SQ4 Clutch Investigation

 After the Blakeney run, Tom reported that the SQ4 clutch was slipping when he got home - he couldn't get it to go over 50 mph without the clutch slipping. 

We rebuilt it using the new plates from the W/NG, which got it's old Ferodo plates back; middle grandson Felix helped with the job:

We made a little pointer to show the pressure plate was lifting squarely:

Oddly, it wouldn't function with the old pushrod - We had to add 1/8" to the pushrod length, having found the original 12 3/4" wasn't long enough but 13" was too long. We settled on 12 7/8".

A month later, we had the opposite problem where it wouldn't disengage - Tom took it apart again and adjusted it, and all was well. Sticky new plates, or some intermittent fault?

VMCC Blakeney Run

 Sunday brings the first VMCC run of the year, the first of many I hope. The W/NG is at son Tom's house with a dead speedo, so the first trip of the day is to go down there, meet up and replace the speedo cable.

That done, it's off to the start point at Spooner Row just outside Wymondham via a petrol stop.

We arrive on time (for the first time!) and sign on, grab a cup of coffee and are welcomed by the crowd falling easily into chatting about our bikes and where we have come from. One or two remember us from Letheringsett 2022 and from a Blue Sky run I did on my own a few years back. At 11, we set off for Blakeney, a 40 mile trip through the Norfolk countryside. Tom leads, as both bikes have route rollers now:

Tom leads that is until his speedo cable snaps again at 7 miles into the run, 27 miles into the day. Tulip sheet navigation is tough with no speedo! I take over, and we arrive safe and sound at Blakeney Quay, for coffee and a burger from Birdys Bakehouse, and very nice it was too.

Tom shares my enthusiasm for Scott motorcycles:

We are joined by one of their owners, who gives us a guided tour of their eccentricities:

There are some more pictures here, on the Norwich Section VMCC website.

Tom and I part on the way home - he's riding the SQ4, as there is a lot of oil coming from the rear of the top end of the W/NG and the speedo needs fixing again. That's 85 miles - hardly fault free but neither of us stopped unexpectedly.

Bring on the next one!

W/NG - kickstart repair

 There's always something. There I am, minding my own business and riding the W/NG to my current house renovation project and thinking I've done most of the work on it, when the kickstart fails. It sometimes jams, failing to move the engine and feeling very solid. This is why:

See the first tooth on the quadrant? It's jammed against the pinion. The second tooth will do this too and the way to remedy it is to put the bike in gear, move it a fraction (to move the mainshaft pinion) and kick again, when it will work.

Trouble was, this time I wasn't paying attention and gave it a mighty kick, breaking the quadrant. Damn thing is only 80 years old:

Ariel owners are blessed with the splendid AOMCC, one of the most friendly clubs I have come across and with a superb spares scheme. I had a new quadrant in two days, and given that I had asked the gearbox spares man to find me a new one on Easter Monday (I'm writing this on Wednesday) I think that is pretty impressive.

It's all fixed now.

MZ TS125 - Petrol tank rust repair

This is going to be a bit of a leap of faith - my first fuel tank repair. This is an MZ TS125/150 tank from son Thomas and has fortunately been empty for many years, having been stored in the open in someone’s garden - no wonder it’s rusty.

It’s made from two deep pressings, with a third to form the arch over the frame top tube. There appears to have been a butt weld between the two halves, which has corroded to holes. My plan is to take out the whole weld, all the way around, along with a 1/2” strip either side and then let in a 1” strip of 0.9 mm sheet. I make no apologies for mixing units - anarchy is alive and well here in the workshop.

Using the little Dremel discs to cut out the strip makes the job easy. It’s ideal if you can keep the sides parallel, since then you can make a filler with parallel sides and have a minimal gap which will require minimal filler material. 

I held the sections in with magnets while tacking up:

The first section went in OK - I welded in short sections to avoid overheating the material and causing distortion:

It’s quite a slow job, but if you make sure you have a good position as you weld it’s not too difficult.

I used the little belt sander to clean the welds back:

Not a bad result, though it will need a skim of filler:

Pressure testing revealed two pin holes in my welding which were easily fixed. More worrying is a further pin hole behind one of the brackets, which is completely inaccessible and looks like it might turn into a bigger hole:

I’m going to use a tank sealant to fix that. More later.

W/NG - Horn Repair

 Well it's been a week of cracking through little bike jobs, alongside welding up rust holes in the fuel tank of yet another Eastern Bloc two-stroke, this time an MZ TS125 - but more of that later.

For some while the W/NG horn has been a little touchy, because the horn adjuster doesn't work very well due to a stripped brass lock nut, though I improved it a lot in the middle of last summer by squashing the nut slightly. It has an odd thread, 0.209" x 36 tpi which I found by luck on eBay - it's a bicycle tyre valve core thread!

The adjuster lives behind the tone ring nut:

The one that was fitted had a 10 mm hexagon and was a half nut - it may have been 0 BA at one time and forced on, but I suspect it was the original as it was cadmium plated, or perhaps faded nickel over brass. I made a new one out of 0.445" EN1 hexagon bar, turned with a significant chamfer on one side to clear the inside of the domed tone ring nut:

It works beautifully.

That's it for a bit on W/NG repairs. I still have the bum pad to make and the dynamo bearing felt to put in, and I have to monitor the new seal in the decompressor. The jury is still out on the field stand springs - they still have a safety chain on, though it hasn't made another bid for freedom since I tightened and retempered the bottom spring.