Kappa K48N

No sooner had I got the insurance rebate from selling Red Pepé than I had spent it again on a new top box for Suzi.

The current Givi E45 was bought back in the mists of the early 1990's and was part of a two top box and two pannier set that Audrey and I bought between us and they were used on the pair of XJ900's we ran at the time.

When she went to Spain to live and work on her 1989 XJ she took one of the E45 boxes and both the smaller sized panniers. The panniers may have been 30 or 35 litre. 

Or rather she flew and I rode the bike down there in the February half term. I got the Motorail from Paris to Narbonne and rode down. Spain? It's always warm and sunny. Right?  No. The section between Le Perthus and south of Barcelona had snow on the sides of the autoroute and it was freezing! I was barely thawed out when I got to Benidorm and I stayed the night there.

I kept one of the boxes for my 1991 XJ900F.  It was used on Suzi (long before she had a name!) as well, and was fitted when I went to the Wasserbüffel Treffen in 1999.

The Givi E45 on Suzi at Montlhéry in 2001

Since then it was been used on a few bikes including the TDM 850, Bandit and BMW's I had between 2000 and 2013. It then went on Suzi until she was left unused at the back of the garage. 

In keeping with Suzi's new life, a new top box is on order.  The Kappa K48N.

Why Kappa?  It's a budget range and made by the same company ast Givi. In my estimate it is just as good quality as Givi. but cheaper to buy. I had one of their boxes (and should have kept it!!) on the Explorer. It was superb. Took two helmets and when I let the bike go , I left it on. Fool.

Kappa  KGR52 on the Explorer

As it  is the K48N is a Monokey fitment so it should slide straight onto the plate that is fitted to Suzi and the Rickman rack that has been there for so long. The Rickman rack went on after I came back from the year in Czech.  How I wish I had had it then!

Anyway. Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Coupes Motos Légendes 2001

Back in 2001 I was invited to attend the event held at the Montlhéry circuit to the south of Paris.

So one Friday we set off, Claire and me aboard the Kettle for the relatively short run to Paris, it's about 199 miles. We took the A26/A1 route from the Channel. 

I chose a Campanile hotel at Porte de Bagnolet, although those in cities were called Campaville at the time. 

This one was within easy access to the city on the metro.  Parking was a bit crap as it was a multi-storey building. The problem was getting in and out through the barrier and no marked bike spaces.

Once checked in we set off for the city on the metro line a few hundred metres away.  It was also close to the Boulevard Périphérique.

We had a good wander around the sights like the Eiffel Tower etc. Had a meal and then back to the hotel.

After breakfast on Saturday we togged up and checked the maps to Montlhéry. A mere 35kms or so from the hotel.  

It was an easy run on the Périphérique and then follow the signs. We had the paperwork/tickets and a sticker on the screen to get us in. We eventually found the French GT club and parked up.

After a chat with the members we had a walk to get some coffee!

Took a photo.

We met the WBC and had a chat and a drink before having a walk around the site and watched some of the bikes taking to the banked circuit. My bike was too young to be able to have a parade lap.  

They go on the registration date not the manufacture date.  Mine was registered April 1977 and so was deemed too recent.  Maybe I will try again in 2021 or 2022 when it is old enough!

On the walk there were a good few Kettles.  I managed not to take one of my own bike, and the other film I used up on the on-track activities and the WBC stand appear to have all disappeared.  

WBC Reimo GT750

I think the Sheene RG is ridden by Alan Cathcart?

Pol Apolon

Once we had had enough of the event, we bade our goodbyes and I ignored the comments from Pol  that we would be lucky to get home on my Kettle (!). Claire remembers those comments. As we will see later they may have been right.

We had another night in the Campanile and would ride home on Sunday.  

Sunday

After another leisurely breakfast we set off home.  

I filled the tank locally and off we went.  I expected given the range of the Kettle that we would need to stop again on the A26 to fill up again.

On the A1 northbound we had one of those moments where even though we had not gone that far and we were in the inside lane, the bike lost power. 

We had barely got much past the turn off to Parc Asterix. 

I indicated and pulled onto the emergency lane/hard shoulder. Turning the fuel tap to reserve seemed to work. 

We picked up speed again and so I regained the inside lane and we stopped at the next services.  Loads of oil in the tank and about half a tank of fuel.  I filled up there anyway to save stopping again.

There was always that niggle in the back of my head that there was something wrong!  

We got home okay though after that and the bike continued to run well until I allowed it to fester in the back of the garage.  

Hence the Renaissance title to this blog.

Update

Since finishing the blog post I have posted on the Suzuki Triple Club a post to see if I can identify my French friend.

And we have a name - Pol Appolon.  The reply was from Jacques Massé who has a site called "La Bouillotte".

Jacques also sent a better photo of the day. Mine has been cropped but this one shows the bike much better.

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.