a trickle charger!

I should also have fitted a new rack to at least use the Givi topbox. 

Between us we had two large Givi topboxes and shared a pair of the smaller Givis we used as panniers. 

I had been made redundant in late 1991. In early 1992 I sold my Suzuki Cavalcade and after attending the 1992 Czech Invader Rally I had to sell the DR800SL.

In between selling the other bikes I did a CTEFLA course and with IBM DOS mainframe computer jobs rarer than hen's teeth, I was looking at a new career as an English teacher.

Once qualified my partner, Audrey, and I went to Brno in our Fiat Panda over the Easter holidays. The lady in the British Council office was pretty encouraging at me finding a teaching job in a school. Post Velvet Revolution, English was becoming more popular.

I applied for jobs all over Europe. I did a two week course for French kids in Bletchley to get an idea of the task to come.

In mid July 1992 with the trailer loaded with books at the front and clothes at the back and Swagman panniers fitted we set off across Europe.

Accompanied by Audrey on her own bike, a 1988 Yamaha XJ900F, we set off for Zastávka u Brna and my home for the next year or so. She had the full Givi set fitted. 

I had a job at the Gymnázium T G Masaryka (http://www.zastavka.cz/skolstvi/gymnazium-t-g-masaryka.html) to teach English within a team of four. The three others were locals, Helena, Eva and Hana. 

Oddly when I was over in May on the DR I couldn't find the school. No Google Maps back then!!!

The route was to the Dover/Calais ferry and then via Liège where we stayed in a budget hotel alongside the motorway, Rotenburg an der Fulda, where we stayed in the youth hostel above the fire station, Bad Schandau on the Elbe River in a faded old hotel and finally to Zastávka.

Rotenburg Youth Hostel

It was going to be about around 850 miles. Once used to the trailer it was easy to forget it was there. When I had ridden over two months before on the DR I had used the same sort of A4 route via Dresden and had done it in one hit.... 

There was a problem though....

I had lights, a requirement for bikes in Europe, or indicators, not both. With the trailer electrics unplugged there was no problem. 

With the trailer connected there were two extra rear lights and two extra indicators. It seemed the extra load wasn't being covered by the bike's charging system. 

In daylight I had to disconnect the trailer. No one seemed to notice. Audrey followed behind in any case. 

Until school start time and my flat being available we stayed in the "youth house" before  final few days in Slovakia and Austria. Audrey and I parted company near Vienna. I rode north to Czech and work. And she rode solo back to Bedfordshire. 

Winter comes earlier than in UK and so by October it was stashed away in a colleague's garage. To keep the battery alive my Czech buddy Ivan bought me a trickle charger. I still have it somewhere. A shame my garage of the last 18 years has no power... 

I made a few trips to Austria to buy English newspapers and with no trailer all was mostly fine. 

The battery never seemed at full power. When friends Tony and Heather Young and their twins Helen and David came to visit for a week, we had one trip down to a Suzuki dealers near Wolkersdorf to buy a new Varta battery. It was a little pricey and came dry with acid in small tubes. One for each cell. Tony sorted that for me. 

Amazingly, the dealer us still there,  Zweirad Hubeny.

With winter approaching I had one last long weekend to Vienna's Schwechat Airport to collect Audrey for a half term visit. She flew in with Lauda Air. 

After I took her back the bike went back into the garage and on the trickle charger. 

On charge in the garage.

It wasn't until February and late as it was before we got out again. This time it started easily and smoked out the neighbourhood. 

I took in Brno Lake. It was frozen over. 

Frozen!!!

Once it was in regular use I found the battery still not 100% charging on the move. I checked the connectors under the left side panel and found one of the "male" pins in the regulator / rectifier connector was bent and not engaging in the "female" side of the block. Carefully straightened out and refitted. Problem over. Until 1999!

What amazes me nowadays is that I never really contemplated the bike failing me and breaking down. 

During the rest of 1993 until I left for home in late July I travelled all over Czech and into Austria at weekends. 

To České Budějovice and České Krumlov. Quite often to Austria either through Mikulov or Znojmo. 

Also a longer trip along the Danube from Vienna to Melk. I did this one twice. Solo and once with Audrey. 

Melk Jugendherberge.

And the big one to the Wasserbüffel Club Treffen at Schloss Moosham. See separate post. 

NB: In all the pix above the bike is fitted with a base colour silver tank with no pinstriping. The Maui blue tank was tucked away safely in the garage at home. With a magnetic tank bag I didn't want it scratched or chipped. 

Kettle - Resurrection Shuffle - 2

I had to stretch my lunch break to er, breaking point to get the Post office part of things done so I have a taxed but unusable bike.

It wasn't as straightforward as the DVLA website would have you believe though. As I don't have a V11 (the tax reminder they send out) and as the bike was SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) there was no record of it being taxed for a few years.

On visit one the guy at the PO took the V5C (log book as we call it) and the V112 (MoT exemption declaration) and the printout of the web page,. He couldn't get past the first hurdle, telling me to call the DVLA.

I walked briskly back to work and called. Amazingly it took around a half dozen "press 1 for blah-blah, 2 for blah-blah" before I got a human person to speak to.  She listed to my problem.  "On page 2 of the V5C, section 7, write HISTORIC in the box and sign and date it, then go to the PO". I did.

Visit 2.  In and five minutes a different bloke had given me a receipt for the tax priced at £0 and was sending my log book off. A new one presumably with the tax class changed from Bicycle to Historic.

Brisk walk back.

So now the bike is legally if not physically able to go on the UK's and nay, the world's roads.

All this does make me wonder why once the vehicle trips over to 40 years plus 1 second old that they don't do this automatically and record the vehicle as historic? Why do you have to claim the exemptions that are allowed by law?

Kettle - Resurrection Shuffle - 1

In happier days

It seems like I have been here before.

It's all come about after a comment from my old buddy John Storrie once he entered the 21st century and got email and even the dreaded social media....

I have toyed with this before, and as Claire wants rid of it from the garage, I guess the first step is to get it running and in a position to possibly sell it. Possibly.

As it is 42 years since it was first registered it can be classed under tax and MoT standards as a historic vehicle.  That designation applies to all vehicles registered on UK roads before 1st January 1979. It is a 40 year rolling date.

I thought it would be automatic, but reading up is less straightforward. The bike has to have tax, even though it is free for historic vehicles.  It no longer needs to have the annual MoT.

Instead of applying for the tax online and the DVLA have all the details I have to go to a post office that can handle vehicle tax and take the log book (V5C) and a form (V112)  to say that as it is over 40 years old it doesn't need an MoT and it will be sorted.  They might do the tax (free remember!) then and send my V5C off to get it changed to historic.  Might photocopy all four pages first though.

As for the bike itself. I have let it get in a bit of a sorry state.  Generally it looks like the photo at the top of the page, minus a few parts that need fixing.

The accident years ago caused a problem where the end of the throttle was broken. as it was hidden from view it wasn't noticed.  And occasionally the throttle would stick in place and needed to be forced shut.  I have a new throttle assembly for the right handlebar to re-fit.  It came with a matching left grip.

Part #2 in stock!

More seriously is that as it has stood in the garage it has seized.  It's not a hot seize as the motor wasn't running but it could be the rings rusted in the bore. Not what I'd generally attribute to a two-stroke. But over time that's the situation.  John suggests pulling the plugs and putting some neat two-stroke oil down the plug holes and let it seep in for a while and them turn it over carefully to free them up.

Carbs.  I expect they'll need cleaning and the floats checked.  I have a set of choke plungers that came from a contact in Germany some years ago as mine are wearing a bit thin. I just have to find where I put them for "safe keeping"

Part 20 - choke plunger

They are made of brass and the head wears due to metal on metal contact from the lifter.

In the end once I have seen whether I can free-up the engine I need to get it over to John in Oxfordshire to fettle and make it roadworthy. Under the no-MoT regulations it has to be roadworthy.

Best case is that most of the jobs are easy for an expert like him. Worst case is that it needs the engine stripping.

I have a lot of the parts that will be needed and I need to locate them. I have a full gasket set somewhere to along with a set of pistons and the barrel they came out of!

Once the school year comes to an end and I have the summer off it will get me off my arse to get the jobs I am capable of doing, done.

Although I have the parts books, this website is really good - http://www.3cyl.com/mraxl/gt/manuals/partsgt750/index.htm