Richard Hobbs

Things do seem to be running OK on the motorbike at the moment, touch-wood!

After making our way to the Thurlow & Haverhill Steam and Country Show by car due to the rain, we ended up still having a great day! When I’m not taking the bike, I am taking the tripod, so some photos of the event can be found here: Thurlow & Haverhill Steam Rally Photos.

Since then, I have successfully made it to the AJS & Matchless Owners Club Fenrunners meeting near Cambridge (despite a few drops of rain en-route) for all local members of the club to have a look at it and good old chat…

When the meeting came to an end, however, I set off for my first ever ride in the dark (of nearly 20 miles, along the notorious A14) only to find, 50 yards down the road, that my tail light didn’t work, and neither did the brake light!

So, I set off back to the meeting place whereupon we decided it was too much to fix that night, and we simply stuck a torch in the red casing and strapped the whole lot to the luggage rack, and I then successfully made it home, thankfully!

Since then, I’ve managed to fix the brake light by soldering one of the wires back together that looked like it had been either cut or pinched - I suspect the chain caught it, given it’s previous route up to the battery! The tail light will come later, but given that I’m not riding in the dark again for at least 4 weeks, I have some time to fix that yet.

I have also been out this afternoon for a nice ride from Huntingdon to Ramsey and back, across the fens, totalling around 20 miles, round trip. It was quite a nice route actually – not many cars, lots of corners, excellent visibility – click here for the route on Google Maps!

So, as mentioned earlier, touch-wood, things seem to be ok at the moment! Let’s hope they stay that way…

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…