Recommend Me A Local Mechanic To Work On An Old British Bike, Please.

A Happy Ending .... almost.

Well, following the recommendations I got here, I contacted Ian (Motorcycle Man) Scott and arranged for him to come and pick up my bike on Thursday night. He arrived, with his van, at 9pm and we chatted about what needed doing to the bike as he loaded it and carefully strapped it in place. As he left, Ian said that he would contact me again when he had had a chance to inspect the bike and give me an idea how long it might take to fix.

At 4pm the following day, the phone rang and it was Ian.

"Your bikes all done and according to Jack (who test rode it), it really flies".

I was in shock .

"Erm, wow, that's fantastic news", I said. "What was wrong with it"?

"Ignition timing mostly, plus the carbs were set up incorrectly", replied Ian.

I asked him how he got it to spark enough to start it up in the first place and Ian said that there were already big sparks coming from the plug when they first tried kicking it over. That part really confused me .

Anyway, the upshot was that they claimed to have got it running properly (without touching the wiring or even doing a compression test) and that the whole job had only accrued two hours in labour charges. At £45 and hour (plus VAT), Ian's prices were very reasonable, IMHO, and so with the £50 collection charge, the whole job came to £174. Considering that I had spent three weeks and over £300 on (unneeded) ignition parts in trying to fix it myself, I was pretty relieved that it wasn't any higher than that.

The next day, I caught the train down to Bexhill and went to Ian's workshop to go and collect my bike and see if the rumours of it being able to 'fly' were justified . After a quick chat with Jack, who is Ian's newly-appointed, younger side-kick (and quite an authority on classic British bikes), I felt reassured that he knew what he was doing. I spoke to Ian too and thanked him for a job well done.

Then it was time to take the bike home and ride it for the first time since all the work had been done. I was a bit sceptical about just how much better it might perform than it did when I first got it and it was 'running' (albeit rather lumpily and reluctantly). So, it was a massive relief when I got it out onto a 60mph A road, wound the throttle slowly open and just felt the engine keep on revving and revving and the bike being pulled strongly along through every gear . Previously, the engine would never rev past 4,500 in any gear and the best speed that I ever managed on the flat was 70mph. Now, 70mph is reached pretty rapidly (by 1960s/70s 650cc standards) and I feel sure that, given a long enough straight, the magic 'ton' would pose no real obstacle at all . In short, the bike was 'fixed' and a real pleasure to ride.

As I was nearing Horam, I decided to take the opportunity to go and enjoy a Wesson's Cafe 'Brekkie' (my favourite, anywhere ) and maybe show off my newly-tuned bike to any passing enthusiasts. Whilst tucking into my griddled bacon, sausages and egg, the heavens opened and so I sat and watched the rain bouncing off the pavement as I sipped my (builder's) tea.

Once it had eased off a bit, I went out to the bike to continue my ride home (to Tunbridge Wells). I had a little trouble starting the bike, but as it had been re-jetted and had the needle clip moved to a different position, it is quite likely that I simply hadn't found the right amount of throttle to get the engine to fire (I never use the choke and it always requires some throttle to start). Soon though, the engine was running and I was off.

I pulled out of the cafe, turned right and because it was raining and the skies were so gloomy, I decided to flick the headlight on. Exactly as I did that, the engine cut out . I couldn't restart the bike and soon discovered that the main fuse had blown. Annoyingly, I didn't have any replacements with me (as I had taken the tool kit out from under the saddle before sending the bike off to the workshop), so I had to walk to the nearest petrol station and buy some. Every time I fitted a new one though, it blew!

Realising that there was a short somewhere, I inspected all of the exposed wired that I could find, in the hope of finding a negative wire from the battery that was touching the bare metal frame of the bike. There was nothing . Eventually, soaked and dejected, I called the AA .

When the patrol van arrived (nearly 2 hours later), I was a little embarrassed to see that the driver was the same guy (Andy) who had picked my bike up three weeks ago when the trouble first began . We had a bit of a laugh about that and then set about pulling open the headlamp shell, removing the fuel tank and just inspecting every wire that we could find. Rather cleverly, Andy had installed a 12v bulb (attached to a couple of spade terminals), into the blade-type fuse holder that I had fitted to replace the old glass fuse type (a smart move, I reckon). Because of the short circuit, the bulb stayed illuminated even with the ignition turned off and the theory was that, if he unplugged a wire and the bulb went out, he could identify where the problem lay . It took an hour, but finally he spotted the black wire going onto the top of the Zener diode and yanked it off - the bulb went out. Hurrah! Fault isolated !

It was great to know what the problem actually was, but in the end it was of no real help, since there was nowhere local to source a spare part. So, just as three weeks (to the day) earlier, it was time for Andy to unpack the trailer ....

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_40cR_VYdOcNEdaZ1BuTFBqRVE

Having got the bike home and then researched Zener diodes, I realised that I would be much better off replacing it, as well as the old rectifier, with a more modern unit like this Podtronics regulator/rectifier ...

http://www.podtronics.net/

... so I've ordered one up. The should compliment the higher output alternator, modern (AGM) battery and electronic ignition system that my bike is fitted with. The regulator and Zener diode were the last of the 'old school' electrical components left on it. Once that's fitted, I hope that I will be able to enjoy a long period of reliability (for once ).

Anyway, the point of making this (epic) post was to let you all know that the service that Ian provides (in terms of polite customer service, high quality of work, speed of service and above all, fair pricing) is exactly what I was hoping to find . The criteria that I set out in the original post have all been met by this two-man operation down in Sussex, in spite of people (on another forum) telling me that I couldn't possibly have all of those things .

Although only based on this one experience, I would heartily recommend The Motorcycle Man to any of you who are looking for a polite and reasonable man to deal with, who won't rip you off. And no, he's not paying me to say all of this .

http://www.themotorcycleman.co.uk/

Thanks to all of you who helped me to find what I needed and especially to GuzziRob, who tried to assist me with identifying the bike's problems - it's just a shame that I turned out to be less of a home mechanic than I thought I was .

Andy

 

Maybe he did. Ian said that Jack "used to work at a classic bike shop", so that fits .

 

Nice to see a happy conculsion, hopefully you will enjoy many miles of happy riding. Perhaps the Zenor had been dodgy for a while?