Stress busting ride home from work

Last Friday I had had a stressful afternoon at work, the weather was fine and warm and so I went home the twisty way. The little MZ 150 climbed from Elland right over the top of the Pennines at Buckstones mostly in top gear and then down to Denshaw on the Greater Manchester side. It's a great bike which goes far better than such a simple and small capacity bike really should do and despite its very ratty appearance, I am very fond of it.

Taking the Delph Road I soon turned left and followed some lanes which were not familiar to me. To my surprise I came across a llama farm with two of them in a field. Apologies for the poor photos but I did not have my camera with me and had to use the indifferent quality camera on my phone. I don't recall ever seeing a llama before.

A mile or two further on I came to a cross roads. Two of the ways were bridle tracks with all motor vehicles prohibited and not liking to retrace my steps unnecessarily I took the track marked "unsuitable for motors". As can be seen from the above photo they were not kidding. The centre stand took a real battering on some of the rocks and with road tyres I was sliding all over the place. At one point I had to get off and walk alongside the bike and the steep bits were done in neutral with the engine switched off, but it was good fun.
Shortly after returning to tarmac at the bottom of the track I found this ford which I did not know existed. I'm like a kid when it comes to fords and enjoyed splashing through it.

I got home about 8.30 in a much better frame of mind. MZs should be available on the NHS!

My neighbour's Kawasaki Z1000, a postscript

My neighbour returned from his holiday in Spain on his Z1000 Kawasaki which was frantically still being repaired the night before his departure due to a badly leaking oil seal (see earlier post on the subject). He travelled 3000 miles without incident and had a great time, although the chain is now apparently well due for replacement. It turns out that on the morning of the departure the bloke who repaired the engine rang to ask if all was now OK and asked if anyone had remembered to remove the piece of tape protecting the breather on the engine. "What tape?"....

A quick check of the breather outlet from the crankcase showed the offending piece of tape which was quickly removed. The effectively blocked breather was allowing the crankcase pressure to build up which is what pushed the original oil seal out of its housing (although it was a remarkably loose fit anyway). All was then well and the bike should hopefully run for years now.

Trip to Wales

A few weekends ago I had a ride out to North Wales on the Trophy Sport MZ to give it a good run with the new carburettor bits in, do some Round Britain Rally Clues and drop in at an MZ rally. The first stop after a 120 mile thrash to clear the exhaust out was Llyn Brenin where I took this photo of the boats etc. Two RBR clues later I got to the MZ rally and spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting to folk and not winning anything in the raffle!
This shiny sidecar outfit is pulled along by a late model Turkish made MZ. The owner was lucky enough to win the first prize in the raffle, the bike below:

This sectioned engine was on display, it all moves, watch your fingers!
Pete and 'Chelle, good friends of mine from Oldham were there on their Jawa outfit. It cost £40 eight years ago and after being lovingly painted army green with what looks like a yard brush, it has provided good transport ever since. Bargain!
They also agreed to buy this tidy MZ 150 Trophy at the rally.
MZ Trophy Sports are rare bikes so I had to take a photo of the other one there.
This fake army bike Jawa is a great bike and belongs to the editor of the Jawa club magazine.
This bike had been tuned a bit, had an expansion chamber fitted and had the cylinder and head fins machined round from square to save weight. It apparently goes very well. Hats off to the owner for making so much effort.
This is a Chang Jiang outfit, a Chinese copy of a Russian copy of a pre-war BMW! Very nice, but according to the owner a bit of a challenge to keep running right.
Moto Guzzi Spada 1000 with Canterbury Carmobile giant sidecar. The seat is wide enough for 2!
The cleanest bike there, Mally Morgan's MZ Rotax engined Country 500. All Mally's bikes are in spanking condition.
Leaving the rally I travelled through Llangollen and then over the Horseshoe Pass. This is the view from near the top at dusk.
later on, in failing light I did two more RBR clues then stopped off at this Chinese takeaway north of Wrexham to have egg fried rice, noodles and curry sauce. The owner liked my bike, was amazed I was riding back to Yorkshire on it after 11 at night and remembered seeing lots of MZs back in the 1970s. I did 257 miles that day and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The bike ran well but the carburation is still a bit off. I will persevere with it some time later but I can trust it to go a long way now I reckon.

It's not just old bikes which play up!

Apologies for the lack of posts of late. I had a short holiday (without motorcycles unfortunately) and then a great deal of other things to contend with.

My neighbour is also a bike fan, although his bikes are modern Kawasakis. He has been building up a four cylinder water cooled Z750 that he bought as a crashed write off with a view to touring Spain on it. All went well until he was getting it MOT tested and the engine dropped a valve wrecking the top end and bending a con rod.

Undeterred he then went and bought a Z1000, a right beast of a bike but then discovered top gear was whining. I would have left it until after the Spanish trip, but the engine was removed and sent off for repair. I got back off holiday mid evening on a Wednesday a couple of weeks back and discovered my neighbour very stressed indeed. The engine had been returned and refitted that day, but an exploratory run over the moors had produced a terrible oil leak. The trip to Spain started the following morning...

To cut a stressful tale down to a minimum, it turned out the engine rebuilder had not used a new oil seal for behind the final drive sprocket and it was a slack fit, oil pressure pushing it out of its housing. We ended up splitting the crankcases on the blown up 750 engine, carefully removing the oil seal off that and fitting it to the 1000 CC engine with some bearing fit to ensure it did not come out. By the time we had done and a test run had been successfully completed it was midnight. He set off the next day as planned and is due home tomorrow. I reckon it has been OK as he did not return home early!

All good character building stuff I guess.

Trip out to an MZ rally

I went to an MZ rally at Masham in North Yorkshire on the Trophy Sport last weekend. I picked a good route taking in twisty and quieter roads once I had got through Keighley. Near Bolton Abbey I caught up with this fine thing, a home made Vincent Comet special. The rider pulled in to tighten a loose lever so I pulled in behind him and we chatted for a while. The bike is a Vincent engine, gearbox and frame member (which includes the oil tank), most of the rest is home made, the rear frame being loosely based on a Norton featherbed. The swinging arm, leading link forks and the operating levers on the front brake are all home made.
The rider likes MZs too and was very interested in my bike. It turns out he had just sold a 250 Trophy. He was on a ride back to Whitby after visiting a friend in Ilkley, so the bike certainly gets some use.
Not much further on I turned on to the really little lanes and completely by chance met up with my friend Ian out for a spin on his mountain bike. Here he is planning his next off road excursion as his bike is apparently very good on rough tracks.
A bit further on I stopped to take in the view. Countryside for miles around, just great. This was taken at Greenhow Hill, above Pateley Bridge.
And here is the view from the other side of Pateley Bridge with Gouthwaite reservoir in the distance. I never got round to taking any photos at the rally and the next morning it was pouring with rain, so no more photos from this weekend unfortunately.

MZ Trophy Sport now running much better

I raised the needle in the carburettor by one notch on Monday evening and went for a test run. That's cured it. The bike now pulls really well with no pinking and just a slight lack of willingness to rev as highly as perhaps it should. I think this may be due to a clogged up exhaust which I will attempt to clear by going for a long run on main roads to see if it unclogs itself.

I went up to Buckstones at dusk, a viewpoint only a few miles away and one of the highest points around, right on the top of the Pennines. I love it there and it is ideal for a quick spin out. The A62 can be seen in the distance. It gets quite high as it crosses the Pennines, but it can be seen that the Buckstones road is much higher still. A lorry driver there told me that years ago he and a few mates had a bike just like mine as a field bike. He seemed very pleased to see the bike.

A degree of success with the Trophy Sport

Last night, aided by my mate Jonny the 250 Trophy Sport was treated to a replacement chain and new needle, needle jet and main jet in the carburettor. The former has got rid of the tight spot and the latter has definitely made a great difference. Before the bike was always running rich and vibrated a lot. Fuel consumption was poor at well under 50 MPG. The needle was visibly worn and the main jet seemed to be the wrong size.

I had a good run out tonight up on to the tops of the Pennines and back and the bike runs a lot smoother, but now there is a degree of pinking at mid throttle openings. This I was expecting as this type of MZ engine has the spark plug in at an angle from the right hand side and pinking can be a problem. It is possible to ride round it, but it is an irritation. I may try and raise the needle a notch to see if that cures it, but I am now confident in using the bike and will see how it goes.