Old Boar's blog (Old Boars blog)

Have you ever had a bad day? I have. In fact I've just had two-and-a-half bad days. Woke up on Monday feeling rotten and finished up taking three days off work. A load of paracetamol and rest later and I feel much better. I've gone into work and now I've working my way through the backlog. I hope there's nothing serious in the in-box!

Anyway, I'm out of that particular pit and the pendulum is swinging the other way now. (if you don't understand the references, "the pit and the pendulum" is a short (horror) story by Edgar Allan Poe, also a film starring that old ham Vincent Price. Great entertainment even if the film wasn't great art.

I've found another web presence who calls himself "Old Boar". I've got nothing to do with him, and he's got nothing to do with me, so I can't exactly endorse what he writes for a local newspaper in Cumberland, England. Anyway, I find some of it amusing (and we have some similar interests).

Austen Davies

His column is described as a "Local entrepreneur and award-winning sausage maker takes a pop at the bureaucrats". Enjoy!

PS - Looks like I've been the victim of some "comment spam". The offending (and mildly offensive) comment to this item has been removed and I've enabled "word verification", which should keep the spam-bots at bay, at least until "they" start to add character recognition components to get round the that kind of security.

Sigh. There's always someone who has to spoil things.

Is it a good idea to trust strangers? Obviously the sensible answer has to be "it depends". In the same way: are some strangers too trusting? Again the answer is "probably".

Sometimes a little trust (or "faith") can be a good thing. I was chairing a meeting lastweek and had a number of additional delegates foisted on me. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what they wanted. Fortunately, I'd done sufficient preparation prior to the meeting to be sufficiently confident to ask them what they wanted from the meeting. As they told me, it became clear to everyone in the meeting that none of the people in the room were in possession of all the facts. In fact, it was clear that the single most useful thing that we could do was exchange information.In the end we managed to achieve the meeting objective, exchange some background information and set up a follow-up meeting. (oh, and we spent the evening in the pub).

Maybe we were all too trusting but the results were good on this occassion.

I have about 30 minutes before I have to set off to catch the flight to Cork. In these few minutes I thought I'd share the progress on the TS250 (MZ Motorbike) with you.

You may remember that last weekend I fitted the front forks properly and fitted the drive chain and chain gaiters. Yesterday evening I continued with the assembly work; fitted the rear wheel and adjusted the chain tension (I have still to check the wheel alignment but it should be right). I also fitted the exhaust and fuel tank and then went to the pub. By-the-way, fitting the exhaust to an MZ can be more of a struggle than you might expect.

When I got in from the pub I decided that I'd have a further "tinker". The wiser ones amoung you might caution against "tinkering" when "inspired" and might also point out that attempting to start a motorcycle at midnight may not be a sociable thing to do. In reply, all I can say is that I'm not that wise and that my garage is situated so that I am unlikely to cause much disturbance to anything remotely human!

I fitted the hot-wire, filled the tank and gave the bike a couple of prods. Needless to say it didn't start. Once again the problem is fuel. Although the inside of the tank is now as clean as a high pressure water-jet can make it the crud that used to be there had still managed to clog up the fuel tap. If any of you have a similar experience, the passageways through an MZ fuel tap can be cleaned by careful use of a 3mm (1/8 inch) drill held between finger and thumb.

Once the fuel starvation had been corrected, a couple more prods and the beast stuttered into life. Once again there were dense clouds of oily smoke. Most of it was coming from round the exhaust ring. Obviously I haven't got it bedded down properly, and I think I may have got the ring cross threaded. Despite the fact that the hot-wire is putting 12 volts into a 6 volt coil, I decided to let it run for a few minutes. It was then I noticed that there was smoke coming from the exposed, righthand (dynamo) end of the crankshaft!

• My first thought was: "Oh, no. Not a leaky oil seal."
• My second thought was: "It can't be an oil seal. The engine is running far too well."
• My third thought was: "Oh sh1t! The smoke is coming from that little coil thingy on the dynamo! It must be overheating (in a big way)!
• My next action was to lurch for the kill switch (advice: Never hotwire something without an easy-to-hit kill switch)

Now, I don't think that it was the 12 volts that was the problem with the "coil thingy". I think the problem was that it was receiving the full, unregulated output of the dynamo. When I get back from Cork, I'm going to have to check whether I've don't any permanent damage. But even if I have , what the heck. It was a thoroughly satisfactory end to the evening, even if I did wake a few werewolves!

I think it's high time I fitted the proper electrics, gave it some brakes and took it for a little spin! Watch this space!

A flying update on progress with the Black MZ 250 motorcycle. I had to rush things a bit last weekend, but I still managed to make significant progress. The front forks, mudguard and wheel are now fitted properly, and the drive chain has been fitted.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the old MZ motorcycles, amoung their distinctive characteristics; the drive chain is completely enclosed and the rear wheel is "quick detachable" (without disturbing the chain). The sprocket on the rear wheel is encased in a plastic guard, the front drive sprocket is hidden behind a cover and the two are joined together by two black plastic hoses, usually known as "gaiters" which contain the chain. This is really quite a good arrangement. The chain is protected from the elements (and lasts longer) and the chain tension can be checked (cleanly) by pressing down on the top gaiter (with the engine stopped!).

The gaiter system is very practical, but it has two disadvantages:

1. The gaiters tend to split at the ends (the rubber used does not really
   have the necessary tensile strength.
2. Fitting a new chain after the bike has been dismantled can be a bit of a chore.

If anyone is tempted to follow my example, here are a few suggestions:

• Clean the outside of the gaiters first. Even if you are not bothered about
  the appearance of the bike, it makes the job a whole lot more pleasant.
• Minor splits can be repaired with cyanacrilate (superglue) adhesive (but don't include yourself in the repair!)
• I painted my gaiters with tyre paint. The smell is awful (like someone burning a small tyre under your nose) but the end effect is good.
• When you eventually fit the gaiters, put black cable ties round the outside of the attachments. This will help with the splitting problem and is almost undetectable.
• To fit the chain, make a "hook" from fencing wire a little longer than a gaitor and use that to pull the chain through.
• You will have to join the chain over the engine drive sprocket. This is fiddly.
• You will get your hands dirty!

And while on the subject of "dirty hands", all of us (in Britain anyway) who have worked with machines own this man a debt: Swarfega