My Minor

[tortron]

This thing hangs out in the back of most of my pictures. So here's a run down

I bought it 10 years ago looking like this
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/morrisminorside.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/morrie1.jpg

It's a 1951 4 door Morris minor. Powered with a 918cc side valve 4 cylinder engine and a 4 on the floor box.

I painted it Matt black and daily drove it while I was at uni.
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/painted.jpg

Gradually I started fixing it up and replacing all the worn out stuff. Not too bad for rust, everything rubber had failed, and the brakes were toast.
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/painted.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/wingrepair1.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/por15sills.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/1951%20Morris%20Minor/paintedside.jpg

And since then it's been in and out of storage. I usually do a bit of work on it every year or so
At this point every part of it has been apart and replaced or rebuilt, or modified. I'm at the point where I'm replacing stuff I originally replaced when I got it......
Paint has taken a hammering in storage so it's due for a touch up. Probably black again. I have red leather seats front and back, new black carpets and headliner, still need to do the doors. I made a custom 5 dial instrument panel and have a very rare clock in the glove box and Speedo with trip meter
Engine wise I have skimmed the head to up the compression, tracked down a rare optional water pump (not fitted unless special order) ported the intake and exhaust, lightened the flywheel, and most recently fitted a twin carb and tubular exhaust (I also have a small supercharger that I might put on). I also have an electric fan.

I have a lowlight grill I'm going to put fog lamps in
http://mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php?src=1221238550_2393


Currently it's lowered 2 inches front and back, but I don't know now, I'm getting too old to try get under low stuff. Shocks are lever arm and we're rebuilt at great expense


http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/2013-09-10182006.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/P1070113.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q194/tortrontortron/P1070111.jpg


Just last week I got stuck back into it

https://i.imgur.com/j1hPural.jpg

Ran some fuel lines for the twin carbs (fuel pump failed and rebuilt last year)

And skimmed the flywheel and put a new clutch in as I had a bad shudder (mixed some used parts I had and it didn't work out unfortunately so all new now)
And added another muffler, a wide band port, and a v band clamp to my custom stainless "bigbore" 1 1/2" exhaust

https://i.imgur.com/w2jN5bRl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/wW0lLAol.jpg

Doesn't seem like it, but dang that's 10 years of work

[tortron]

Though I should add, the only work i didn't do myself was resleaving the master cylinder, skimming the head and surfacing the flywheel. Not too bad I think.

Coming up this round of work?
Well I still have to put the gearbox back in. And in order to get it out I had to take the master cylinder out so put all that back in. Bleed the brakes etc.
Tune the twin carbs, I have all new needles and gaskets in them.
Some rust has come through in the boot lid (I fixed it years ago, but the factory drain holes are an inch from the bottom and it only empties water when you lift it and have your head underneath). I have a set of wheels to have the centres knocked out and put in modern rims (too much hadtle getting 135/14 tyres, plus they don't have safety lips so the tyres are prone to falling off when driven hard)
Swap out the grill and inner guards for the low light ones
Retrim door panels
Install beehive heater (luxury!)
Some of the wiring could do with attention is all the original and largely in modified but man it's brittle.

That's more or less it this time around. I think I'll touch up a few repairs and bits for a fresh coat of paint next time

[geezer101]

As a kid I used to see moggies all over the place, like minis and beetles. Now - nada. I bet you don't see any of them in the land of the long white cloud either. You gonna heat wrap the headers? It might help with keeping your intake temps a little lower. Such a fun thing to drive around in I bet :)

[royster]

Memory lane, for me - I had a '58 two door back in 1974. I traded a '61 Valiant for it. It still could be hand-cranked, so I can say that at least once in my life, I hand-crank-started a car - but not before it whacked the hell out of my forearm.

The wiring fried, one day, and I sold it for $50 to a Morris Minor enthusiast. Of course, the steering wheel was on the left side.

Thanks for sharing this, Tortron!

[tortron]

Plenty of minors about in NZ geezer. In the summer I see at least one a week, saw 2 in one day on opposite sides of the city the other day (one was even a van). Still get offered wrecks when people find out I have one so plenty rotting away behind sheds and the like!

No plan on wrapping these ones, I did the last set I built and the runners actually iced up. They are about twice as long as the original (heated by the exhaust log manifold. Yuck) and incorporate Bakelite spacers, so there's minimal heat transfer. Might paint them white 50s style.
The direction of the build is how I would have had it if I built it in the 50s, perhaps leaning towards a factory special. So keeping everything period correct (yeah I'm cheating with the electric fan, but the solid mount fan on the generator sucks and I already lost a radiator to it. Plus the distributor is actually a modern repo with a full electronic setup inside, I found my o.g. had some weird play in the body after skimming the head....)
So that's basically why I'm not swapping the engine. An a series, it even better a Datsun A series would be dirt cheap, bolt right in, and make twice the power right off the bat..

Roster - sounds like a good swap! I considered a lhd conversion just for a laugh, it only takes a couple hours (apart from the gauges in these early ones not being in the centre). When I first got this one the starter was broken so I used the crank start for about a year before fixing it, never any problems apart from the wof inspectors complaining about it not being practical....
Unfortunately I can't use it now with the electronic dizzy. But I do still run a generator rather than an alternator (oh yeah it's converted to negative earth too) so could fix the original and keep it in the boot just in case

[geezer101]

The negative earth explains why it hasn't turned into a pile of iron oxide by now. English cars... Is there a big NZ enthusiasts community with Morries that keeps them going? It's funny how such a tiny country has such a diversity with vehicles - too bad you guys get fiercely gouged at the petrol pumps. My local price for 91 is about $1.30 p/L AUD (it was $1.62 a few weeks ago) I had a little Ford Prefect for a while but the rust was out of control and a bunch of the mechanicals had been cobbled together badly. I then had my eye on an '53 Anglia for a pocket hotrod but I had to pass on that project.

[tortron]

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Gearbox and cross member back in and attached to the driveshaft.
Special ordered some 30mm copper washers for the engine and gearbox sump bolts. So they are in and filled with fresh oil.

Now I need to put the master cylinder in and rebleed the whole system.
And then finally, at last, I can staet on tuning the carbs

[geezer101]

It always amazes me with Brit gearboxes. They are so dinky to look at but are built to take a direct hit from a tank shell. I can't say I've ever heard of one 'blowing up' so to speak.

[tortron]

So I captivated my crossmember nuts, put all the brake lines back in, hooked up the clutch linkage.
Pulled the manifolds and tightened up everything and put in some new gaskets in the flanges.
Had ordered the wrong choke lever, which isn't too much of a problem but looks better having matching ones. Made a cheap fix 21448

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Yup that's an old NZ 5 cent piece. I had some steel I was going to use
But this will give someone a chuckle down the line I'm sure.

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Can attach the cable well enough now.

Remembered how to prime an SU fuel pump and it seems to work properly now it's worn the points in a little. Got it warm, good oil pressure, spat a bunch of red liquid out of the water gallery gasket initially but it seems to have sealed itself up. Have it a basic tune enough to get it at a slow idle when warm.

https://youtu.be/x45HodJAX90

Seems to be real hot, the air filter backing plates get almost too hot to touch after just a few minutes at idle. Shouldn't be dangerously lean (unless I messed up on my carb needle selection) so I expect it to improve with a half decent carb and timing tune. This carb set up came with a heat shield but it's a pita to install, but that could be a path worth exploring

[tortron]

Did I mention I have a lowlight grill? They originally switched to the high in guard lights because of American light laws, the minor was ment to be what the VW became.

I got the grill 10 years ago. Turns out it wouldn't fit due to the headlights fouling on the inner guards, even without the headlights in the headlight area hits. Had hoped that mine being a really early high light it would fit sort of.

So I got some lowlight inner guard panels, about 6 years ago, unobtainable basically

https://i.imgur.com/b0dDagol.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ZuvGhHkl.jpg
They rust out up top where the wheel flicks muck up.

https://i.imgur.com/579DXHsl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Mu60aMtl.jpg
First one not too bad. Good enough to copy

Next one. Kinda thin
https://i.imgur.com/mXqdzVRl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BN3nRYrl.jpg
Using a hammer and dolly on all these patches. Welding the flanges on. A shrinker stretcher would be great for the next rusty car.
https://i.imgur.com/ZPSGzS6l.jpg

From all the fresh steel, this was pretty thin
https://i.imgur.com/WxuqUHsl.jpg

[xboxrox]

COOL CARtortron ----> I especially like the big fenders, round headlamps & visor... Seeing it painted black reminds me of the 1st car I bought in Sasebo Japan back in 1967... It was a rather rusty black 1955 Datsun 4 door sedan; damn, that it ancient history...

[tortron]

So I now own another

A 1962 Morrie Thou
A little beaut.

https://i.imgur.com/eymSJlf.jpg

Well until you get under it
https://i.imgur.com/cCaxJ4h.jpg

Chassis legs have rusted out and a little in the boot. But the body work is good, it has a decent paint job, and a retrimmed interior.
It's an abandoned project. Looks like this at the moment
https://i.imgur.com/DVjGk8K.jpg

It's a bit of a task. I have replaced the chassis legs on my 51 so I'm not too worried about that. There's also a few little patches in the boot area (again same as mine)
The major downside is that the registration has lapsed sonic need it re vinned and inspected and they don't like to see signs of repair without a repair cert.
I think I can do it well enough to avoid that. (They also don't like fresh paint or underseal but I'll just paint the whole underside)
Apparently it comes with the repair sections and all parts required, and it has the original 1000cc and the 1275cc from a midget. Will have to revin with the thou.
Not surprised it was abandoned it's an intimidating job. But I figure I can do the rust over a couple of weekends. Engine in and running on another. If it's on a minor I've already done it.

If it's a basket case I'll part it out I guess. It was pretty cheap.

[tortron]

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Well it took about 12 hours round trip for what should have been 5 max thanks to me forgetting about Easter traffic.

She's very nice. Also has the original plates and heaps of paperwork. So I should be able to keep those plates and get it re registered pretty easily. One engine in bits, appears to be a fully rebuilt one for some reason taken out and head off. Other is probably a 1275 and was bench run. Otherwise I dunno anything about it.
A few bits are apart, but the bulk of its there. Only seems to be missing the driveshaft, but will unload and check it out in the AM.
Paints pretty decent, interior is brand new. Front chassis legs are no longer existant, and the patches last owner made are not to my standards (made from sections and looks wonky to me) IL probably cut it out and order premade ones to save me making them.

The paper work is great. The second owner lived just down the road from me

[geezer101]

Yikes! That is some really ugly rust hiding under the glossy painted shell.

[tortron]

Yup. I was totally prepared to strip this one for parts.
But reading the history and receipts it would seem that everywhere else has already been replaced before paint. There's no nasty bubbles in the body work so I'm thinking it is just those chassis legs needing replacing. Can get a pair from the usual minor parts suspects for around 300 delivered. So might just do that. By the time I measure twice and cut once (sections include the lower A arm mount etc) its probably smarter just to get them sent.
In any case the guys patchwork repairs don't fly with me, so they definitely won't fly with a grumpy inspector

[tortron]

Have all the parts needed to have this on the road again. Have CAD file drawn up of the alignment jig, place I asked to make it haven't gotten back to me. So need to chase that up.
Can't start till my Ute is rolling again anyway.

Here's my current winter ride
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Brand new off the showroom floor 2019 Suzuki gn125.
Amazingly it does over 100kph 2 up which is better than the gn250 I had 10 years ago. I wonder if they are using the 150cc cylinders that are printed 125...
Anyway. Nice little economic bike for the city with no risk of being stolen or tears if I find it knocked on its side.
A few mods make it that little bit better, I built a pannier rack for some canvas bicycle bags and put on some fork gaiters and a headlamp guard to save premature wear from road grit, and will look the part on some camping adventures (I want to embarrass the boys on their 1200 BMW adventure bikes) also have an led light bar to go on and a screen. Rack cost me $8 in steel and all the bits I bought came in under $40 so it's cheap fun. Currently costs $0.05 per km to run, can't take the train for that!

[tortron]

Ordered the wrong switch, but I threw the rest on anyways and just have some toggles ziptied to the bars for now.
Dual function LED light bar white flood and amber fog light was my idea.
Run off a relay from the battery rather than off the ign, but I don't think il forget and drain the battery. The switch lights up too.
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[tortron]

Pretty much fully "built" now
Only thing I would really change is the tyres, came with cheap city tyres that are ok for about 50kph in the dry. A set of spoked wheels at a size where I can get good tyres would be a welcome addition, but are worth more than the bike
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I have some plastic hand guards, not so much for brush protection but for the wind. But I sneak through a pedestrian gate and I barely get through as it is.

Going to go on a few back road/gravel rides and see how it goes. Maybe just an a/t front tyre would be fine. Looking at the "farm modified" gn125s they sell here all they do is raise the front guard, add rubber mudflaps, lower the gearing, flat bar with brush guards, and canvas seat cover, and those things get given hell in all sorts of muck. So probably I would never need to raise the exhaust like a DR125 or need a sump guard.

Dirty thoughts about riding around the world or something silly, but maybe around NZ first

[tortron]

So I went ahead and got a new front tyre
A heidenau k60 scout. Same size 90/90 18, some say they don't like the way it feels on the road, but considering the factory front tyre on this costs $18 for a new one I'm Gona say it will handle much nicer. I rode home in the rain the other day and needed about 5 times the stopping distance so hopefully a half decent tyre will help.
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Rear tyre is a 16. So not many options there. Ideally I would swap to the earlier wire spoke wheels and run 18" front and back. But I don't want to spend any money on that. The rear tyre is kinda chunky and I'm more concerned about washing out the front anyways.

So some final finishing mods
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A sheepskin pram liner with the head piece removed fits quite well.
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A 12v socket this side and I will fit a dual USB with volt meter on the other. Ign switched relay circuit from the battery with an on off switch mounted behind the battery cover as well.
I think that's all I will do to this bike, other than some fiddling to set up the suspension just right. I think I can fit two 1.5L fuel bottles in the rear pocket of my panniers, and that would be an additional 100km/60miles I could go, I already have a ultra small tent that will go well on this (my wife and I can juuusssst squeeze in together, but have been thinking of a tarp to sling over the bike as additional cover.
I don't think I will need a bash plate (maybe as the bike gets older I will abuse it further...) The exhaust could be adjusted a little.
Maybe a bolt on plate to increase the foot of the side stand would be useful.

Looking forward to getting into some good weather this summer, there's quite a few sea side camp sites an hour or two ride from where I am, so some mini camping adventures are coming up.

[Giovanni89]

Sweet little bike! MSR fuel bottles (used for white gas camping stoves) make great extra fuel storage. You can buy a version of their whisperlite stove that will burn gasoline from the bottle as well if you want a camp stove for your adventures. I'm lucky. Giant fuel tanks are available for my big red pig. 2297022971229742297522976

[tortron]

Yup I cycled 15 months with a whisperlite, I even wore it totally out, msr saw my blog and sent me a new one.
I now have two 1.5L fuel bottles (not msr, I will inspect them before putting them under pressure with fuel inside), so besides the stove I can go another 60miles. I was pretty surprised to see the total range of those dual sports, I get nearly 400 before bone dry. I'm not going to do it, but you can buy parts for these GN's so cheap that it would be worth it buying another tank and making it bigger if needed.

Not that I'm too serious about it, but it gets a few laughs from riders when they see it kitted out for offroad

[tortron]

Fitted the scout today
The nipples touch the fender, so I may raise it a little for offroad stuff, to avoid filling it with mud and gravel.
Also got two 1.5L fuel bottles which will work with my MSR stove and give me about 110km extra range
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[Giovanni89]

That tire looks a lot more grippy! Nice setup. You're going to have a lot of fun on that bike

[tortron]

I hear they are not so great on the highway. But considering its a 50/50 tyre and the front tyre that came with the bike is cheaper than the ones on my bicycle, I think it should still be a massive improvement.

Wired in the relay etc for the 12v sockets. Deutsch connectors so at least my wiring won't be the ones to fail.

Turns out there is an unused socket under the tank, at least 3 of the wires are for a fuel gauge that NZ models don't have. One is an ign switched 12v so easy wiring.


Don't have the usb one for the other side yet, but wires are ready to go


https://youtu.be/W3lnLIWG_qo

[tortron]

All wired up, replaced some connectors with Deutsch ones.

Headed over to the east coast and yesterday I crossed the old Motu road and then back through the waioeka gorge. My great grandfather had a farm up there and he hand built the Motu road. Carrying his camp and tools in a wheel barrow and slowly traveling along with his wife as he built it with a pick and shovel.

Only met 2 hunters in a 4wd and a propper adv bike.
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[85Ram50]

Looks sweet.Must be nice with Spring coming on down there.

[tortron]

Through the gorge there is always cold and wet. The local tribe is called Tuhoe which means Children of the mist. It must have been real hard country in the old days. My dad spent alot of time fur trapping up in there, 3 months at a time long before cell phones or plb's, if the helicopter couldn't come it would be a few days hike out

[Giovanni89]

That looks like some absolutely amazing riding. Really cool to ride down a road your great grandfather built by hand. Must be surreal.
How did that front tire do?

[tortron]

Bike handled pretty well, gets a little death wobbly in the deep gravel, but I think that's to be expected, just have to muscle it and take care. Had a few stones ringing though the front fender but nothing too bad. Handled the muddy parts and the river crossings very well.
I love that area, it just feels like I belong there

[tortron]

Pretty windy coming back from the east coast the other day. Had me knocking right back down the gears in headwinds and I said nah that's not cool.

When I got home I ordered a 150cc big block kit. It only cost $80 nzd so pretty cheap for a barrel, piston, rings and gaskets etc, even came with some viton valve seals. I weighed the bike
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And myself and went and did some Gtech runs. The data graphs weren't very good but showed the ticket 11ho is about right.
Then when I got home I swapped in the 150 kit and took it for a warm up run.
Seems to have a bit more in the middle, same top speed as expected but I can probably gear it up a bit now. Pulled the plug after a wot run and it's a nice light brown. Will get home now plugs tomorrow and do some further testing.

[Giovanni89]

Talk about inexpensive parts! I'm scared to know what that thing weighs, because I'm almost certain I weigh more :grin:

[geezer101]

The cops will never pick up on the increase of cc's but it probably doesn't matter. Did it come with a rejet kit and spacer?

[tortron]

Increase in cc would be picked up at WOF check if they were pedantic.

New quality rings installed. They looked better than the previous ones. I goofed a little when I checked what jetting an en150 has +same carb #115 main jet. I was sure the GN took a 115 jet as well, but it turns out it's a 110 so must have gone lean on the big hill as well.

Put it all together yesterday again and put in a #120 (baggie of jets I bought forgot to put the #115 in. Typical)

Have a wideband welded into the exhaust. Running rich on WOT. So will scrounge up a #115 and she how we go

[tortron]

Scrounged up a #115 main jet and went for a tootle around the back roads.
It's on the rich side of a good tune right though the range so maybe a 112.5 if there is such a thing. So I'm thinking it must have only jjjjuuuuussssttt leaned out at WOT. Will keep the jets in my pocket and the wideband in the bike for a while and see how she goes. Pretty warm today so may be a good tune outside of summer

[tortron]

Been fixing this thing upfor our tenant (so I don't have a p.o.s on my lawn haha)
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2000 ford explorer. Given to him for free.
No pics before work I think, but it's all there
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Was rusty

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Made it not rusty

Got a replacement headliner from the wreckers as original was shredded

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It ran wierd in the drive there, and it had a engine light on.
Intake vac line was split bad, so made a new one from bits in the garage
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Runs nice now, just needs a new temp sensor for the gauge.

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Stripped it down and scuffed it up
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Lucky I ordered all the stuff needed before we got locked down. My south Auckland chop shop has it on lock


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Did the doors a couple days ago. Quite like this colour. It's Audi nardo grey.

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Base and clear done today. Not too bad. Can work on my clear orange peel, by the time I'd finished I had it down pretty well with the new gun and compressor

[geezer101]

The grey is kinda growing on me. When I first saw it on an Audi I thought, "it's a bit bland..." but it's clean and subtle. I'd consider respraying the beige chalk board in it TBH :)

[tortron]

Out in the afternoon sun
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i quite like the subtle pastels. greys, browns, snifter greens. they look nice and clean, i probably wont change the colour of my truck from gold tho

[geezer101]

Nice job dude :thumbup:The cancer in the roof is scary but it's no worse than what is growing around the roof racks on my Hung Dog. Don't know if it's worth getting it patched and painted...

[tortron]

if you are paying a shop to do it, its probably not going to be cheap. Alright for me with a welder etc and some free time
same as fixing any old car i guess

[Giovanni89]

Interesting. The Ranger is a pickup in the states. That is the SUV based off of that platform, that we call the Explorer. In the 60's/70's, the Ranger and Explorer were trim packages for the F series pickups.
Looks good!

[tortron]

Woops yes it's an explorer. It autocorrected I think after looking for cheap factory ranger wheels. They all get taken off and 20s fitted

[geezer101]

Were the first model Exploders the ones that had a recall due to faulty rear brake lines? :shock:

[tortron]

these ones had a poor tyre choice on them and kept going upside down i believe

[geezer101]

Oh, is it that Bridgestone/Ford debacle when Ford stated a too lower tyre PSI on the door placard to counteract the poor ride quality, and it caused tyres to blow? :shakehead:

[tortron]

Can't get any paint as it's non essential. Some durepox primer and some clear came out pretty good
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Came out pretty good considering the what I would call minimal prep. If it was mine I'd have done another coat of primer and another couple days of sanding, but tenant would rather drive it than sand so that's fine, don't want it looking too good, it's just a 2001 ford eh

Need some more trim clips as I cut them off rather than spend time fiddling to get them out. Cheaper to replace than waste my time

[geezer101]

Pretty good - I wouldn't have a problem with a finish like that :grin:

[tortron]

Theres some dust here and there and a couple of runs in the clear where i ran out of room in the garage to swing my arm. Can correct that once the paint has some time to harden up no problem. I notice every little mark though, if it was my truck id have spent the extra time on it.
does look good if you dont know where to look ahhaa

[tortron]

Here is a ride we went on this feb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwvWMjehI6U&feature=youtu.be<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwvWMjehI6U&amp;feature=youtu.be">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwvWMjehI6U&amp;feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwvWMjehI6U&feature=youtu.be)

[tortron]

Saw some kittens in my woodpile the other day. Put a trap out last night and got both of them. Mum is hanging around still but I don't have a trap big enough for her.
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Not totally wild, they are happy to take food from your hand, but not happy about being handled. I will feed and socialize them for a while, wife has found homes for them (but has hinted at keeping them. No thanks)

Made up some transport boxes so I can get them out of here. Haha
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[geezer101]

Nice humanitarian work tortron. Marty would approve ;)

[tortron]

As long as they aren't eating the native birds I try attract and pissing in my garage I'm fine. Don't need any more strays around here

[Giovanni89]

I vaguely remember reading that feral cats were a big problem in New Zealand. Really upsetting the eco system. Little fur missile hunters. Am I remembering correctly?

[tortron]

Yeah. Horrible things, probably the worst invasive species.

Today I dug out some Morrie parts. Have a 1098cc engine bottom end that was once in my red minor. A few months ago I bought 3 heads, all of them had worn out rocker shafts. I ordered a new shaft and it arrived just before our lockdown. So I took a break from some mitsi welding and thought I'd dig through my pile and get enough bits to slap it back together so I can sell it off to fund the other engine, and free up some storage space.

Cleaned it all up. It's got the original pistons in it. I have a stack of records for work done to it, dunno if I would go back to that mechanic though, all the seals have clear silicone on them.

Anyways. I looked it over and couldn't see any reason it wouldn't go back together and run. Would probably benefit from a rering. If it breathes to much I might do that before selling, top end gasket sets are dirt cheap.
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I cleaned everything up and thought hey I have an old tin of some kind of olive green. That's what it was sold to me as and the sploge of paint on the lid was kind of light but dull and green. Close enough to an old Morris engine.


Huh, it didn't mix up right, it kept leaving streaks, must just be too old, oh well it's a junk old engine, spray it on


Hahahaha
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It's way brighter than the sploge on the lid. And the wierd mixing? It's got gold metallic through it. Well at this point I figured I'd go all in and clear coat it

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[geezer101]

Looks like a display engine. That metallic flipped green is out of control! It actually looks half decent. Metallic is a PITA to spray but it can only be worse if you didn't know it was metallic in the first place...

[xboxrox]

tortron, nice vid your country looks peaceful and quiet all pretty green...

[tortron]

Absolutely gutted. The rockershaft is for something else, possibly a b series. It's about 3 inches too long and also too large in diameter. This really put a damper on progress. I would have got it going today otherwise.

Went though my parts bins and picked out all theissing nuts and bolts and nuts and pieces

Fished up a spare starter that I put new brushes in years ago and never got working right. Will play with that in the morning and sort it out, a dodgy connection I think. Can Rob the generator from my 1300 as I'm putting an alternator on that. Then it's just missing a distributor cap, rotor, plugs and leads. Will retap the water pump bypass to the head in 3/8bsp as it's normally a unified special thread and not easy to get a tap and die in. Can buy a new fitting, but for a couple of dollars I can put a decent brass one on (or easily block it off as most people recommend).
Missing a disc in the oil filter unit, I wonder if it was run like that for a while, plenty of sludge in the tappet gallery, without the disk the oil bypasses the filter.
Then some seals for the rocker.cover bolts and the tappet cover bolts.

I think I will have less than $100 in it so hopefully I can get a little bit back for parts for my 1300

[tortron]

24787
Put the valves in and lapped them

24788
24789

Dug out some parts from my stash and put them on, painted the remaining other bits gloss grey for some contrast. Starter and generator were already silver and black.
Then cleared this side of the garage out and slid the engine away till I get the missing shaft.
Start back in the L200 tomorrow

[tortron]

Noticed my pillion peg/muffler has fallen off
24969

Could weld it on in about 5mins but I wanna see what Suzuki wants to do under warranty. It's not even a year old and the welds are falling off? Not good

[xboxrox]

Bummer, where is the broken part?

[tortron]

The boss that the pillion peg and muffler bolts through has broken away from the small frame triangle

[tortron]

24970

[geezer101]

That's not good. I know that they break frame mounts for the engines on MX bikes but that peg and exhaust mount are hardly under any real stress. The fact that the pillion peg rubber has literally zero signs of wear on it would indicate this hasn't failed from abuse.

[tortron]

Yeah. I used to do jumps on my Japanese built gn250 and had no issues with it. This is just trash quality. My wife has sat on it a couple times, she's pretty tiny. I don't even think the muffler would vibrate to fatigue it. It just... Fell off...
Appalling for the cheapest new bike on the NZ market! Haha. Got in touch with the dealer tonight so hopefully hear back next week. warranty still has 2 months on it, but CGA would cover this regardless.
Just curious if they will just weld it back on and ignore that the other welds are potentially like this, of if it means a new bike/frame

[geezer101]

Problem with welding bike frames is it makes them even more brittle. It would probably need to be TIG'd. I don't ever remember having a bike frame fail/warranty when I was assembling them for a dealership. It's rare. If it was a bad Chinese knock off I'd expect there to be all kinds of build quality issues, but there are obscure forums out there that help guys debug them and make them into half reliable machines...

[tortron]

GN isn't going to have heat treated steel, mig weld to your heart's content. I made note of the quality of welds on the day I bought it, pretty spattery. GNs are made in china now

[geezer101]

^really? Suzuki needs a smack over the knuckles. I know the GN is a dinosaur but this is still a road registered bike (and a new one too) I'd weld the b@stard myself at that rate :shakehead: And China does know how to weld. Did Suzuki farm the frame assembly out to the guys that made K-Marts' kids bikes...

[tortron]

Haha we made the joke about those "not for off-road use" mountain bikes too when I noticed this

I'll see what Suzuki wants to do under warranty

[xboxrox]

Get them to fix it under warranty MIG 'n accept only an original joint design & weld... Later, you could add your own gusset use MIG :thumbup:

[Giovanni89]

Oxy-Acetylene is still widely used for chromoly tubing frames in aviation and motorsports. I doubt this is chromoly, but The extra heat put into the tubing by torch welding allows it to cool more slowly and anneal the weld. you can also use dead soft filler rods. Lots of weld failures in high vibration environments occur because the weld has 2-3 times the tensile strength of the base metal. This creates a stress riser where the edge of the weld meets the base metal (typically where you see failure)

[xboxrox]

Oxy-Acetylene is still widely used for chromoly tubing frames in aviation and motorsports. I doubt this is chromoly, but The extra heat put into the tubing by torch welding allows it to cool more slowly and anneal the weld. you can also use dead soft filler rods. Lots of weld failures in high vibration environments occur because the weld has 2-3 times the tensile strength of the base metal. This creates a stress riser where the edge of the weld meets the base metal (typically where you see failure)

Giovanni :thumbup:

For welding -- Our USNavy required us to know the base metal material & then choose the specific filler metal + they often used documents called "Welding Procedures" that called out the filler metal, weld type & joint types... The tensile strength of the filler wire/welding rod was often similar to the base metal OR a little higher psi (never lower that I recall)...

For brazing -- Oxy-Fuel torch braze welding a socket type joint makes a stronger joint; not sure how it might soften the bike frame... This is often called silver brazing, it's 800F so it's a weld... Try breaking these socket joints; almost cannot, must destroy the item to do so... This is because the area bonded is much larger than external weld joints... Silver brazed socket joints are difficult to perform with good bond (80%+) because unlike regular weld joints, you cannot see the weld metal flowing and bonding inside the socket...

Stay Safe :grouphug:

[tortron]

My touring bike is all hand brazed. It's done a lot of hard miles. I did some work on it the last few days
25004
I have some pretty nice stainless steel racks on it, 30 year guarantee outta Germany. But the stays are aluminium and I snapped one of the eyelets, it hot bent around a bit in my travels. I don't like the one size fits all set up, so I made my own
25005
Stainless steel capillary tube and flat stock. Part of making new ones was that I switched my brake set up to V brakes and I now use two sets of brake levers on the bars, so I have to use a ratio corrector at the brake end.
The kink is to clear that
25006
25007

Came out very nice. I used sil flow 55% silver brazing rod

Got a few other small jobs on it, a few repairs on old parts. Replacing stripped out threads in the derailleur, I stripped them out in the Atacama desert and Rand a nut and bolt through it, which means it has to be set in the perfect position otherwise you don't get all the gears, and I stripped that bolt last week haha. New shift levers to some that have a built in tag to adjust the, current ones I have to stop and find a coil every 600km. Fixed my bell mount. It was peened over on a spacer, that got torn out on a plane and re peened and then return out on the flight home.... I remade that with some titanium tube and bolt.

Did some more work to the wife's bike too. Lower granny gear on the crank, have a good sealed bearing bottom bracket to swap out the cartridge style one with and I have some cantilever brake posts to braze on. It was 27" now running 700c tyres and so I'm using some long reach rim brakes from the late 70s on it. They work, but don't look good. And my old canti set up will be much better


My frame is a 79 shogun 500. It was built from factory as a touring bike. It had some ok bits on it, but I sold most of that off and fully rebuilt it. The frame, cranks and seat post are original. I build my own wheels for them. Mine has tens of thousands of kilometres on it now, u have rebuilt it a couple of times to

[geezer101]

YOU SUCK. Now I HAVE to learn how to solder and weld in house. I bought myself a portable MAPP/Oxy kit from a wholesaler for the princely sum of $79 AUD. First test is copper for me. I am going to plumb rain water into my laundry and toilet and I don't want to use poly pipe other than from the pump. I would like (well, love...) an oxy/acetylene rig but they are too expensive for me to justify using once every 3 years.
You have mad skills tortron - enough to inspire me to have a go :thumbup:

[tortron]

That's just with mapp gas and a "turbo" torch. The oxy kit you have will be nicer to use I think. I would prefer a finer tip. Oxy acetylene is pretty out of reach of the home gamer here now.
You can use normal plumbers "lead" for the copper, I did a bunch of that a few years ago with just one of those little pen butane soldering torches

[geezer101]

They changed the rules (well, not the rules but gave CIG/BOC gases the finger) that you no longer had to lease the bottles from the monopoly holders and could just go and get bottles refilled that you can own. I liked oxy/acetylene at high school. Arc is rubbish and MIG is good if you can afford argon gas. TIG is at another level (haven't ever tried it and probably never will either :()

[85Ram50]

TIG is easy. The hardest part is learning to start an arc w/o sticking the T or breaking the tip off. Once you get that it is actually nearly the same as oxy/acetylene in that you are working a puddle and dipping a rod in it. If you learn to rock the cup its even easier than using an oxy torch
Pay attention to estate sales. I got a plumbers oxy acetylene kit with carrying rig (two small bottles you can carry in one hand with the hose wrapped up on it) for pretty cheap. I forget the price now its been 15 years.

[xboxrox]

I'm impressed, you guys know a lot about life, welding & metallurgy..! Even more about bikes..! :sportbike:

These factors will help you braze 'n solder better (think % of bond in the joint between the pieces 80%+ is great)
a) Low gas pressures -- keeps the heat from bouncing off the weldment -- oxy 6psi try 3 psi for fuel -- (can't remember BUT LOW pressure works) use a neutral flame
b) Joint fit-up -- keep tolerances close (.003" or less)
c) Clean base & filler metal (sanitary clean)
d) Best quality & proper Flux (clean & thinned with water if needed)
e) Proper torch manipulation (evenly heat the pieces) keep the torch moving

Aloha -- :smileyheart:
George (one new case Oahu today)

[tortron]

New project dog
Rescue, probably half English pointer. He's been plated and tagged apparently as he's got multiple vin numbers (micro chips lol) but is freshly regod
Pretty thin, but healthy. Not trained in any way but he's a sweetheart and learning the basics
25059

Here he is helping me work under the exploder
25058

[geezer101]

Nice tortron. And he's just doin' doggo stuff :grin:

[85Ram50]

Here is a picture of the oxy set up I have. Got the carrier with bottles at an estate sale and bought the hose and gauge kit at harbor freight. Normal sized fittings.The welder supply had to keep and test my bottles before they would sell me refills.
25064 25065

[geezer101]

That is a nice old school welding rig :grin: I get that gas suppliers have to make sure nobody does something sketchy with bottles and turn themselves into a crater but at least they don't hold you for ransom like they used to here.

[tortron]

got the GN back from suzuki
welded up with birdshit and fisheyes in the paint - so it matches the factory finish at least

bought a bunch of parts, but none of them ended up fitting (i got all the kick start components from a dr125, i had been told by someone that they had done a kickstart conversion to a gn, maybe an early gn, but this one doesnt have any of the castings inside the crankcase, got to use a dr bottom end to do it. Got a china performance cam, supposed to be a copy of the standard LT230 cam i believe, i ordered 3 of them since december last year, one finaly arrived, it was a standard cam at twice the price, so thats out, and 3rd i got a gs150 piston to see what i could do with it, would be good with a 200 or 230 head, but not for a gn125 head as shown below)

I said bugger it, and am getting a hotcams grind for the lt230, which should go well in this engine, but is expensive for a bike like this

so on to the work i can do

25232
left to right. totally flat 125 piston, slightly domed big bore kit piston (which i have taken the sharp edges off the valve recesses and mirror polished), much more domed gs150 piston.
25233
GN has squish areas like the head on the left. GS and i believe DR have a more open combustion chamber, and the DR200 and LT230 have a totally open combustion chamber and i beleve use a domed piston for the squish area. Early GNs have a piston with a big knuckle on top, so lets ignore those.

heres my head with a 125 head gasket (silver) and a 150 kit head gasket (black and 1/3rd the thickness)
25234
25235

heres a close up of the sharp edge of the squish area
25236
and im talking cut yourself on it sharp.

Now, heres my piston thats in there now
25237
Ive been getting blowby into the crankcase, and theres scuffing on the intake side only. I believe this has been caused by preignition.
I may have mentioned i have had to use premium 98 octane since i put the big bore kit in.

a short bit on squish areas
these act to prevent unwanted detonation by forcing the air fuel mix back towards the combustion chamber. You want a tight clearance to limit spots that can cause ignition, typically modern cars have a large squish area, and messing with them is generally discouraged

What i think is happening is that instead of the squish areas squishing the mix back towards the combustion chamber at TDC, that the clearance between the domed piston and the edge of that squish area is causing some of the mix to become trapped at the outer edge of the piston and causing preignition expecially when at high rpm or under load.
The flat edge on the piston is too narrow. Piston options are limited in this size with a 14mm pin size. Best performance option is to get a bigger head and a domed piston to match, next best is to get a flat top piston. next up is modify what i have and hope it works.
An extra base gasket is my back up plan.

I figured i could break that sharp edge to help the mix to flow past the dome edge better
25238
25239
25240
i broke the edge, and cleaned everything up to 1500 grit and then a polishing mop. At a guess i took maybe 1mm from the sharp point and rounded it over. The consensus is that you want that edge sharp, maybe a quick sand so you dont cut yourself, but dont round it. Well most people arent having knocking issues and are using bigger domed pistons in a higher compression chamber designed for a flat top, so i think im good, but im yet to test it.

and then while the head was apart i cleaned it up. nothing major as its about as good as its going to get already. (better to get a larger head that already has bigger ports and valves)
25241
Head is set up for EGR for some markets
25242
25243
little bit of a step on this machined section
casting is pretty good, just a little to clean up on the sides


80 grit finish on the intake
25244
took a little off the leading edge of the valve guide

25245

and similar with the exhaust, but i went through the grits and polished this
25246
25247

only tools used were an electric drill and a 6mm diameter aluminium rod with a slot in it to hold some sandpaper (and a polishing mop)


I have also polished the valve faces and backs (i left the back of the intake a bit rougher incase it helps the fuel tumble in) but mainly just to clean them up.

Sound about right Geezer?

[tortron]

oh i just found a piston that might suit for a 160cc. need to check out the height, but looks like it will work. its flat too

[geezer101]

Sounds spot on dude :thumbup:I haven't read up on your GN %100 - you derestricted the carb spacer and picked up a bigger main jet? I might round the back edge off the intake valve a little to improve fuel charge fill - and maybe index the spark plug so the open gap is facing into the roof of the combustion chamber just to be OCD.

[tortron]

Carb spacer seems fine from factory, (bike isn't restricted like some used to be) I ended up running the standard jetting, I tried bigger and smaller and all combinations of needle height with my wideband and standard was as good as it got (I think needle mods would improve it but I haven't been bothered to get into that drama too much yet)

You are probably correct on the intake valve, it was something I was thinking of today.
Same with the plug, I noticed it's facing away from the chamber when I took the head off, new one will be indexed

[tortron]

25362
25363

Why not go full Ham on this, its fairly cheap fun (not cheap in a dollar per horsepower, but cheap in terms of if i blow the engine up i can just get another lol)

[tortron]

found some more pistons with a 14mm wrist pin
25477

will bump the cc's up to 155 or 160 respectively

good cos i have a scratched cylinder here waiting for a new life

[tortron]

Put the cam in and broke it in, but havent been riding cos of lockdown and rain.
have been doing this
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25718&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25719&stc=1

Tiny home going in there. 3m x 7.4m

[tortron]

welcome to tortrons house of rust
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25793&stc=1

Just doing some typical 70s holden rust

[tortron]

And then I made a new one http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25794&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25795&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25796&stc=1
Waiting on some paint to dry and then I have a reproduction panel to weld back on top (after spending the morning making it actually fit)

Then the other side

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25797&stc=1

[85Ram50]

Nice work.

[camoit]

What a nightmare fix. I guess the window was leaking for a long time.

[geezer101]

Oh sheee-it. Are you sure this truck wasn't dredged from the bottom of the ocean? That kind of rust is normally a deal breaker. My hat off to you for even being mad enough to tackle it dude :yellow:

[tortron]

What a nightmare fix. I guess the window was leaking for a long time.
It had some small patches put in the cowl corners back in the late 80s or early 90s, plus the screen looks like its been in and out a few times, so rust started forming under the mastic and here we are today. They all rust out here


Oh sheee-it. Are you sure this truck wasn't dredged from the bottom of the ocean? That kind of rust is normally a deal breaker. My hat off to you for even being mad enough to tackle it dude :yellow:

These old holdens are worth fixing now days, can get a complete upper and lower cowl panel if you are keen, but they are for all the H series holdens and need quite a bit of work for the price. normally just the corners rust out.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25811&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25812&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25813&stc=1

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25814&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25815&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25816&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25817&stc=1

[geezer101]

Ah that's what threw me. I'm looking at the first pics and thought "wait a minute... since when was a Gen 1 built like that?" I should've realised by the corner of the dash pad it was a HQ/HZ Holden. Bet the frame has been patched in that place behind the cab a few times too.

[tortron]

Bet the frame has been patched in that place behind the cab a few times too.
Not even gona look tbh, squizz some acrylic lacquer on it and send it out the door

[geezer101]

I pity the fool that has to deal with that. Notorious for completely rotting out. I saw a HQ folded into a 'V' in North Adelaide due to frame rot :shock:

[tortron]

And it's fixed
25826

Was a bigger to blend the roof in, the brake shop managed to spray fluid on the roof???? And it lifted the lacquer. Had to use some 2k to seal the edges to stop it lifting when I sprayed fresh stuff on top. Came up pretty good, will look original with a cut and polish.
Should probably charge for this eh

[tortron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EHJVVjWZg

Put a stage1 HotCam in my bike
goes well

[geezer101]

Damn dude, how much faster does it need to be when you've torn 10 seconds off it's 100 kph acceleration time :P

[tortron]

Double post.

How fast do you want to go?
How deep are your pockets lol
My gsx would do 0-100 in something like less than 4 seconds, this is just as fun

[tortron]

The header pipe is quite restrictive, so that will be next on my list. I have a good dr200 high pipe header or I may make another low one. The high one looks like it will want the rack rebuilt to clear the muffler. Also I have a piston suitito take it out to 170cc. Other than that I don't think it needs much more. Carb seems to do the job, its close enough (a better carb would let me fine tune it a lot better) and a custom ignition would be nice but both are not high on my want to pay money for list.

I'm pretty happy with it. Will see how it goes loaded on the open road. My main goal has been to get it to cruise at 100 happily. I think it will do that now. Might change a sprocket if needed. Other than that I want a different headlight so I can run a H4 bulb. I did that to my old gn250 and it was so much brighter. That had a 7" lamp though, this is a 5.75 I think


Been grinning all day, what a blast to ride it now, should have come like this from the factory. Going on another small bike ride next month, last time I left the other gn125 in the dust. Should totally pants him this time haha

[claych]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EHJVVjWZg

Put a stage1 HotCam in my bike
goes well

^ a bit understated I think lol,
looks like an absolute blast to ride!
- I do not know the product, will the clutch/geartrain
live after engine tq/hp has been improved ?35-40%?
(conservatively)

[tortron]

Should be fine, never heard of one failing in a racing dr125. The bottom end is close enough to a dr200 as well as the old gn250 (but just different enough to not be able to use those parts in this engine)
This engine has 11hp stock, i have seen some very heavily modified ones pumping double that

The only issue i have ever had with them is worn out timing chains and running out of oil

I have some uprated clutch springs for a dr200 but the clutch seems to grip just fine


One thing i could do is take out one of the double valve springs, Thats supposed to be good for getting the rpm up quicker, apparently it doesnt bother the valve bounce.
Im pretty sure it doesnt have a rev limiter in it (other than the valves) so i think i only got another 500 or so rpm out of the cam. But it does continue to accelerate past 80kph happily now.

[claych]

^
Again, I do not know the product---
Chain driven DOHC with 'rocker' arms ?
:)
More questions to follow.

[tortron]

Single over head cam.
This one is 2 valve, some of the other variants are 4 valve

[tortron]

and now its ruined again

https://youtu.be/2KLgPgBD-2c


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KLgPgBD-2c&amp;feature=emb_title




Not sure whats going on, this is the 2nd time its only lasted 50km after putting a new set of rings in. (no numbers for a gn125 or dr125 so i use dr200 min spec of 0.1-0.2mm. Maybe i need to use 0.2mm)
maybe its just cheap pistons expanding funny.
Started right up and i rode it home with no issue. its a little noisier now

[tortron]

marks on the piston (4 of them) tell me the piston didnt have enough clearance.
my bad for assuming a stock piston would be happy in a bore that i have honed twice already (i blame china quality control tbh)

[geezer101]

Yeah I bet the tolerances on the China piston were 'iffy' at best. Also could be the actual piston metallurgy - weird thermal expansion? :shrug:

[tortron]

Yeah i dunno. possibly they are just crap (cant even get a non china piston in this size, hell even cant get a stock non china piston)
might have to use those cbf pistons.
Maybe the timing is still too advanced
i had to run 98 octane to prevent pinging under load (just me on it i could usually just run 95) but i thought with 2 base gaskets and running 95 id be ok

it didnt ping at all. could it be that it was just running hot? im not sure where to go from here tbh, itl be months before a replacement piston would arrive, dont have pocket money to rebore the cylinder to an oversized one.

might have to just run the big cam and standard bore.... so sad eh

[geezer101]

Take the piston out, polish up the skirt and try adding 2T synthetic oil 50:1 mix to the fuel to reduce friction + keep the piston cooler and run it at lower rpm until you get some k's on it :shrug: and/or just hone the bore again to open up the tolerances. It's sucky that it's scored the piston up, but it hasn't eaten it - you might be able to salvage it yet...

[geezer101]

*if the rings are munched, nothing you can do. I've heard about scooter/bike rings from China being either too hard and shattering, or too soft and literally grinding away in no time :shakehead:

[tortron]

I follow the wiseco break in procedure (but I don't size the piston to the bore I guess) but tbh I don't see 100km of slow rpm helping the rings, and I feel it would. still heat up and expand just the same

Dunno maybe I'm wrong on that (but I doubt anyone who gets a 150 kit takes it in for machining). I will either stone the piston skirt and run it, or grind the top off one of my GS pistons (I'm pretty sure that's what they do to make these ones)

[geezer101]

Don't know. It sounds like the piston just wants to be unpredictable. You were lucky it didn't really lock up so at least you had that going for you. Wiseco's aren't sketchy Chinese pistons but you'd hope that the break-in wouldn't be any different :(

[tortron]

yeah ive got a guy going bananas at me saying i need to do a full 300-500 break in at low rpm

but that will stuff the rings up mate
NO YOU MUST

haha.

anyways, i ran the piston over a stone, dingleballed the cylinder
actually measured the cylinder and piston by diggin out my dusty bore gauges
and its now slighlty over the minimum clearance, so its self clearanced nicely

gn125 minimum 0.03 to 0.051, dr200 minimum 0.04 to 0.05mm - max 0.12mm
i measure 0.55 so i think im good


going to put it back in and immediately redline it through every shift

[geezer101]

lololol you really want GN go kaboom? 'I' would break it in just because I hate pulling something apart every 5 minutes (or Km's) Maybe something conservative like 150 k's and row it through the rev range. I'd be scared that beating on it straight out of the box would snap rings and cut trenches into the cylinder bore...

[tortron]

I've got a bunch of pistons and cylinders spare

Anyways. I did the wiseco break in procedure
Yester day I warned it up over idle for 5min. Let it cool, again for 10min. Let cool. Again for 15min and let cool then retorque the head (and re do rocker clearances as 2 of the head nuts are inside the cover).
Then today I did a 5min ride, let cool, then a 10min, let cool, then a 15 min ride and it's done.

Got a good bit of road for that. It goes up around an old quarry and special military training ground. It's hilly, windy, and narrow. So you get a bunch of different rpm and loads in a short distance (and it's about 2 mins away from the airport where I usually do my speed runs alongside the runway on the flat)
Didn't seem to have any problems. Engine got nice and warm, laser thermometer says it didn't get over warm,. Few heat cycles and no issues now. Will take it on a similar ride next good weather, and push it harder, but it seems happy

[tortron]

couple hundred km on it, compression at 185psi warm, so all good on the piston cylinder side

took all the badges off, remade some brackets in titanium, drilled the inside of some bolts out. saved about 200g. I want to get this to 99kg (stock wet weight is 110kg) so 10% off. Most of the way there already
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25937&stc=1

made up a stainless steel case guard for the stator side. looks the business for an adventure bike
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25938&stc=1

[geezer101]

Wow, you are going to need to do some fettling to get 10 kg's off the weight. Illegal LED's, alloy pegs, alloy triple clamps(?) and bars, bikini or ABS mud guards and a single saddle conversion might get it there. Looks pretty cool :thumbup:

[xboxrox]

tortron ~ cool looking bike, like an old Japanese Honda ~ plastic fenders will save weight ~ dirt bikes got plastic, no..?

[tortron]

yeah, im working on something that wont look too out of place

also i dont want to spend any money, its a cheap bike, so spending a hundred bucks is a big investment. Got a buddy offering to make some carbon fibre ones, so maybe that with some paint if i can figure out how i want them

It looks like an old Japanese bike because despite being a 2019 model they havnt changed them since 1980. (I had an 83 gn250 and it differed in that it didn't have a tach and had a front drum brake)

[tortron]

Wow, you are going to need to do some fettling to get 10 kg's off the weight. Illegal LED's, alloy pegs, alloy triple clamps(?) and bars, bikini or ABS mud guards and a single saddle conversion might get it there. Looks pretty cool :thumbup:


We can use leds in everything but the headlight i believe.
i havnt weighed it in a while but so far
3kg off from the battery
the protaper bars are alloy rather than the steel standard one so some good weight loss there (though i forgot to weigh them before i swapped and sold the originals)
The original rack is removed - it weighs the same as my rack, flyscreen, headlamp shield, gaiters. so 0 change there!


Next up to go is the rear lamp and heavy brackets. Going for a smaller enduro xr style one, should be a lot of weight there
Then the exhaust. header is actually 2 layers, restrictive and heavy. Have been thinking of how im going to do a muffler, but will use a dr200 stainless high mount header.


I could easily get rid of lots of weight - but i want to keep it pillion ready, so need it as a 2 seater with pegs. I also want the seat to be comfortable because every trip is a long trip on a small bike. Also im going to "have" to add some weight in adventure bike accessories. i want a sump guard/bash plate for some of the silly places i try make this go.
i think i can still keep it under 100kg with some creativity though

[xboxrox]

yeah, im working on something that wont look too out of place

also i dont want to spend any money, its a cheap bike, so spending a hundred bucks is a big investment. Got a buddy offering to make some carbon fibre ones, so maybe that with some paint if i can figure out how i want them

It looks like an old Japanese bike because despite being a 2019 model they havnt changed them since 1980. (I had an 83 gn250 and it differed in that it didn't have a tach and had a front drum brake)

Maybe like these plastic fenders ~> https://www.prestonpettyproducts.com/Articles.asp?ID=259

[tortron]

They are not my cup of tea. The rear fender isn't an issue as it's easy to get something that looks ok (the chrome bit you see is actually all of it, from the indicators forward it's just a plastic panel) the front one- I prefer a long fender to keep the road spray off
I enjoy seeing all the guys with cut down front fenders in the rides I go on, having engines covered in mud and filthy visors while I'm still clean lol.

I would almost want to replicate the one on there but raise it maybe an inch or two for clearance (they do this to the farm GN125s here so must work fine without being super high)

[tortron]

I asked if anyone knew where I could find an enduronxr style tail light in stock. The next day a guy delivered this for me

25956

25957

Standard one for reference


25958
25959
25960

I will angle the guard up to a more visually appealing position from stock. Looks a bit goofy with the big indicators, I think they would look better in the stock position but suck is life, some smaller ones will be in the future.
Still need a number plate light and mount. The plate fits perfectly across the back of the rack on the seat, so probably there with a couple of tabs to bolt it to as it's easy.

[tortron]

25961
25962

Trying to figure out the least offensive way to have a brake light, number plate, number plate light and a reflector

Might end up getting a different guard so I'm not fully set on making this one look perfect

Plate on the rack is quick, easy, functional, and not likely to get caught on anything so maybe that. Looks funny though

[tortron]

not sure what im messing up, sometimes the images emebed, sometimes they link

anyways lets try those 4 again
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25963&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25964&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25965&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25966&stc=1


Honestly it kept me awake last night trying to figure out how to make the rear end look less bad.
i was looking for universal plastic rear fenders, and cheap ones off wrecked bikes i could go and measure up.

then i realised, ehh i already have a partly chopped up one, no loss in chopping it up more.
After sitting on a crate and looking at it while drinking my coffee, and looking up other bikes. i came to the realisation that the fender just looks wrong. Its for a much wider tyre. So i measured my front fender (both wheels and tyres are now the same size) and it came out at 100mm wide. I think it looks pretty decent. So i measured the rear fender - 160mm wide.
no bueno

I figure a rear fender should be a little bigger than a front one, to give the bike some form of directional presence. So i decided to lop off 35mm from the middle of it (just happens to be 2 strips of masking tape). This gives 125mm width, and will be good if i want to go up a tyre width in the future.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25967&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25968&stc=1

Honestly much better. Now the light isnt lost in the wide expanse

Will weld it up today and figure out a underseat shield, as i already cut some out of this one to make an under seat storage area which was ok for a mk1 but needs more work, might make something out of the spare plastic engine shield i have left over from it

[xboxrox]

Attachments not opening -- that's a nice tail light should be easy for other drivers to see it -- regular or LED bulbs ?

[tortron]

yea and the ones i put in the last post came up for 5mins then dissapeared

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25969&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25970&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25971&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25972&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25973&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=25974&stc=1

[tortron]

new lamp takes a bayonet bulb, I have an LED one going in
if its no good i will make an array and make it real bright lol

[xboxrox]

The chopped fender width looks much better -- motorcycle license plates are big in NZ compared to those in Hawaii --

[tortron]

yeah only a little smaller than a cars one (overall, but also one digit less) My old GN250 had the Huge square one

[tortron]

Cool, this thing will go off the clock now. Very fun haha.

Going to change the rear sprocket to a gn250 one (not that sprockets are hard to get, but it just happens to be cheap). So that will take it from 14-43 to 14-41.

Would be good for a bit extra top speed, but mainly it will drop the bikes revs nicely to where it's on cam at 100kph. Should sit there comfortably now, will see how the lower speed stuff goes but I don't think it will bother the acceleration much. 1st gear is very low

[tortron]

26007
Loaded up and ready for a 4 day trip, been planning all year




Nope
26008
26009
26010
150km into it and the engine locked up solid at 90kph. Kept it upright and loaded it on a truck back home. No loss of power or funny noises so I didn't have much idea of what might have happened, I thought maybe cam sprocket bolt had come out or something.

Nope it's dropped a valve. A bit strange to do after 400km of riding on current set up. I was really taking it easy today, just cruising at 80-90, so it didn't happen through bounce.

I have gotten the engine good and warm and done high rpm shifting and had no issue.
Might be that the big cam and 150cc piston don't work together (but again why not happen when I was thrashing it) I never measured clearance tbh, but I did put a second base gasket in to help with piston combustion. Maybe the timing chain slipped a tooth or the valve got hung up in the guide

[geezer101]

Oh dude, that ain't good. Pretty disappointing after the number of times you've had this engine apart too. Hopefully it only took the valve out and didn't damage the guide or anything else.

[tortron]

guides are like $2 a piece, so i will probably change them anyways, the exhaust valve got a little bent and was a bit tight coming out. THey would most lilkely ream out perfectly

maybe me shaping the leading edge of them had something to do with it? seems a little odd tho as it was the intake that did it not the exhaust, so i dont think it was heat related.

Im going to see if i can find a decently priced open combustion chamber head before i put it back together. maybe now is the time to stroke the crank 5mm and bore the cylinder way out. Oddly enough there will be more clearance with the big piston rather than the one in the 150 kit.

valve springs should have been fine with the cam, dr125 guys remove the inner spring and have no issues with bounce.
i think probably a valve stuck in the guide (valve piston clearance wise i would have thought all the getting the engine hot on twisty uphill roads and then doing 10000rpm speed run shifts on the way home would have caused this, not just cruising a long for a couple hours like i was)

if i stick with the 150 kit this time i will double check the clearance and might alter the valve cutouts, but i dont think that was the cause this time


Id be more bummed out if it damaged the bottom end, but piston and bore look ok, i didnt check the crank (sudden stop isnt ideal for bearings) but it felt ok the small amount i handled it.




Actually looking at the picture of the piston, it looks like they might have kissed in the bottom of the cutouts, should go double check the marks in the carbon, i didnt notice that last night. The valves on my desk now, dont show any signs of hitting anything other than being bent

[tortron]

ha

wanna know the cause



its so stupid


like wow i cant believe it.


I have a few of the 150cc kit pistons as they are so cheap i order a few at a time and never had much luck with them lasting

The last one i took out had good valve to piston clearance

The one i put in last was machined slightly taller than that one, enough to kiss the valves apparently


i gotta say im over these pistons. I can either flycut the one in there to increase clearance in the valve cut outs


or the much better idea - bore it out to 165cc because the piston top is a much better fit to this head.

and if i stroke the crank and use a quad conrod i can get it to 185cc
(if i search harder for a conrod you can stroke this crank by 9mm which would be 195cc. you can bore the cylinder out more than that as well, so if you really wanted you could get a 71mm piston and stroke it 9mm and get a 230cc monster for way more effort than just putting in a dr200 engine)

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/kg4MRD80d14


new bike(s)

[xboxrox]

Cool garage & bikes :thumbup:

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/BdYcBhgPmOI

Initial strip down and inspection
went better than expected, all the loom is still there

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/tNd8J9m86cw

Sorted out the wiring, horn and indicators

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/-M19PQ79LzA
set the carb float so now it doesnt overflow. starts good, have only ridden it in the back yard but feels ok at idle and low rpm (its a pumper flatslide tm33 from what i can figure)
wants the cables adjusted id say

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/NU4DT9NWStk


https://youtu.be/3nr0z-lJGOo

[tortron]

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26127&stc=1

[tortron]

Done a bunch of stuff, basically finished now
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26185&stc=1
Took the farm DF200 chain guard and cut it down to be like a road DR200se guard, was missing the tip but i cut it square and it looks ok


http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26186&stc=1
Rebuilt the DF200 swing arm and swapped it into the 85. Bearings were real crusty, needed every oz of my 20ton press. rebuilt with needle bearing allballs kit. Did this because the swing arm in there had its chain guard mounts cut off. It had all new bearings and seals so was an easy swap out. Now my 87 im building from spare parts has a fresh swing arm too.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26187&stc=1

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26188&stc=1
Bar guards and shields installed
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26184&stc=1

All ready for inspection and reregistration. Should be easy because it was first registered in nz before 1991 so no brake declaration needed (not that its anything difficult you can do it yourself) I just have to go to a J.P and get them to sign a form stating that i am claiming to be the legal owner of the bike. Then go book in the inspection and pay about $400 (inspection is about $80 but you also pay for a warrent of fitness and 6 months licence)

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/w_Ch_9d8w04

[xboxrox]

https://youtu.be/w_Ch_9d8w04
Who needs amusement parks ~ your garage is more Fun :thumbup:

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/bCMTqF15gr8

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/bf5_RdeQkTo

[tortron]

Got this new old stock tail bag locally. Very chuffed

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26204&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26205&stc=1

I was doing some work on that diesel mitsubishi, with the payment being whatever the cost to get this inspected (id have done it for free but some people get offended at that, he was quoted 2.5k for the work, this is closer to 1/10th that) So thats done, i have the paperwork ready, and now im just waiting for our city covid lockdown level to drop hopefully this weekend so i can book in a time.

Then i can ride for 6 months, if i like the bike i might clean it up a bit more and have some decals made up

[geezer101]

I like old school MX trail bikes. There's something about the industrial look and feel of them. A bit like our trucks...

[tortron]

yeah i dont really care for the insect like look of new bikes (sport bikes at least, i think they peaked early 90s)
for a trail/adventure bike id want as basic and bullet proof as possible. can you believe they all come with side stand and clutch engine start lock outs now days. gotta cut all those wires out the first day lol. Plus gettign something with a kick starter is hard these days too, i suppose power packs are small these days too but on a big trip thats no good

There seems to be a surge in interest in the old dirt bikes, the price keeps going up (probably not for an old 4 stroke suzuki tho) the VMX races are quite popular here

[tortron]

Bike booked in for next week. A couple small parts are yet to arrive but not critical for the inspection (well they are but I can work around it with non permanent parts)

Here's part of a report on the bike, not often you see 22 years past due on a vehicle that still exists
26213

[tortron]

OH NO

They breed


http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26236&stc=1


This one is based on the GN250 engine, and is generally accepted to be an all around disappointing bike(just like the GN250 i had so no changes there), with CDI issues being typical. The GN250 is visually similar to the GN125 but is actually quite a different bike and not that many parts swap over. The engines are inspired from the same source but do not share any parts. However, the suzuki 400cc quadbikes are based on the GN400, which is an oversized GN250. so you could put a 400cc barrel on it.

This one, like my DR200, has been owned by the same guy for over 20 years. The DR250 however still has live registration, so with a couple small fixes (2 broken indicators, cracked tail light, broken exhaust stud) and some tidy yellow guards from my parts pile, Its going to clean up really nice i think, and will be back on (and off) the road pretty quick.

[tortron]

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26244&stc=1

Passed with a clean sheet, which is pretty good for an old bike, possibly unheard of for something that has been dead in the system for over 20 years. Brake test was the inspector riding it at walking pace into the workshop, so my concerns about the very below average braking of a DR200 were a bit unfounded (one of my last bikes they had me do that part as well lol). He had some trouble kick starting it, i think he was pushing the kill button thinking it was a starter, started on 2nd kick for me.

anyway, my pocket is a lot lighter than it was this morning, with about $450 for the inspection and a further $240 for the registration fee and new plate. But its still a fairly cheap bike (coming in, with all the spares, the 87 bike etc, and all the parts i have bought and sold) for around $2500

Pretty decent for a bike in good condtion with fresh wof and rego. Plus you never see these bikes, let alone one road registered. It might even be the only 85 on the road here, i should look that up. So im gona ride it, but if someone wants to pay me the price of a new DR200 i might consider it

[tortron]

I looked up the fleet data for NZ and it looks like there are 4 other of this model (pre 1991 basically) with live registration in nz (so either on the road or on exemption in storage (or they only exist as a vintag in someones shed))
The data is a bit iffy due to stuff potentailly being entered wrong when the data was changed from paper to digital in the 90s (massive losses of old vehicle data so some stuff may still have numberplates but theres no proof it ever existed, some stuff is spelt wrong - theres a capri i know thats a carpai (kapai is well done/good job in maori haha) a guy i know has "suzuki motorcycle"

but half a dozen is probably about right

[xboxrox]

Great photos 'n cool toys :thumbup:

[tortron]

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26253&stc=1
My shed is pretty yellow right now.
2 owner 1986 DR250S. That's right, a Gn250 engine in a dual sport frame. This is the S model which means steel swing arm, fuel efficient CV carb and much less suspension than the other models that were surprisingly raced to some effect until anything decent came out.
First owned by what is now MPI where it was used to pop down from the office to the yards to inspect the wild caught deer before processing. That's where it got the dent in the tank.
Then on to the guy I got it from, who had it for 25 odd years, until recently when his two sons got a hold of it (one was the one who got it road registered to get to work, then lost the job 6 months later) who left it outside, and dropped it, so now it's mine.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26254&stc=1


Bike failed to run when I picked it up, despite the sharn of always starting 2nd try and it having never done that before, oh and the fuel line was pissing fuel out very effectively. He also showed me the rust holed old exhaust and told me how to weld it all up cos the new one it's got was $600

So I paid the guy and loaded it up, its an old suzuki you can't really expect any better than that



http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26255&stc=1

Rolled it off the trailer and thought I'd better start a list of stuff it needs. Starting with the no start. Plug was very wet and had a black ring around the ceramic, so it's proba ly pretty old and stuffed, gn125 plug is too small, DR200 fits just right (although I later found some new ones in the parts box) with known good plug it started right up, runs very nicely, which given my experience with gn250 engines is pretty surprising. He was changing the oil every 3 hours so the top end and chain is probably as good as can be, the engine has a legitimate 7000km on it.



With the engine running I did a loop of the house and it all feels happy. The brakes are fantastic, no suspension noises, the fork seals are not that old, seat must have been recovered.

Gave a walk around and have a few issues.
Rego is on hold and now in my name, but he lost the plate, so will have to go get a new one.
Tail light is smashed and the parts are lost, same as old dr125/ts250s and is fitted with the cheapest of the 3 options, so I ordered a new lens.
One front and one rear indicator is broken. I think I can fix the rear one back onto the flex stalk, but the front is smashed to bits and missing half. On close inspection the indicator body is the same as a gn250. So I ordered a full set of black ones and may just swap the whole lot. They won't be flexy, but they never actually flex do they.
Missing it's tool box lid
Came with a probably dead battery new in box, will see if it comes back to life, needs a strap and is apparently missing some plastic box thing, I think just a tray but I will check the parts diagram. I don't think it's important. This one is 6v and runs with no battery


Tank has that big dent, I think I can push it out fine. There's a couple of little stone dents/chips and surface rust forming. It's also rusty inside. Not bad yet(just) but I'm gonna drain it and put vinegar inside probably when I do the dent.
Master cylinder sight glass is about 19seconds away from springing a leak. Needed one for the DR200 anyway so I ordered a few and will change it.

Fuel line is split, should order a couple meters for all the others I need to replace too.

Fork gaiters, one is split in half and both are faded. Seems an odd size but I think I can force the lower part onto the fork from a standard size.
Headlight bulb is blown.


Frame
It's been near the ocean and its just on the verge of being rusty but not too rusty to come up nice with a respray. So I'm gonna repaint it blue, and redo the black and silver parts.
The yellow parts are not too bad, I think the tank would come up OK, but the fenders are bleached white so I might cive the a thick coat of something to give some structure back, and then paint yellow.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26256&stc=1

[tortron]

Oops, and another one
26261

I think it's a 2008, going from the seat dom and the code on the wheels, for some reason these farm bikes have a 16 number vin/frame number without the date code in it.

Sold as been sitting for a year and not going. So I bought it as I just wanted some parts off it for my other 200 and then part out the rest.

Anyways got it home and off the trailer and checked it out, lights turned on so must have a good battery, sump full of oil and not empty of mixed with fuel, so that's a good sign.

Tank full of fresh gas. OK someone's tried to start it
Spark plug is freshly wire brushed. Yup must have tried to get it going and gave up.

Press the starter and no life in the starter.
Kick it over and it turns but no life.

Plug out and kick. No spark
New plug and kick. No spark.

So remembering the last blue bike I had had a dodgy kill switch I tried pressing the new one a few times. Really gummy and sticky.
So I pulled that apart and bridged the solder together and kicked it.

BOOM

All the unburnt fuel in the exhaust ignited in a cloud of black smoke. Kicked again and it slowly churned into life and eventually cleared up into a nice tight idle. Engine runs perfectly, and that's saying something because if these get ran low on oil they very quickly eat away the cam and rockers.

Rode it around a bit and it feels good, brakes are nearly non existant which is typical on a farm bike.

Still not running the starter motor, so I chased the wires and found they were all fine, closer look at the wiring diagram showed the kill switch and starter are in series and feed direct to the cdi. So I cleaned out the muck from the switch and found the kill button was broken internally. I still had the complete switch minus some wiring so I pulled that apart and made one good switch out of the two.
Starter now works and the bike starts right up, really nice.

Fixed a few other little issues, have a better seat from my parts pile, gave it a tail light bulb, front brake switch has a broken connector, rear brake switch is in bits. Pit the rear one back together after cleaning the cow shit out and its working, don't have any front switches in my stash so might try fix it.

So now every thing is sorted except the brakes and I feel bad about wrecking it so am gonna sell it as a running bike and probability double my money. If someone wants it this week they can have it, otherwise I will bump up the price by a set of new brakes and some time. Satisfying little turnaround

[tortron]

Did I mention I'm building a house?

26296
26297

Well more a tiny home/grannyflat/self contained unit. Knocked down my carport, lucky I like small cars because they all go in the garage now. About 7.5m x 3m. With its own shower/toilet/laundry, then an open plan bedroom and kitchen. Cooking and hot water off gas bottles. Had hoped to be moved in right now but last year had me sitting on the plans till I could get stuff delivered (and now there's a major building supply shortage here, at least I don't need much, but I'm still trying to get ceiling battens, there's no fence pailings left in the country).
I'm basically doi g everything I can legally do myself (won't let me do the plumbing at all if you can believe that bs, I will run the power but have to get a sparky to join it in) so this week I'm precut ting all the framing. Goes up in 7 sections for the walls and then one for the roof, so pretty manageable. Basically I save a year's wages doing it myself so it was hard to drop that on a prebuilt or having a builder do it (if you can get one, took months to get someone just to pour the concrete)

[xboxrox]

Did I mention I'm building a house?

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26296&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26297&stc=1

Well more a tiny home/grannyflat/self contained unit. Knocked down my carport, lucky I like small cars because they all go in the garage now. About 7.5m x 3m. With its own shower/toilet/laundry, then an open plan bedroom and kitchen. Cooking and hot water off gas bottles. Had hoped to be moved in right now but last year had me sitting on the plans till I could get stuff delivered (and now there's a major building supply shortage here, at least I don't need much, but I'm still trying to get ceiling battens, there's no fence pailings left in the country).
I'm basically doi g everything I can legally do myself (won't let me do the plumbing at all if you can believe that bs, I will run the power but have to get a sparky to join it in) so this week I'm precut ting all the framing. Goes up in 7 sections for the walls and then one for the roof, so pretty manageable. Basically I save a year's wages doing it myself so it was hard to drop that on a prebuilt or having a builder do it (if you can get one, took months to get someone just to pour the concrete)

COOL..! A retreat, looking good; how many sq ft will it be..? Those bs rules about electricals & plumbling + others? are for our own safety H2S gas & shock can kill quickly or explode too ~ I've never been smart enuff or energetic enuff to take on a project like building a house..! More power to you tortron, the lack of supplies is worse than the other bs...
:thumbup:

[tortron]

H2S is so bad that you can smell it in concentrations thousands of times lower than what will affect you in anyway. Ive done work in toxic gas environments/confined spaces and so on, but i agree the average guy is a moron and thats why they have this in effect so you dont connect your water without a non return to the sewer and pollute the whole city lol.
But the work still has to get signed off by another guy, so why cant i do it and he sign it off if up to spec, no difference between me doing it right and a plumber doing it right.
cant even run the lines and have it connected by a certified plumber like you could with electricity, when really its the same deal they are both checking it and signing their name to it. (plus the city inspector who takes his cut to "inspect" it, last inspection he rang me on the day and said sorry too busy, have your builder send me a photo before the next stage. oh im the builder its just me doing it, oh, well uhhhh its probably ok? il sign it off (and take $150))

please dont get me started lol


The gas im ok with, id happily do it myself i like running copper and soldering, but understandable. A land lord did his own gas work here recently and it killed the tenant. HE GOT OFF WITH A WARNING
can you believe that

[xboxrox]

Hey tortron guess NZ has one weird law & I dunno maybe samo samo for USA in not being able to do your own piping/plumbing 'n then get it signed off by a certified yahoo ~ hmmm... On the marine side of piping at one civilian shipyard that I worked for in Seattle; at the time they were building new fishing processor boats ~ heck I got hired as a pipefitter by just knowing how to compute the length of pipe needed to make a bend of "X" dimension & degrees ~ we installed all sorts pipe stuff threaded soldered welded bent STL CRES CUNI PVC CPVC ABS all bent with bender, torch or fittings ~ I got no idea who inspected what or when except maybe some hydrostatic pressure tests on the hydraulic piping ~ I also worked as a welder in the Bremerton Navy Shipyard PSNSY ~ over there the govt will not let you touch anything unless you are trained tested & proven qualified $$$

Here in Hawaii it's kinda a combo of both the above just depends on who you are friends with ~ SHAKA BRUDDAH :rolleyes:

[tortron]

https://youtu.be/ZTMAcdVwlJk

DR200 final odds and ends work before inspection

[tortron]

Too humid to be lifting these around by myself
but thats one side of the framework bolted down and hung plumb

We put those horizontal bits in cos of tradition, i think is proven not to increase the strength of the frame at all, pretty sure its because the old houses were very hard native wood and it would be a prime place to leave your beer bottle when trying to nail the posts in.

Called Nogs in the north island, Dwangs in the south island

should put them in staggard tbh but its not like that in my plans or any other house i have seen, so again some weird cultural carry over

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26395&stc=1

Will start on nailing the right hand side framing tomorrow


3 month wait to get cladding, theres none left in the country

[tortron]

have been putting up some vids of my house build

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybT8Dpf0kVM&amp;list=PLJi7GhqaTPDbGtPN-BLO8-7DSwMa_icLd&amp;index=6


had some indicators arrive for my DR250, i was going to use black GN125 indicators which look close enough to the flexy originals. But when they arrived they were less than 1/3rd the size they should be! haha
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26523&stc=1


http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26524&stc=1

914g of original indicators! thats almost 1% of the bikes weight

new ones are 220g total


http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26525&stc=1

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26526&stc=1

and they came out alright actually. The bike will now go quicker, get better fuel economy, and handle better as the centre of gravity is more central now! amazing. Well maybe not quite, but i was aiming for around 10kg weightloss on this bike to get it to 100kg (i think that it was 110kg wet total weight but im not sure now) and i think im just about there now

[tortron]

Hmm, lots done on the house, the outside is just about done bar a couple things that i cant get due to shortages and the current covid locdown

i have like 10 more motorcycles and a car, and shed stuff to distract me from my truck


Heres one of the projects im working on
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=26847&stc=1

1980 CB650 cafe racer

was turned into a face racer 10-15 years ago, the guy i got it off had it sitting for 10 years, he bought it, did some work on it, went in for a rerego inspection and failed on excessive smoke. so it sat for 10 years and the smoke has gotten worse. Just looking into that today

List so far is
lost key
tacho in bits (some missing)
carbs leaking
choke cable stuck
seat poorly mounted
tail light and number plate mounted on swing arm (wont pass inspection, needs to be central)

The vin is in the system, and i paid what i think was a bargin price, he was just sick of having it around i think. Have hotwired it and it runs ok, just smokey, carbs leaked on my trailer so will throw a rebuild kit in them and check the jets (it has K&N pod filters). So hopefully not too much more to spend to get it back on the road. Plugs are oily, mainly #3 and #4, im sure the stem seals will be crusty after 40 years, hopefully im that lucky, going to do a leak down test after writing this and see how we go. I expect it will want a rering, hopefully not a rebore and pistons, parts are getting thin on the ground but are still available

[tortron]

Leak down test
#1 15% plug rich but ok
#2 fitting refuses to thread in, plug goes in and out fine, so idk plug rich but ok
#3 40% plug oil contaminated, oil on threads, air escaping crank case filler
#4 70% plug oily, threads oily, air escaping crank case filler.

Head gasket is damp with oil around edges.

So I think I will be stripping it down, hopefully a hone and rering will do it, need to take it apart to see what head gasket it has as there's 2, and inspect the cylinders and pistons, then order and wait. So will try get that done tomorrow, then pack it away for a few months till that stuff arrives....

[geezer101]

The 650 is a nice little project bike. Building a cafe racer has been an 'on my to-do list' forever but bikes scare me...

[tortron]

you could get a smaller one, parts are so cheap off aliexpress now days
i also have a coule of jialing farm bikes, they are clones of the 1970s honda XLs, a shame they are not road legal as i would 100% ride one as a dirt bike around the city, and turn the other into a cafe racer.

I have a big pile of left over parts from all the bikes i have wrecked/repaired, so i have a suzuki frankenstein project going. Chopped DR200 frame, Gn250 engine, scrambler pipes, and 18" wheels front and rear, would be a fun dirt tracker

[tortron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GH9SAh9V4

cb650 start up/smoke show

[tortron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtDKl-F9LZs

New wheels for my y10 wingroad

[tortron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHTyAin75vk

Jialing JH150 - Honda xl150 clone

I got two of these, heres the first one after a frame up tidy up

[tortron]

and i picked up a scooter a guy was selling as parts

was riding it that afternoon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkbyRXDv-FQ

[geezer101]

Nice saves there Tortron :thumbup: I do a lot of roadside rescues of mostly lawnmowers (occasional leaf blower or weed whacker...) I had so many running mowers I've started giving them away :)

[tortron]

i had a bunch of weed whackers but couldnt even give them away

[tortron]

Little red zip scooter out the door

paid $100 for it
new front tyre
patched the rear
new headlight bulb
new brake bulb
oil change
clean air filter
polish
reblack plastics

Tidy profit


sold to 2 ladies who want to be scooter buddies. I thought the one riding it home was the one that could ride. She pretty much right away whisky throttled it into the fence, stopping just short. Is now wobbling down the road in the dark. Terrifying tbh

at least the car will be following and its light traffic

[geezer101]

Buy it back for $100 when they total it ;]

[tortron]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQbDlA22NFw&amp;t=1s

125cc suzuki twist and go i bought a while ago with no compression and no oil in it. piston, rings and a dingleball hone and i took it on a 10 day trip down to the top of the south island, and all over the 4wd tracks that adventure bikers tell me are so hard. Twist and go just twist and went, totally stock apart from a more knobbly front tyre (nothing would fit on the rear so thats just a road tyre), a 12v usb port, and a front rack for extra fuel

went really well, amazed, it only has 12cm of ground clearance and it was never an issue

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27133&stc=1


had a couple of issues
the fan exploded for some reason. i was only just cruising along when it happend, so must have been damaged, or just old i guess. made some roadisde repairs and continued on with a vibrating bike.

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27134&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27135&stc=1

eventually the seal on that side started leaking, probably the bearings are fine. But i bought another parts bike incase it makes bad sounds now. the baffles in the exhaust all came loose, and both the petcock and the press in float needle valve started leaking, so i swapped the carb and got a new petcock

now to sell - one lady owner, never thrashed

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27136&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27137&stc=1
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27138&stc=1

[xboxrox]

Thanks for sharing tortron ~ wife and me really enjoyed the beauty of your swell photos :thumbup:

[tortron]

27734
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27735

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27735&stc=1
27736

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27736&stc=1

Here's my tiny house as of 1st of jan

[tortron]

27737
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27737&stc=1

27738
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27738&stc=1
Went on a small bike ride during a weather event

[tortron]

27739
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27739&stc=1
Fixed this, so it's what I'm currently riding


Here's an Sr20de +t in my wingroad, all factory parts so its all bolt in, you just have to do some deep diving

27740
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27740&stc=1
Needs a little more time spent on it, engine to come out and get new gaskets, and a few little bits. Weather has generally been terrible for months so haven't had a chance to do much

[xboxrox]

"Ain't Life Grand" :thumbup:

Your tiny house is awesone ~ did you build most of it & if so well done tortron..!

Your motorcycle is cool too ~ is it a Yamaha 650cc or ?

Glad you're back posting ~ am hoping geezer has more time here as well...

Aloha ~ George

[tortron]

I built the whole thing except for the concrete pour and laying/connecting the sewer. I dug the foundation with a shovel and wheelbarrow lol.

Purple bike is a 1992 kawasaki zzr250, cheap because the guy couldn't get it running right. Turns out he replaced the carb manifold rubbers. Which is good, but it turns out the reproduction ones are a slightly different diameter and if you use the original clamps they bottom out just before getting tight enough to seal. So it always had a vacuum leak issue. I then had to reject as he had put bigger jets in to compensate. Goes great now. I actually bought a second one, also for cheap cos not running, that one was a pinched wire under the handlebar causing the main fuse to blow. Going to paint that one bright green as a kawasaki should be.
Several other motorcycles have come and gone. Here's one I got for my wife. Required the lower triple being bent back into alignment, apparently was big business for the dealers to replace them as they are very soft
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http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27745&stc=1

27746

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27746&stc=1

I also did some work on my adv GN. Rebuilt the engine with 150cc kit, the piston was machined to have bigger valve pockets. Fitted a dr125 head which has considerably bigger ports, valves, and springs. It's an open combustion chamber type so unfortunately quite low final compression, and it's difficult to do any better with the supplied piston as its a poor shape for all applications (I don't know why they sell it). So although it has more power than stock, it was still kind of dissapointing off the line, then some stuttering around 7-8k rpm, both of which I think I could improve with a direct put pumper carb. But then it really ripped from 8 to 10000rpm. The big valves really work well with the big cam.
So for now I'm going to put a dr125 piston in a standard barrel and run a slightly higher compression ration than stock. I think that should be a good little ripper with the big cam for now, at least until I get to stripping a 6 speed bottom end and building a stroker

[xboxrox]

tortron you really get into mechanicals wow..! I am nearing my 75th birthday and dream about having a motorcycle (not smart) am held back from MC dream coz I only have a parking spot for our truck ~ would need ramps crane etc load offload device to keep the bike in the truck bed... I am happy to know you're still thriving thanks for sharing...

Keep Safe Bro
George

[tortron]

27785
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27786
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27787
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27788
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http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27791&stc=1

[tortron]

This turned into a bit of a - well, while I'm in there

Top points if you can guess what it's from
27846
http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=27846&stc=1



I actually had an oops changing a $2 oring on the distributor. It has an offset drive so it can only go in one way........ Except it can go in the wrong way and then flexes the rear of the head and camshaft in an impressive way. Juuusssst bent the last exhaust valve enough that it would stick when warmed up. Oh well, got everything on clearance so that's cool, timing belt is due and got that for $12

[xboxrox]

BMW cylinder head ?

Who painted the trike bike ~ it's pretty now !!

[tortron]

Nope, not audi either.

I painted it. Candy apple red over silver flake and the white is snowflake pearl. The lettering is gold leaf too

[xboxrox]

Awesome painting Dude !

The cylinder head is from a Scotch Yoke Engine ?

[claych]

hmm, doesn't look diesel or volvo,
Ahhhhh... Acura vigor 2.5 tl. :)

[tortron]

Awesome painting Dude !

The cylinder head is from a Scotch Yoke Engine ?

You have the same youtube recommended as me


hmm, doesn't look diesel or volvo,
Ahhhhh... Acura vigor 2.5 tl. :)


Very close. It's a Honda ascot, with the 2L instead
I just noticed that the last cambelt 100,000km ago was installed wrong. They obviously set it up as a clockwise engine, but despite being a north south setup, this engine still rotates counter clockwise.
100,000km with the cambelt set at the 10degree btdc mark, impressive it only has 1 bent valve

Japanese market car only, but there's a few here, not so many now as the engine and gearbox layout was pretty unpopular with mechanics. So a lot more than should have got told nah can't fix mate

[tortron]

27853

[claych]

Very cool!!
2L 5cyl ! I bet that thing revs to the moon lol.

And I agree with xbox that trike paint is superlative!

[tortron]

done a few things since, some bikes, small projects, finished the little house
heres a bike i have just done, will probably 2 tone the tank to match before putting decals on

green with gold pearl, gold pinstripes and decals, and metallic pearl with yes ticked on how much pearl i wanted (its actually some leftover paint from a nissan dualis i painted a while ago, its horrible paint, frys up if you even look at it funny)

bike had a rough life, so i put about 80 hours into repairing, prepping, and painting till clear coat. over about 2 months when the baby is sleeping. which sounds a lot, but maybe 20 was just plastic welding and making new tabs, had to get a new tank as it was rusted out on every surface, i have never seen that before. many layers of primer filler, a couple coats of white 2k to seal it and give a nice base for the green to pop on. 3 coats of green, 3 coats of clear, resand and tape up, 3 coats black, pinstripes and decals on, 4 coats of clear.
its ok for a shed paint job i reckon (yes thats a second purple one in the background, its a great bike for a 250, i want to sell both of them and get a bigger brother to it)

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=28262&stc=1

[xboxrox]

At my age 76 in July a motorcycle would be COOL so zzr bike is it a Kawasaki ?
You do nice work tortron looks great :thumbup:

[tortron]

Yup it's a kawasaki. The zzr became the ninja later on