What have you done to your XS today?

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Applied some elbow grease....

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Roy Thersby in Middlesbrough. He must be the best! The motorcycle engineer in this village recommended Roy and said nobody has ever been disappointed by his work. I took a Honda NX250 wheel to him - had it rebuilt from a 16" rim to 17". Better choice of tyres for 17". He rebuilt the wheel with stainless spokes and alloy rim. Very impressed, he asked all the right questions, did a perfect job.

Operates out of a small terraced house in Middlesbrough, stuffed with bikes, parts, machine tools. In the hallway, you fall over a BSB-winning Ducati he built. All the bikes are unobtanium specials. Can't remember what I paid but it wasn't outlandish, maybe about £200 including the spokes and rim?
 
Roy Thersby in Middlesbrough. He must be the best! The motorcycle engineer in this village recommended Roy and said nobody has ever been disappointed by his work. I took a Honda NX250 wheel to him - had it rebuilt from a 16" rim to 17". Better choice of tyres for 17". He rebuilt the wheel with stainless spokes and alloy rim. Very impressed, he asked all the right questions, did a perfect job.

Operates out of a small terraced house in Middlesbrough, stuffed with bikes, parts, machine tools. In the hallway, you fall over a BSB-winning Ducati he built. All the bikes are unobtanium specials. Can't remember what I paid but it wasn't outlandish, maybe about £200 including the spokes and rim?
Cheers Raymond, I used to work in M’Boro and lived in a cottage in Yarm.
Had a fleet of bikes back then. Sadly ‘borough is a long way away from me. Although Dpd or DHL could suffice. Do you have contact information?
 
Hoorah!..... I have found a wheel builder to build up my Cognito Moto rear hub. Better still he is local and lives in the same town as me: Newport, South Wales.

So I whipped (Yeah!) the rear wheel out as he needs to measure the off-set. I also cut some alloy tube stock to make an inner spacer for the new Cognito hub. 5T, Jan-P and Halfmile came up with some solutions to use the 17mm spindle with the standard XS650 bearings; and it seems to work. old wheel and new hub off to the builder tomorrow morning. I did not know rims are drilled and matched to the hub; so hes getting the custom drilled alloy rim with stainless spokes & nipples.
He charges £65.00 to build the wheel and rim & parts will be about £200.00. Three week turnaround.
Be-Spoked Wheel Builders Mobile: 07969 153555 Dave; really nice bloke to talk with, and seems an old school engineer
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Isn't Feked over your way Adam... just south of Whales?
Even if you've already selected a builder... someone to keep in mind for other stuff.


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Thanks Jim. I did search around for a wheel builder and found several. Most were at least 150km away or more, as is Feked. Yes the men in brown DPD and Fedex etc can go the distance. As a local retailer I try and support local businesses, and face to face is always better to build a trustful relationship.
 
Feked are a good outfit. Bought a lot of stuff from them when I rebuilt a Triumph TR6 and still buy the occasional item such as the Dunstall-style silencers on Miss November. But super happy you have found a local wheel builder - there is a lot to be said for face-to-face.
 
Thanks Jim. I did search around for a wheel builder and found several. Most were at least 150km away or more, as is Feked. Yes the men in brown DPD and Fedex etc can go the distance. As a local retailer I try and support local businesses, and face to face is always better to build a trustful relationship.
Good for you. If we don't support our local businesses, one day they'll be gone and you will be forced to deal with a nameless, faceless corporation who's attitude will be "take it or leave it".
 
Good for you. If we don't support our local businesses, one day they'll be gone and you will be forced to deal with a nameless, faceless corporation who's attitude will be "take it or leave it".
Quite right 46th.
I dropped the wheel and hub off this morning at a motorcycle repair shop in Newport that I didn't know existed.
Wheel man Dave introduced me to repair man Dave (Yes two Dave's). Both are bike enthusiasts and old school engineers.
The shop was stuffed with bikes from classic triumphs and 70's Japanese kit to modern Hayabusas and street triples, etc....
Fantastic old lathes and milling machines, and other bikes in various states of disassembly.
I will take photos next time I'm there.
 
Quite right 46th.
I dropped the wheel and hub off this morning at a motorcycle repair shop in Newport that I didn't know existed.
Wheel man Dave introduced me to repair man Dave (Yes two Dave's). Both are bike enthusiasts and old school engineers.
The shop was stuffed with bikes from classic triumphs and 70's Japanese kit to modern Hayabusas and street triples, etc....
Fantastic old lathes and milling machines, and other bikes in various states of disassembly.
I will take photos next time I'm there.
Sounds like a slice of heaven.
 
I noticed oil leaking from the head gasket on the left cylinder so I removed the fuel tank and the top engine mount and re-torqued all the stud nuts and 12mm bolts. Pulled the plugs to do the compression test and found the right plug is white and the left is black not oily but definately rich. Not sure what's going on there but I have never seen a plug so white before especially on one cylinder. Left cylinder was 160 and the right cylinder was close to 165, both with throttle wide open. When cranking it over with the starter the awful screeching sound started again in the starter motor just like it did recently before I disassembled it and greased the shafts. It always worked well until I replaced both the seals while waiting for the new crankshaft so I checked I had the two thrust washers installed and the one thicker washer are all in the right place and couldn't find anything wrong. I recorded the noise it makes while cranking but being an old fart I can't work out how to install it here. It does it when I remove the starter from the engine so it can't be anything else.
 
White plug = holed piston in the making. I can't comment about the strange noise, but you clearly have a mixture/air ingress problem - very odd that each side seems the polar opposite of the other though. More than one problem, I'd wager.
There is some popping on start up from the right cylinder that was not there before I rebuilt the engine and I thought maybe I've got an air leak around the vm34 manifold but I tried spraying it with carb cleaner with no effect. Before I replaced the cylinders and head the right plug was often half white and half black and the left plug would be black. Since the rebuild I have installed iridium plugs because it was so hard to start with all the popping from the right cylinder and then I was able to set the ignition timing so the popping is a lot better now and only does it when the engine is cold. I will try the dead cylinder method for the carbs after work and see if that helps. Any way to check the oil flow?
 
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