Repair-Chat
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Upt'North ¹ said :-
Rod, I was watching some'at on the gogglebox the other night. There was a mechanic scratching his head because this car had points and condenser. How times change.
Although I really don't miss stripping and rebuilding carburetors.
Upt.
25/11/2025 21:02:59 UTC
Ren - The Ed¹ said :-
Glyn - fear not! As long as people's comments aren't nasty and 'orrible then they can go wherever they like. I'm not getting all precious about this must go here and that must go there. Admittedly... logic dictates the repair chat makes more sense.
26/11/2025 08:03:37 UTC
Glyn said :-
Strange as it may seem, I do like to strip and rebuild carbs, especially since I’ve spent the last 3 weeks repairing and painting fairing panels for someone else’s TZR. My TZR is all finished now and under covers in the corner of the garage. The triple Mikuni BST36 carb set up on the Triumph is relatively straightforward but there are dozens of o rings that really should be replaced. I have tracked down the sizes but they need to be nitrile as anything else will fall apart. I’m glad that, as a species, we’ve done away with points and condensers as I always faffed about setting them up including bobweights for advance retard settings. Here’s a pic of an LC 350 bikini fairing and TZR nose cone that I’ve completed recently;
26/11/2025 13:01:41 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Hi Glyn. I like doing carbs as well but mainly single ones! I always understood that nitrile wasn't the best for fuel and that Viton was more resistant, especially to the cocktail of weird stuff in modern fuel (not ethanol which I don't believe to be a problem) but benzene, acetone and the like.
26/11/2025 15:35:00 UTC
ROD¹ said :-
That looks like a very professional paint job Glyn, lovely.
26/11/2025 20:05:36 UTC
Glyn said :-
You’re right Ian, the new o rings are viton. Expensive at £44 the set but I’ve saved a lot by not having to buy a new battery as the one supplied is holding up well. I’ll wager that the full carb set from Ali express at £14 won’t be made of that material. One of the choke slides is broken but I’ve bought a used item as a replacement. The airbox , (supplied in one of the cardboard boxes) has a miriad of tubes in and out and the various connections are unknown to me at this stage. Here is a picture of the ultrasonically cleaned carbs. Apparently, these Mikuni BST carbs are used on the 1200 Suzuki Bandit bikes.
27/11/2025 15:28:34 UTC
Glyn said :-
Do you think I need to do something about this fuel tank? I’m going to try the electrolysis system with sodium crystals and a 12volt battery. I’ve soaked it in white vinegar for 2 days without much change.
29/11/2025 09:21:07 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
I've heard positive things about electrolytic rust removal - generally from unreliable WWW source - but never tried it. I did give oxalic acid a try for some rusty nuts & bolts but it just turned the rust green. I look forward to seeing how electrolysis works for you.
29/11/2025 09:41:54 UTC
Glyn said :-
I’m 3 hours in and something is definitely happening in there. I used 5 tablespoons of Sodium carbonate (baking soda) per gallon of water ( Trumper tank is 4 gallons). I then put a steel threaded rod through the top of a rattle can lid to isolate the anode (threaded rod ) from the tank. Negative on the tank and positive on the rod. It’s drawing about 2.4amps so I’ve connected a battery charger to compensate. It can take many hours to work fully.
29/11/2025 13:01:30 UTC
Glyn said :-
This is what’s happening!
29/11/2025 13:02:19 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Looks exciting! The methods I've seen use washing soda (sodium carbonate) rather than baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) but I'm not enough of a chemist to know the difference. I do think your scones might taste a bit funny of you put the former in them though!
29/11/2025 15:03:39 UTC
Glyn said :-
My mistake then Ian. It’s not bicarbonate. It says Soda crystals for washing on the bag.
29/11/2025 20:30:40 UTC
ROD¹ said :-
I am embarrassed to say that I made a similar mistake of greater magnitude, when I tried to clean expansion chambers with bicarbonate of soda instead of caustic soda.
In my defence it was many years ago!
29/11/2025 22:08:29 UTC
Glyn said :-
After 24 hrs, here’s the anode Rod. It seems to be working well.
30/11/2025 09:36:27 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Looks disgusting but obviously working. Caustic soda is brilliant stuff for removing carbon, burnt on oil etc but it also dissolves aluminium and its alloys in very short order.
30/11/2025 09:58:33 UTC
Glyn said :-
First pass and a lot better after 24 hrs. I’m having a second and final round. The biggest problem was that someone had tried to put a sealer/liner in it and it had all flaked off. It took dozens of gallons of water plus nuts and bolts and a whole lot of shaking to get most of it out.
30/11/2025 13:23:43 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
Looking brilliant. Speaking of liners, the Francis Barnett I ill-advisedly built a couple of years ago had a tank full of bits of what looked like fibreglass resin in big lumps. Some were so big they wouldn't fit through the filler and it took me hours with a hacksaw blade cutting them small enough to come out. I suspect that the 2 stroke mix had stopped the liner from adhering properly.
01/12/2025 12:32:20 UTC
Glyn said :-
The Triumph has only had one previous owner so I asked him about the sealer / liner I found all broken up in the tank. He said he didn’t put it there and so it must be standard factory item. Now I have the dilemma of putting in a replacement or not. I’ve used Kreem sealer in the past with good results but don’t know if it will last. Triumph must have had a good reason to spend money on sealing their fuel tanks, perhaps they were poorly welded but I can’t see any evidence of that.
03/12/2025 15:07:10 UTC
Ian Soady¹ said :-
A question for Glyn (or anyone else who may have an idea). You may remember we had a discussion about clocks etc for my B'Zuki. I bought a cluster which purported to be from an RF600. Now I'm trying to wire it all up and mostly succeeding but can't for the life of me work out how the temperature gauge is connected. It has 3 wires apart from the face illumination: brown, black/yellow and white / yellow. The only wiring diagrams I can find for the model, which are all pretty illegible, seem to show orange and 2 other indecipherable colours. Any ideas?
I've tried connecting a battery via various resistors to emulate the sender but get varying results, often with the needle continuing to rise - I suspect there must be some interaction between the three but can't work it out and don't want to fry it. To be honest it's not a priority but would be nice to have the gilt on the gingerbread.
07/12/2025 17:07:02 UTC
Glyn said :-
The only reason I can think of for 3 wires would be;
a positive 12v
a negative 12v
a wire to the sensor.
Possibly, the needle rises until the sensor wire is connected to neg 12v by the resistance of the sensor itself. It might be worth a resistance measurement through the sensor to help determine if this is the case.
I’m back in the UK on Tuesday and , if you’re no further, I’ll take a look through my many wiring diagrams of Japanese bikes. I’ve never found any wires with similar colours in bikes even from the same manufacturer in the past though. I would hazard a first guess as Brown 12v+.. black/yellow 12v- and white/ yellow as the sensor. A 12v filament bulb in series would possibly prevent any internal damage..
07/12/2025 18:29:02 UTC
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