Burt Munro ride day 3 (Saturday)

Saturday was a big day. Woke up with horrific hangovers, had a feed, and then off to Teretonga for racing there. Some really awesome vintage stuff racing and in the pits, including this 1936 Rudge that, I think, raced in every event – including the beach! Saw this sweet Commando cafe racer in the spectators parking area and took some detail shots of this as possible 'notes' for mine. Then went ito town to check out E. Hayes and Sons Hardware store where some of Burt Munro's bikes are kept. This was surprisingly cool. There were a bunch more bikes there than I'd expected (not all Burt's), and some really interesting stuff. Went back to cabin as we were all feeling rather jaded from the night before still. Had fishburgers and then went to the speedway event. This was really packed out – speedway seems to be a lot more popular down there than anywhere else in the country? I know it's stupid/simple but I love speedway. Saw some interesting spectator bikes including this Bimota here. Bloody ugly I reckon, but worth a mention for it!

Burt Munro ride day 2 (Friday)

Friday morning we left Cromwell with Grant's dad and his friend Ken. Went for breakfast in Frankton and then rode down the lake to Kingston where we filled up with gas. That's an amazing bit of road! Then I took off ahead of everyone else so I could stop at my grandmothers house – the house she grew up in – which is just past Athol and before Lumsden, a place called Parawa. Everyone else caught up and we rode most of the rest of the way to Invercargill together.

The guy from the campground we were staying at gave us a ride down to the beach racing, where it pretty much pissed down. First rain of the trip. The beach racing was awesome and we discussed building a beach racer ourselves. We walked from there back to the campsite where the rally was, and had a few beers in the big tent there. We got a bit put off by the band and decided after a while to head into Invercargill's main drag. We had pizza there and then went to find a bar to hang at. I can't remember what the bar was called but we had a pretty crazy night there drinking tequila etc...

Burt Munro ride day 1 (Thursday)

Just back from the 'Burt Munro' weekend of racing down in Invercargill. Rode down there with Kerry and Grant, and we picked up Hamish and Grant's dad on the way. Left on Thursday and rode through Central Otago, where we stayed the night with Grant's old man in Cromwell. He cooked us a choice Bbq and then got the guns out!

Was an amazing ride through Central with beautiful weather. My visor got ripped off my new helmet by the wind from a passing truck, and then it got run over by a car. Had to gaffer tape it together and stick it back on. Luckily we didn't get bugger all rain so it didn't matter too much...

Werewolves on Wheels!

Especially for Matt Galloway. Haven't watched this yet but will as soon as I get a chance. From 1971 by Michel Levesque

Norton running!

Ok so I overreacted! The oil leak was actually a petrol leak. I pulled the tank off and used thread sealer on the taps and that seems to have fixed that. Jimi came round while I was doing that and so when the tank was back on we kicked it over. Started first kick again! Jimi adjusted the throttle cable and pretty quickly had it idling at just over 500rpm. Pretty sweet!

I noticed a funny noise in the primary though and when we inspected it noticed that the rotor, which sticks out further now, had hit and destroyed the timing marker that's attached to the primary cover. Bugger. Will look into that, and recess the rotor by whatever we need to to get that clear when I get the new one.

Although, by pushing the rotor out more we're getting the full 70 pounds on the nut onto it. If it's not spaced out like this will it torque up properly?

Norton update: put back together & start!

So I've just spent the last 3 days – literally 3 days, I have done nothing else (I've barely eaten!) – putting this bike back together. I've taken my time mostly and addressed every little problem along the way (apart from a couple of little things). First off I reinstalled the oil system. I had previously pulled this all out when I'd discovered the oil tank was full of some kind of alien looking shit... as well as a bit of rust. Anyway I've cleaned all that out now. There's still a small amount of surface rust in the oil tank, but I thought it'd be ok for a while at least (and, at least, I know what's in there now). I put on all new hose clamps when putting all the pipes back in so everything, theoretically, is nice and tight and hopefully 'sealed'...

Next up I finished putting the primary back together, which, after Jimi's help over the last couple of months, wasn't too hard at all. The rotor is feeling pretty good and tight, and so is the clutch basket! I managed to get a really good even space of .008" between the rotor and stator. I've struggled with this in the past, so hey fuck I musta learnt something eh!

Then I closed up the primary. A momentous occasion for the year... (or so I thought) 

Stripped my carb again and had a good fiddle around, still couldn't see anything obviously wrong. I took off the shitty hoses you can see here but couldn't get any more yet. Surprisingly hard to find?

Put carb on anyway (hoseless), and set up my throttle with a brand new throttle cable. Oiled that sucker overnight and man does it feel good now!

I employed my idiot sticker method again...

Here she is prior to being kicked over for the first time in over a year...

Slightly unbelievably it started second kick! I was surprised because I had no ignition light and the electrics seem to be playing up now, but thought I'd give her a kick and away she went. I've fucked something up though – probably the throttle cable? Although I'm pretty sure it's sweet? – because it was idling really fast and I couldn't get it to drop at all by adjusting the carb. Was idling at about 3000!

I had to go out though and so had to leave it here at this point. I guess I was happy that it was running and that it started so easily. So I parked it up in the garage, pleased that it was almost one whole thing again rather than a bunch of parts spread all over dad's garage.

BUT...

Woke up this morning to the smell of 'old bike' all through the house. Initially I thought wow, that's a good smell to have in the air again. But when I went into the garage there was a pool of oil under the bike. Fuck. It seems to becoming out of the crank-case where it meets the primary. My guess is that it's coming out the three holes where the bolts that hold the primary to the crank-case go. I wiped it away and started to seep out again quite fast. It also seems to be leaking from some of the engine bolts that do up the crank-case at the very bottom.