My Ramblings

Well, I had a look at the front brake pads on my Varadero the other week. so I loosened up all the nuts while it was on the bike (to get better leverage on things like the pad retaining pins), wiggled the caliper to push the caliper pistons back into the caliper body and took the calipers off the bike. The pads have plenty of friction material left, so I decided not to change them yet. I did get an old toothbrush and some brake cleaner, push the pistons out a bit and clean off some of the crud that had built up. so the pistons and caliper body were a bit cleaner. I then put it all back together. While the friction material on the pads was fine, I did notice that the back of the pads had a really bad build up of muck on the back of them, but I had a good look and it didn't look like it would affect braking at all, so I just put them back into the calipers. Of course, next day, on my way to work, I'm pootling along the motorway and all of a sudden the brakes start to drag. ...

While the CB750 was off the road waiting for the circlip for the gear lever, I decided to check over the spark plugs. This involves removing the tank, so with the tank on the workbench I took out each plug and checked the thread for corrosion. As I the plug in cylinder 2 had almost seized I decided to put a bit of copper ease on each thread when I put them back in. I know there are opposing views on using copper ease (copper slip) on spark plug threads, but as I wanted to make sure I could get the plugs out again at a later date, I've put a bit on. Now that the tank was on the bench, I started thinking about my rough running problem. after about 10 minutes, I get some 'lumpy' running with constant throttle, and I have already changed the HT leads and plugs to see if that fixed it. it didn't. so I thought I would drain and clean the tank. with the tank on the bench I put a lower portable bench next to it. put a petrol can on the lower bench and put a...

Just thought I would post a quick picture of the little devil that caused me so much trouble I'll try to get a clearer picture soon , Clearer Image is here. You can see the little circlip that holds the lever onto it's pivot. and there you can see the whole gear linkage.

So, I've been riding the CB750 this week, just to iron out any issues and get a bit more confidence that it isn't going to explode whilst I'l riding down the road. It's been doing fine. It's an old bike, and it doesn't go fast, anything over 70 and your pushing it, but it's a great bike to pootle around on. well, its great as long as you can overlook the odd engine playing up for half a minute or so once every ride. it's quite reliable in that once every ride to and from work, the engine will decide that it wants to test my resolve and starts acting as if I'm throttling off/on like a metronome. anyway's on the way home today, it decided to keep me on my toes again. the engine had played up for a short bit early on, and I was just coming off the M4, down the slip road to a roundabout. the lights were red, so I was slowing down and went to change gear. funny, I thought, i don't usually miss the gear lever, so I tried again, nope still ...

So, while I get the Z750 back on the road I'm using my backup bike. its a 1982 Honda CB750 imported from Japan in 1999. I've had it since 2010 and it's been off the road more than on since then. it needed a new exhaust, and I just didn't make the time to get it fixed, so that kept it garaged for a few years. but it's all up and running now (well, sort of). I was riding it to work a few weeks ago, and all was fine, but on the way home, it started to play up. I'm not sure how to describe it really. I was using a steady throttle doing about 65 (it is an old bike) when all of a sudden it started to feel like the breaks were being pumped on and off fairly quickly. I pulled in the clutch and let it coast and it was fine. that ruled out the breaks to me. this went on for a couple of miles, and then it cleared up and was fine again. when I got home, i did what you always do when you have problems - I Googled it. Some of the results pointed to HT leads, and ...