Richard Hobbs

Well, after taking the cylinder head off twice, replacing the exhaust valve and valve guide, and by correcting the badly-cut valve seat and face, the bike does now appear to be working… touch-wood!

I managed 50 miles or so yesterday – 20 miles to work in the morning, 20 miles to my parents house in the evening, and 10 miles home after that. It was great

Only thing is… i was gearing up for the Thurlow & Haverhill Steam & Country Show, but it seems there’s a possibility of rain, which means i will have to leave the bike at home and go by car

How disappointing…

…going to run without jamming the exhaust valve open again?

That is the question i will be asking myself over the next few days or weeks.

So, after the exhaust started jamming again yesterday, i took the cylinder head off again and took it over to the local expert’s place (who had kindly offered to help me out again) and we found that the valve hadn’t been cut to fit the seat perfectly and was still allowing the exhaust gasses through on some of its sides.

We ground it down to fit perfectly and i put it back on the bike this evening. I then let it tickover for a while and took it out on two short rides (1x 500yd and 1x 2 miles) and it seems to be running well, at least for the moment.

Overall a good day, motorbike wise, but let’s see how things go from now on…

The last 2 days have been roller coaster days of sorts.

Yesterday I finally got the cylinder head back on my motorbike after the exhaust valve started sticking open after 80 miles or so spread out over a few weeks, after a 10 year lay-up! After a good few kicks, the bike burst into life and i was happy!

However… it wasn’t running brilliantly, but that was OK because i still had some adjustments to make – the valve clearances needed re-adjusting because i had had the valve seats and valve faces re-cut, and i had also fitted a brand new exhaust valve. I had to adjust the decompression lever cable slightly too, to account for the new exhaust valve resting position. So, tonight, this was all done.

Anyway, after a total of around 6 hours work, 2 hours driving and roughly £110 of expense including petrol, i started the bike up tonight having replaced the cylinder head and put everything else back to where it should be and as soon as the bike got warm, the exhaust valve stuck again

It does release after a short while, but soon sticks once the bike is running again. Most frustrating…

Well, here we are… i never thought i’d start a blog, but i have!

I shall probably continue to put the letter ‘i’ into lower case when it’s a word in it’s own right and not at the start of a sentence i’m afraid, although i will do my best to use correct punctuation and not use misplaced apostrophe’s!

As for what i intend to publish on here, i have no idea… probably some Computer, Xbox 360 and motorbike related stuff with the occasional random thought or observation… only time will tell though!

Anyway, welcome!