New arrival 3

I wasn't expecting to get this one, I saw it on Ebay, put in a lowish bid and went out for the evening. I was quite surprised to see I had won it when I returned home. It's a 1976 Simson Schwalbe 50 CC scooter. They were never imported into the UK, when I get it ready for the road it will therefore have to be registered here before I can use it.

I haven't owned a 50 cc since I was 19 and had a Honda CB50 after my Jawa outfit expired. That was not a happy experience but I am very interested in this little scooter. Although they are very rare in this country (this is the only one I have ever seen) they were truly the machine of the people in East Germany. Most ordinary working folk either could not afford anything else or were not allowed anything better. Over a million Schwalbes were built over a period from the mid 1960s to the 1980s and I am impressed with the general quality of build.
It's got a 3 speed fan cooled engine developing a heady 3.6 horsepower, apparently good for 38 MPH.
It runs very well although it is in bad need of some work doing on it. The major problem is the kick start gear keeps jamming. I thought it would be easy to do, on an MZ 150 it is a simple case of taking the primary drive apart to replace the kick start quadrant gear, but I have discovered that the crank case has to be split meaning a total engine strip down. I intend to get it done this winter, including the engine rebuild which I hope to do myself. Yet another project!

A brief ride on a Guzzi V7 cafe racer

I have had my Moto Guzzi V7 Classic a year now and so it had to go back to the shop for a major service. The courtesy bike lent to me was the cafe racer version of the same bike. This has a single seat with a bum stop on it, upswept exhausts and clip on very low bars. The engine etc. is just the same. It looks very smart in a light green matt metallic finish. I soon discovered that cafe racers are not for me though. I just rode it to work and back and that was enough to make my wrists, forearms, neck and lower back ache. I don't think I could last more than about an hour on it, my more upright classic model is comfortable enough for hundreds of miles in a day. The sales rep did admit that although the cafe racer is a beautiful bike they have sold about 8 times more classic versions because they are slightly cheaper and way more comfortable.

The bike had an expensive service, but the shop did download an updated version of the fuel injection map onto the bike. This has resulted in better starting from cold and the engine is even better than it was before, accelerating more cleanly and I thought it was fabulous before!

An evening run out in the Peak District

A few weeks back, Kevin and I had a run out on a Sunday evening to get some miles done running in his MZ. We had a great time although it was a bit cold. We found Arbor Low, an ancient monument estimated to be between 3 and 6 thousand years old. It consists of a stone circle (the stones have fallen over but are still there) within a massive earth henge. It's an impressive place and as it was evening we were the only ones there. We met a hippy type woman when we got back to the bikes who used to have MZs and has fond memories of them.
Then we went to Middleton Top, which is the start of a steep incline on an old freight line which was worked until the 1960s. As can be seen it is now a right of way and very steep for a railway at 1 in 8.
Here is the engine house used for hauling the wagons on a steel rope. It is possible to go round it but we were far too late for that.
Here is Kevin examining some old boilers.
We then had some tea in this rather grand looking pub before a rather damp ride back. I did about 135 miles on the shed, most enjoyable.

New arrival 2

Another machine I saw on Ebay, a real rarity in this country, an MZ RT125/3. This must be the most copied motorcycle in the world, it is what the BSA Bantam was copied from. The original RT 125 was a pre-war DKW bike, and seeing the need for cheap transport for the masses, the allies took the design as war reparations after hostilities had ceased. The bike was copied in West Germany, Russia, England, Italy and America to my knowledge, maybe other places too. After the war, the DKW factory was in Russian hands and eventually became the MZ factory. This the /3 model is the last of the line, this example dating from 1960. The /3 is the one to have in my view as by this time it had gained full width brakes and 4 gears instead of 3 making it more usable in modern day traffic.

The photo shows the bike in the driveway of the seller, with one of his friendly dogs in attendance too. The bike needs a lot of work as although many parts of it have been powder coated, it has then been loosely assembled to make it mobile and easy to sell. I can tell that there are several small parts missing but I relish the challenge. I am not sure when I am going to get to it though, loads of engineering projects to do here.

Jawa Carnage - all is revealed!

In a previous post some time in May I wrote about how my 350 Jawa had expired in the driveway outside my garage. I got the engine out and sent it off to Andy at Moll Springs Motorcycles ( http://www.mollsprings.co.uk/ ) to be stripped down and assessed. As I thought, the left hand big end bearing had failed but the true extent of the damage I would not have guessed. The bits of bearing rattled about in the bottom of the engine then came up through the transfer ports. Evidence of this was all over the top of the piston and the inside of the cylinder head, but what I hadn't realised is that one of those bits managed to smash the bottom of the skirt off the piston, making more bits to rattle about!
When the gearbox was stripped it was seen that a dog had broken off one of the gears too (there should be four, the missing one is at 9 o'clock). It was laying in the bottom of the gearbox portion of the crankcase casting. I had no inkling of this as it changed gear perfectly.

Luckily I have two engines and the other one has donated a good gear box and pistons, barrels and heads which are like new. I have ordered a set of big end and con rod kits from a Jawa dealer down south and I am awaiting the arrival of them from the Czech Republic. I should be back on the road with this bike in the Spring.

New arrival 1

As a fanatical, perhaps slightly obsessive collector of old motorcycles, it is inevitable that occasionally I buy yet another when an irresistible opportunity presents itself. And so it was that I arranged to sell one of my old bikes, a 1979 Moto Guzzi 1000 Spada to a good friend of mine who will use it as I wasn't doing so. Instead of waiting for the departure to take place and for the money to arrive I just had to make myself temporarily skint by buying more MZ bikes (like yer do!). The first to arrive was a 1969 MZ ES 150. I saw it on Ebay and pressed the Buy It Now You Impetuous Fool button soon after. I had a later model some years back and know that they are a lovely thing to ride. This is an early model, the later ones are rare enough in this country, this is most unusual. It differs to the other one I had in having an aluminium cover to protect the carburettor's modesty (!) and voluminous legshields. Being from 1969 it qualifies for free road tax and it should be a hoot to ride.

I was taken to collect it from Wellington in Shropshire by my good friends from the Jawa CZ club, Pete and Steve (that's Steve's car that can be seen). Pete is standing in the background looking suitably amused.

The paintwork is quite poor, having obviously sprayed with rattle cans and to my horror it wears original East German Pneumant tyres which have a deserved reputation for having the grip of teflon and will have to be replaced as I refuse to use them. Apart from that I don't think it will take a great deal to sort out so I am confident it will be on the road next Spring.

A momentous occasion...

On August 1st 1970, My MZ 250 Trophy Sport was put on the road for the first time. Presumably some person who may no longer be with us rode round showing off the new bike with the then brand new J suffix letter on the registration to their friends. This means the bike was 40 today! This occasion could not go uncelebrated so today my mate Kevin (still putting running in miles on his MZ 250 Trophy) and I went on a 100 ish mile trip round rural "Lancashurr". Here are three photos taken at a viewpoint on a hill above Burnley (the first 2 photos) and at the end of a dead end road we were hoping would get us back on course after we had taken a wrong turning. Why is it that Lancastrians rarely seem to bother to put up sign posts at road junctions??
Apologies again for the slightly poor quality, I forgot my camera and had to use the mobile phone again.
We had a great ride out, the bikes going really well. Somewhere near Whalley we stopped to look at some Moto Guzzis outside a bloke's house and he and his mate came to chat to us. The house owner has an old 250 4 speed MZ TS, and his mate tried to sell me his 5 speed TS. He is however in disgrace after admitting to cutting up an MZ and throwing it away just yesterday because he thought nobody wanted it. Both were very interested in our bikes and we spent a very pleasant 5 minutes chatting.

We had a delicious pub meal in Chatburn near Clitheroe then back home almost entirely on moorland single track roads.

The carburation is still a little out on my bike but it seems to be that if I open the throttle too much or too quickly it gases up and runs very rich. Nursing the bike and opening the throttle gradually seems to result in good performance and less problems so I can live with that for the time being at least.

Will the bike still be around in another 40 years time? Will there be any petrol left then? Who knows, the most likely scenario is that I will not be around to care! I will look after it as best I can and hopefully somebody younger will take it on in due course. I intend to go to Somerset on it in September so it will certainly be used all the time I own it.