Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2025 i Classic Motorcycle Mechanics

I think it’s a healthy thing to admit when you are wrong. And yes, I do it a great deal in my life: even more so as I get older! I often apologise to friends and family for overreacting over something daft. I apologise to you, dear reader, for when we make the odd mistake in the magazine. And I’ve found that – generally – as I get older I can recall stuff that happened decades ago, but then forget when I’ve said something or made a date days ago. Then it’s another apology for forgetting… This apology is 30 years in the making and it centres on the VFR800. Thing is, I was a big fan of the 750, rode many and owned a few. I always felt that…

JAMIE FORDHAM’S HONDA CB350 FOUR Here’re a couple of pictures of a Honda CB 350-4 I inherited from my sorely missed best friend Allan Ferguson’s family in April 2024. Sadly, Allan never quite finished the bike and it was about 90 per cent complete when I inherited it. Unfortunately, it required a rebore and the sprag clutch replacing but the rest was really just small bits and pieces. With other projects on the go, namely a Kawasaki KE175 that I have been doing up for a couple of years as and when work and family life allow, I really wanted it finished for Allan’s family and to be able to use this year, so Rocky Pitt of Rocky’s Retros helped me get it past the finishing line in March of this…

This is the second 70s Yamaha RD250 I’ve sampled for CMM over the years and it’s just like meeting up with a long-lost friend. Some of the familiarity to this is unquestionably the fact that I own and ride an RD350 of similar age and other than the larger capacity cylinders the two bikes are effectively the same machines. Both are hugely capable motorcycles and, very possibly, the epitome of the air-cooled, two-stroke genre. Oh, and the auditory signature of one of the early RD250s might very well be the soundtrack to many a CMM reader’s formative years. The new quarter-litre twin was unveiled at the end of 1972 for the following model year and hailed as a groundbreaking machine. The simple addition of a front disc brake brought the…

I said in part eight, part nine would be the finished product. Like all the best laid plans it completely went to pot and not the sort that you can inhale! Although thinking about it, that might have provided some relief, rather than the complete frustration experienced, not that I advocate illegal activities, of course. I had said to Bertie about all the problems, that I had just about had enough of this bike build. I was just going to button everything up in the final part, without reporting on all the issues I’d encountered. His response was problems are part of the build, so write them. I guess that’s fair enough, but it didn’t fill me with enthusiasm. Truth is, I’d finished the bike at this point, well, visually,…

One of the biggest conundrums for the motorcycle restorer or fettler is this: do you go OE (original equipment) or risk ‘pattern parts’? Let’s delve in. A while ago, I had to buy a new front tyre for my Honda CB900F Hornet so I looked up the part number. Yes, there is a part number. And clearly it’s perfectly normal to buy non-genuine parts like these as Honda do not actually make tyres and present-day ‘non-genuine’ parts are better than the original parts from decades ago. That front tyre part number (44711-MCZ-013) is priced at £340. Ouch! But I bought an equivalent tyre for less than a third of that (Photo 1). Price is a factor why we often don’t go OE, but another reason for not buying the original…

That’s a word that’ll strike fear into any right-thinking sentient being. But when Bernie Hepworth suggested it in 1989 his next statement stopped me in my tracks… “I’ll start now, here’s my £500 quid.” Bernie proceeded to pull out his cheque book (they were a thing then) and scribbled ‘Five hundred pounds’ plus his mark. This was the start of a long, frequently dirty, frustrating, amusing and gratifying task for many people. The intended recipient of this fanciful chunk of wonga was a very tired, shagged-out lump of Tarmac just a few miles away from the famed Elvington airstrip. Unlike Elvington, the strip at Melbourne had fallen into serious disrepair and its RAC inspections had become ‘difficult’! It simply wasn’t fit for the modern crop of rapid bikes… no permit:…

In the early 1990s Jean-Michel Bayle was the greatest motocross and supercross rider of them all, but he decided to give up the dirt and take to the Tarmac. Ignoring the lesser championships, he made his official road-racing debut in a world championship 250cc race at his home race of Magny-Cours in 1992. Bayle became Honda’s first 125cc World Motocross champion in 1988, then dominated the 250cc class as a rookie the next year. The expected switch to the 500cc class never happened as Jean-Michel moved to the USA and supercross. He learned his craft for a year and won the 250cc Supercross title as well as the 250 and 500cc outdoor championships in 1991. Another challenge beckoned. He was 23 and wanted to try road-racing. Bayle bought himself a…

There’s not really much we can say about our very own Pip Higham, except that he’s a ruddy legend: top engineer, record-breaking drag racer, and scribe of witty and sometimes undecipherable ‘northern speak’ columns in CMM. Well, if you love the man as much as we do here, you could own a piece of the legend himself as he’s putting up for auction eight of his beautiful machines and a quirky gravity/soap box racer thingy. One of the bikes up for auction is his amazing 1982 six-cylinder Katana (that Suzuki never made but Pip decided to). He says: “That bike has been a feature of my life for longer than I care to consider. It was a challenge and when I got to 1000 hours on it – I stopped…

JUNE 18 JULY ISSUE OF CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS OUT NOW 18 Gosport Motorbike Social Rolling Scones, Rowner Road, Gosport, Hampshire PO13 9UB. 6-8pm. Tel: 023 9258 3226. 19 JULY/AUGUST ISSUE OF CLASSIC RACER ON SALE 19 South Yorkshire MAG Bike Night Market Hotel, 2-4 Wentworth Road, Elsecar, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S74 8EP. 19 Weymouth Bike and Classic Car Night Weymouth Clock Tower, The Esplanade, Dorset. 6-8.30pm. weymouthbikers.co.uk 21 Beaulieu Bikers Day National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, New Forest, Hampshire, SO42 7ZN. www.beaulieu.co.uk 21 TRX850 Owners Club’s 30th Anniversary Sammy Miller Museum, Bashley Crossroads, New Milton, Hampshire BH25 5SZ. www.sammymiller.co.uk 22 Prescott Bike Festival Prescott Speed Hill Climb, Gotherington, Cheltenham. www.prescottbikefestival.co.uk 22 Honda Day Ace Cafe, Ace Corner, North Circular Road, Stonebridge Park, London NW10 7UD London.acecafe.com 22 Cambridge Classic & Vintage Bike Show Cambridge Museum…

I covered a few basics last month and examined the fundamentals of a basic lathe cutting tool. If you want to start using your lathe for more than just spamming up bolts you need to learn how to move the cutting tool accurately with reference to the workpiece. In part one I showed various/different methods for holding the workpiece with varying levels of precision. One important point to remember is that if you can do all the machining operations out of a piece of material without having to remove it from the work holding device (e.g. three-jaw chuck) then it doesn’t really matter – within reason – how accurately it is held, providing it doesn’t move, because all the operations will be perfectly in tune with one another. With a…

Having found at least most of the bits which will make a CB400F, it is now time to commence work and as usual I shall start with the engine. The rather brief Honda manual is arranged in a way that considers engine work as a number of different jobs which makes it rather hard to follow when you want to progress from fully dismantled to complete, and the Haynes Manual is better for this. As we saw last time, I already had all the casings vapour-blasted. The work was done by Steve Gosine at CBX Vapour Blasting in Copthorne, West Sussex, and I must say that he did a first-class job. Years ago the editor of the previous incarnation of this magazine, Bob Berry, had his engine rebuilt by a…

I’ve always enjoyed a bit of ‘multi-tasking. That isn’t to say I’m any good at it, but frequently I have needed to enable several aspects of my ongoing projects in an effort to maintain progress. Currently I’m anticipating a call from Geoff to say that he’s up for the welding op on the crankcases. So, after a quick call he clears the decks and we’re off. I’ve had the cases with the two heavy steel mandrels on my Ufesa hot-plate all morning, so they’re lovely and warm. At Geoff’s I unfurl the cases (I’ve had them swaddled in the van to retain warmth) and pop them on my dinky gas-powered camping stove to maintain temperature. Geoff has a very methodical approach to the welding. He lays down a few substantial…

The cheapest Ducati 748 I’d ever seen advertised had been mine for nine weeks and four days when I rolled it into the van for its first track test – a weekend at Cadwell Park instructing as part of the superb Classic Bike Track-days team. It had gone from a rusty and heavily corroded pile of crap ready for the breakers to something which anyone with an eye for a beautiful things would find appealing. You’ll remember the first road ride had been amazing, but the second and third horrible, thanks to a blocked tank breather. This was sorted quickly enough and road-tested just before loading the van for this event. I’ve hit budget, spending just £748 on top of the £2250 purchase price to make the bike a real-life…

WEISE SPRINT GLOVES If you like the comfort and convenience of a short-cuff glove, with the high-performance protection of a race glove, the new Weise Sprint combines the best of both. Constructed from premium full-grain leather, the Sprint has an adjustable cuff closure that gives a secure fit, and is low profile, to fit comfortably under the cuff of a riding jacket. All the normal protection and features are here: plastic knuckle armour, scaphoid armour, vented finger protectors, and some areas benefit from dual-layered leather reinforcement. Comfort is helped thanks to stretch panels and padded areas, and both index fingers and thumbs are touchscreen compatible. Available in black or black/white in sizes S-3XL. www.weiseclothing.com NOLAN X-804 RS ULTRA CARBON Nolan say their X-804 RS Ultra Carbon is the ‘perfect synthesis…

It could well be argued that for motorcyclists, 1998 would be what a wine connoisseur would say was a “very good year”. Why? Well, 1998 saw many exciting new models being introduced, with the likes of Yamaha’s all-new YZF-R1, FZS600 Fazer, Suzuki’s TL1000R, Honda’s new CBR900RR-W FireBlade, CB600F Hornet, and Aprilia’s entry into the big-bore sports-bike market with the RSV Mille. Honda’s offerings were interesting. Firstly the Hornet would become something of a little legend, spawning a race series and with the bike becoming something of a cult classic. Meanwhile, the FireBlade with its softer edge would lose out to the R1 in the excitement stakes. But Honda launched another new model in that year, the successor to the VFR750F. With this important new model, Honda went for evolution, not…

CHOOSE WHICH CMM SUBSCRIPTION SUITS YOU BEST 1: 12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION BEST VALUE 12 print issues for £49 Direct Debit 12 print issues for £54 credit/debit card SAVE £15.80 2: SIX-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION 6 print issues for £26 Direct Debit 6 print issues for £28 credit/debit card SAVE £6.40 WHAT OUR READERS SAY ABOUT CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS CMM is the ‘go-to’ magazine for sensible restoration advice. BRIAN HERRON The magazine covers a shrinking, niche area of interest perfectly. ALAN BROWN A valuable asset to the classic rider, restorer and enthusiast. SIMON ROSE WHY YOU SHOULD READ CLASSIC MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS EVERY MONTH >> IF YOU WANT THE BEST IN MODERN CLASSIC MOTORCYCLING, THIS IS IT! >> EACH MONTH YOU’LL GET THE VERY BEST IN PRACTICAL WORKSHOP TIPS AND ADVICE >> READ ABOUT THE REAL…

IN CONJUNCTION WITH I thought I’d attach a fair few pictures of our new shed or our ‘Garage-Mahal’ as we like to call it. The trigger for this workshop heaven was the fact that my seventh bike didn’t quite fit inside my former garage, so extreme measures were taken. Let me tell you about the bike collection first. This consists of a 1968 BSA B25 Starfire with a B44 Victor engine in it; a 1976 Triumph T140V Bonneville; a 1972 Rickman Metisse Mk.3 with a 650 Triumph Trophy engine; a 2020 Triumph Tiger 900 Rally that I rode this year on a bucket-list trip to take in the North East and Mid-Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Routes (go look ’em up). Then I have a 2018 Triumph Speedmaster, which is my ‘old…

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, roll up, roll up and throw things at the Aunt Sally of classic Japanese motorcycles! No single machine before or since made in The Land of the Rising Sun has had such bad press. Suzuki’s RE5 is vilified, lambasted, mocked and shunned by legions of critics, yet the reality is that few, if any, have ever ridden one. Yes, they’re complicated, unquestionably; the Wankel engine was a technological blind alley and, as sales records go, it was a disaster. And yet if you get to ride one now the chances are you’ll come away worryingly impressed. No one will deny they’re heavy, and the heat they throw out is phenomenal. However, until you’ve wound one open and experienced that amazingly smooth motor you genuinely…

I love custom bike building, but I rarely get commissioned to build for others as real custom building is massively time-consuming and even my meagre hourly rate starts to add up to a pretty penny on a big build. This is why there are so few, what I would call, real custom bikes out there; it’s much cheaper to knock up bikes using bits from a ‘custom’ catalogue rather than splash out and really go to town. But I was… The standard engine mounting plates of the Z900 are punched out of not especially thick mild steel. I decided to make the interface between the powerplant and the frame from 10mm thick aluminium alloy plate adding no more lard, but greater rigidity. From a production perspective, making engine mounting plates…

WIN! Subscribers can win Weise Norvik Jeans worth £159.99 and an MTR Vintage retro crash helmet worth £130 from: www.louis-moto.co.uk … a ComfortAir seat worth £70 … a Bridgestone Oximiser and Tamiya kits… SUZUKI GT550: Steve Cooper tests a brace of beautiful Suzuki two-stroke triples HONDA CBR600RR: Supersports 600 four-cylinder, 20 years on SUZUKI SV650: Buyer’s Guide on this remarkable little V-twin AND part one of Andy Bolas’ project SV! AND SHOW US YER SHED: WIN a £50 Venhill voucher if you show us YOURS! PROJECT BIKES: We will be showcasing some of the following (space allowing): Paul Berryman’s Ducati 748; Mark Haycock’s Honda CB400 Four; Steve Cooper’s Ducati/Suzuki special; Jeff Ware’s Honda CBR900RR FireBlade. Plus Malc Shaw with his Suzuki GT500 Café Racer; Kev Raymond’s back with his Kawasaki KDX200; and…