just got back from the hardest 1000 miles ive ever done lol!
before leaving for the first stop at oulton park, was meeting a few other riders just round the corner....
we'd spent ages trying to sort his aprillia sr50 ped without much luck... it appeared to be loosing primary compression due to leaky crankcase seals so i rebuilt the bottom end and left them to it as i ws fooked.
next day it stil wouldnt run... turned out he'd fitted the new piston with the arrow pointing upwards instead of toward the exhaust port!
result = the rings hit the exhaust port and bits fell into the bearings so it all had to come out again.
a few hrs later it was running though backfiring a bit, which i thought was cos it had been rebuilt with loads of 2t oil like you do... turns out it had the wrong type of spark plug.
anyway... alls well with that one and once it was running ok it tops out at 70mph lol... not bad for a 50!
so off we went, first stop oulton park, just 22 miles for me.
my ped was running ace, very torquey with good top end even though i was carryng my 15st and camping gear!
one of the lads asked me to have a listen to his ped which was 'making a funny noise' = death rumble. mains & big end fooked.
a few miles later it seized and had to be recovered.
fortunately it was rebuilt overnight by some kind chaps (for free) and he got it trailered back when we got to thruxton.
while we were waiting for recovery, another mate pulled up on an amazing monkeybike chopper he'd made out of 2 scrap peds... his woudnt restart either so i had to take the battery off mine to get him firing.
we hadnt even got out of town yet lol!
so anyway we got to oulton and got rather pished & i ended up throwing up which didnt really fare well for a 6am start surrounded by what sounded like a swarm of angry wasps all day.
got to donnington with no issues, next stop mallory park... filled up with fuel, hit the starter, nothing.... just a spinning gear.
turns out the splines on the starter gear had miled a perect slot in the crank.
fek. i'd used my spare engine on saturday.
fortunately thanks to the very helpfull maintenance crew at mallory i was able to get it migged to the splined kickstart gear & back on the road missing just a few miles of th ride.
meanwhile my bud daz had broke down on his hired bike (this was after his 17 1/2hp pug speedfight had 100s spent on it, then was diagnosed with a bent frame so couldnt go on the road!)
he got his recovered by a very helpfull AA biker to a local shop who diagnosed a blocked exhaust and fitted a new one then delivered the bike back!
cba going into every detail but you get the picture.... it was a bleeding nightmare lol! so many fails!
one lad managed to get his knee down in the carpark at silverstone but then binned his ped = another roadside repair!
then another failed with main bearings - tony to the rescue. then a 25yo honda melody sheared the same gear as mine... tony to the rescue.
guy was an absolute star and everyone was impressed with how helpfull he is
played a blinder there m8 & saved the day for a few of us
we had a slight mishap with the free tickets as well.... the could only supply 8, then another 4, but seeing as there were 34 of us!!!! they managed to get us all in for the raing in a van, though i spent all saturday rebuilding 4 peds.
mine sadly ended up being used as spares and i rode another lads bike home
anyway, it was a cracking doo, especially the fancy dress disco last night which was hilarious!
lots of dosh was raised for good causes and lots of pics (and vid) will follow.
cheers again to those of you who donated your hard earned... the donate link btw was set up by paul who built the beastrun.com site but i asure you every penny raised goes to its intended recipient
what a final race as well - fantastic!!!
did anyone see tony on the telly?
btw nice to bump into styler today on the road back
pleasant surprise!
sorry didnt manage to catch up with any of the other vtr members - saw your flag up but it was miles away lol!
