Recent content by Grewth

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    BS34 Carbs with open pipes ?

    Thanks for all the input, guys. I'm afraid that I've been tied up with something else the last few days. I've got two sets of those pipes in bare steel, and I was going to grab another set in chrome (the price seems to go up with each new batch) but now I'm having second thoughts. I'm thinking...
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    BS34 Carbs with open pipes ?

    So everyone thought that you were an obnoxious jerk did they ? Well obviously they were right then, and nothing has changed since !
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    BS34 Carbs with open pipes ?

    "Snuff or nots" I've got to admit that I'd never heard of them before, and I've been pottering around with motorcycles for fifty years now. I don't think that I've ever seen one here in the UK, I guess that they just didn't catch on here. So, the concensus of opinion seems to be that zero...
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    BS34 Carbs with open pipes ?

    I'm thinking of running high level open pipes on one of my 650 Specials. I'm going for the "Street Scrambler" look like the old Triumph TR6C. I'm just wondering if the standard BS34 carbs will be able to cope with the lack of back pressure. I don't want loads of popping and backfiring on the...
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    Skewed tank filler fix ?

    That will work ! Many thanks ! Not sure if I'll need to bias the slide hammer effort to the left, or just a straight pull in the middle. I'll just have to take it easy, and see how it goes. The tank is now plastered with a thick coating of paint stripper, it will probably take a week for me to...
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    Skewed tank filler fix ?

    I've bought another '70 to '72 fuel tank. It's got some issues that you'd expect with a fifty year old tank, but one thing that I never spotted before bidding was that an impact on the filler cap has bent the filler over about 10° to the left. Having had some previous experience with these...
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    Shape of Motorcycle Engines..

    I've got a couple of A65's which I'm slowly rebuilding. There's more than just a passing resemblance between Yamahas twin and the BSA design. For a start Yamaha adopted the 75 x 74mm bore and stroke of the A65. At the time that the XS engine was being designed, the BSA Spitfire was the...
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    TX750 swingarm

    No, I thought that. I had to hunt down a '70 to '73 Swing Arm for the first XS1 frame that I bought, despite having a fair pile of '74 onwards ones. IIRC the width is the same at the front, but the 74 arm is longer and wider at the axle end. And the shock mounts are further apart too. So the...
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    SR500 Front Drum Brake

    I've just taken delivery of a TLS front drum from a German market model SR500. I've never actually looked at one "in the metal" before. Obviously I knew that the drum casting itself was completely different with five dummy vent holes replacing the six genuine vent holes of the XS1. I wasn't too...
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    XT500 Project

    Very reasonable, except that unfortunately for me, it's on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean. Add $133 shipping to the UK, then add 20% VAT to the whole lot for Customs duty. About the same price as the rip off breakers in the UK . XT/SR rear wheels seem to command even higher prices, but...
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    XT500 Project

    I've not been on here for a while. I've been temporarily distracted from my motorcycle projects. My XT500 based project has now progressed to an engine and a standard XT frame, with the engine mounts and oil pipes. And that's about all. I've got a front end that I can build up from SR500 and...
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    Is there a beater thread?

    I'd have kept the bike and given away the wife.
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    New To Me - 1976 XS650C

    Trying to restore that to original isn't going to be economically viable. Better to start with something more complete, better condition, and more original (I'm thinking that the clocks are off a TX500 maybe ?) If you've got a viable engine I'd think save all the valuable rare cycle parts (well...
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    Renovation of a front drum wheel

    Or flat it down as best as possible, then paint the offending item with a suitable primer and then silver paint. Or maybe silver powder coating ? Rubbing off the chrome plating is OK if you have a lot of spare time on your hands, otherwise it's not commercially viable. You'd probably do better...
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    Renovation of a front drum wheel

    My first thoughts are that the blasting media will erode away the exposed aluminium alloy casting much more quickly than the unwanted chrome plating.
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