XS 650 is done!

XS 650 was collected yesterday from John Warrington Motorcycles in Malton. He made an ace job of setting it up even though he says it's the most difficult pair of carbs to set up that he's done in years.  Once he got it going last week it was initially putting out 38hp at the rear wheel, standard is 43hp at the wheel.  Now it's done there is a very healthy 51.6hp at the rear wheel and it sounds great, it will be on the road from 1st August.

Outside John Warringtons about to make the journey home.

Moriwaki Z1000 about to get the treatment at John Warringtons.

A nice day out.

Well, I was really hoping that I would be writing about how great my XS 650 is now that it's been on the Dyno and is all set up but............ It's not ready!  Rang and spoke to John Warrington today, the lady on the phone made me feel quite optimistic when she said "I can hear it growling away on the Dyno right now actually" and then John came on :-(

Not ready yet and apparently "The graph doesn't look pretty, the fueling is all wrong and putting the air filters on makes it worse, but it ticks over lovely and starts straight away".  I then mentioned that it had tuning cores fitted into the headers as recommended by Heiden Tuning, they're coming out and we'll see what happens tomorrow.

So it's a good job I had a nice day out with Tony yesterday at the VJMC Show at Lotherton Hall, near Leeds.  Managed to make £100 on the autojumble by selling very little and saw some lovely bikes too, heres a taster, some more pics will be added to a show page later.


750 Honda Cafe Racer

Gorgeous Suzuki GS 1000S

Will it be ok????

Well, Tony and I stuck the XS 650 on the bike trailer today and took it the 40 miles to Malton to be left in what appears to be a very capable pair of hands, John of John Warrington Motorcycles. He is apparently THE man to see when it comes to Dyno tuning and having spent 5 minutes with him I can see why, what a nice bloke, very laid back and clearly very experienced with a history of tuning race bikes. An old XS 650 should be no trouble at all to him. I've now got to wait 3 days then hopefully it will be running like a swiss watch with a bucket full of extra oomph and an MOT too, fingers crossed!

Plunger Chop Project, GO GO GO

I was gonna sell it after I bought the Temptress, I even had 2 people interested in it. That didn't pan out and so I dragged it onto my bike lift the other day, just to give it a good coat of looking at and then today I went to bleed the brake on my XS 650, the very last job. It's a complete bastard and I could not get it to bleed properly and so..........I'll just have 5 minutes looking at that chop!

Rear mudguard mocked up, just to see how it looks.

Rear mudguard fitted, just need to angle the top mounts so they sit straight and then I can weld the connecting bar to them. Still nice and solid though.

This is a 'Rivnut', what a fantastic piece of kit. It's basically a rivet that is threaded right through the middle, drill a hole, insert the rivnut and then squeeze it with the rivnut gun and that's it absolutely solid in the frame tube. Fantastic tank mounting.

Tank and rear mudguard fully mounted.

View from the back, well pleased.

XS 650 update.

It's so close now, new handlebar grips are on and front brake hoses made and fitted. Just need to bleed the brakes which is proving to be an arse of a job and then it's done. Now where's that dyno!!!!!

E Type Jag

I've always had a soft spot for old Jags, whether it's because I used to work on them years ago or whether it's because of the way they ride, the smell or just the design.

So............. I went out of the house earlier to walk the dog and there was a gorgeous 4.2 E Type, just winking at me right outside the house.

The dog.......Poppy.

The E Type.

A picture of the wife sat on me chopper.

Not that chopper.............

This one!