Week 26: 18th June

All hands to the pump to try and get the 100 ready for next week’s Natonal Rally.

First off however the Atlas starting has improved (slightly) but threw up a surprise when the clutch lever pivot bolt tried to break free on the M4! I managed to get to the hardshoulder and tap the pin back in and retain it with a bent paperclip. I fixed this with some bearing lock so fingers crossed it stays put!

The 100 preparation centred around getting the lights to work. I spent a couple of nights during the week with the wiring out. Phone calls to Dean in the New Forest helped me to get an understanding of the 6 volt flywheel magneto setup and I spent much of the time between Didcot and London thinking it through.

Getting the lights to work was pretty straightforward the challenge was to get the lights and brake light to work. The magneto puts out just 21 watts and the headlight wants 25W and the tail light 5W so asking it to support the 25W brake light won’t happen. I pondered it for some time before arriving at the solution which was to take the brake light out altogether and power it with a 6 volt torch battery. The brake light is only on the back brake so I think it will last the 540 miles of the National Rally next weekend.

As part of the preparation I installed a new bicycle speedo, a manual route reader, light switch which I wrapped in old inner tube in case of rain, re-routed the clutch cable and finally ran an additional wire along the frame so that in the event of the lights failing I could wire them all up to the torch battery.

It was fun preparing the bike. Before next weekend I have to go round the whole thing and make sure all the nuts and bolts are tight – last year I lost the nut off the end of the swinging arm!

Nick 🙂

Week 25: 11th June

This week has been fairly uneventful. I suppose it was a case of recovering from the French rally.

A positive thing was to richen up the pilot settings. Tom Eatman had commented that he set his at 4.5 to 5 turns out so when I checked over the electrics I checked and found mine to be just 3. The 1.5 turns seems to have made a difference although I am still learning what the best setting is for starting as full choke seems too much.

In addition I got some new spiral clips for the sidepanel screw and sorted the right hand panel which now has both screws back – it lost one in France.

The good news was that the Atlas completed a clean week into Lonon – there haven’t been too many of these recently. Rather worryingly I thought the engine smelt a bit ‘hot’ and was noisey in the top end. Checking the oil found it off the dipstick and it took a full 2 litres to bring it back. Fingers crossed it isn’t damaged (too much).

Nick 🙂

Week 24: 4th June

Nothing much to report this weekend other than the report on the LCF Rally in Portbail, Normandy. Full report in the ride section.

The Atlas starting remains to be a problem as you will see from the report…on the Wednesday night I had to bump the bike down the ramp from the work carpark…

Nick 🙂

Week 23: 28th May

Well moved into June this week – eeek half the year gone and little progress made!

Took the VFR to work 4 days out of 5 on account of preparing it for its MOT and also because I had a couple of meetings early in the week that meant I had to be sure the bike would start at the end of the day – jeez what an admission of failure. It turned out to have some truth however in that after the MOT on Thursday I intended to take the Atlas on to work only for it to go onto one cylinder. I think this was caused by the connection terminal coming adrift but I waited until the weekend to lockwire it in place!

So the good news was that the Atlas passed its MOT. Had to fiddle with the indicators when I got there – they lasted less than the 5 miles to the MOT station and were on the blink (sic) by the time I got home. The bulbs move about in the holders – dangerous if you stupidly rely on indicators but for me they have to work just once a year. The other near miss was the back brake pads which the tester swore were down to the metal but couldn’t see with his torch – they came through the brake test so we moved on.

The head bearings are good now but I will leave it until later next week before I put the handlebar fairing back on just in case they move about.

In addition to the Atlas I also got down to the RGS a bit and also the 100. I put the front wheel back in the RGS and also put the brake caliphers back on. I spent some time trying to get these to bleed up with little success so cable tied the brake lever open and have just left it to push out some air on its own. Not sure how far this will go but I am in no immediate hurry and if nature can do the job for me so be it!

The 100 needed its head bearings tightened as this needs an MOT soonish. This was relatively straightforward although getting one of the fork nuts to catch took a stupid amount of time. While I was about it I adjusted the front brake back into tolerance after the cable had slipped through the screw fit nipple. I also repaired the light switch with araldite so that now all I have to do is work out which wire goes where…Finally as a treat I went to see if it would start and hurrah!

Nick 🙂