Over the bank holiday weekend, we went on a nice ride to the Peak district. Just 3 days of riding, enjoying the scenery and crisp, fresh air. For this occasion, we decided to take out the Guzzi, which hasn’t seen extended action since Easter, when we took it for a ride around France. So it was the both of us, zipping up the M1 on the Saturday, reaching just in time for lunch. The next day we took it easy, but on the way back on Monday, we did the full 130mi on the motorway without any stops on the way.
So by the time we got back and parked up, we noticed the bike was dripping mustard coloured oil. It was coming from underneath the engine, where there is a breather pipe hanging straight down. Having seen this previously on Royal Enfields, where there is a dirty oil reservoir which needs emptying every so often, we were not overly alarmed. However, when this happens on a Royal Enfield, you do need to clean the air filter, because it gets all gunked up with the same nasty yellow oil that is dripping down. So we let the bike be, with a newspaper underneath. Over the course of an hour or so, it made quite a big puddle of dirty oil and then stopped…
Just to be sure, we phoned up our local Guzzi dealership to ask for advice. Apparently, this is not too uncommon for this type of bike. According to the dealer, if you use it for short rides a lot, condensation occurs inside, and then if you ride it for a longer duration, especially at higher speeds (he mentioned the word “thrashing” ) the bike expels a lot of dirty oil and clears the system out properly. So, although this is annoying when it happens, it is nothing to worry about and not like an Enfield where you need to clean the bike up (air filter especially) afterwards. All you can do is wait for it to stop, and it’ll be as good as new. Now I’m guessing, in order to prevent this in the future, we’re just going to have to “thrash” the bike regularly

As I’ve got an old bike, and things tend to need replacing on it, it’s important that I know where to purchase spares. From spare footpeg rubbers to the thermostat switch I needed last week…  I’m too lazy to drive over to the nearest Honda dealership (Chiswick Honda), although I give it to them that they have very helpful staff when you do call them up for help. But as a child of the internet age, I prefer to buy my spares online, knowing they’ll be delivered to me within a few days. There are two places I regularly visit for spares:

www.davidsilverspares.co.uk - A famous name in motorcycle spares, and quite rightly so. They have an easy to use website, good range of spares, and offer quick delivery if the item you need is in stock.

www.wemoto.com - Full name: World’s End Motorcycles; great selection of spares, not so easy to use this site though, it’s a bit confusing getting through the first page of the site, to finally see the list of spares for your bike model. But once you do reach, just bookmark that page to save the hassle for the next visit. Whenever I’ve ordered anything, it turned out a little cheaper than David Silver Spares, and my order reached me the next morning! Now that’s a service worth coming back for.

I only wish that buying spares for our other bike was this easy… But that’s the price you pay for owning a Moto Guzzi! Everything goes through the dealer network.

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Recommended sources for other spares / parts:

http://www.motorrad-burchard.de - Great for custom parts to suit various cruisers.

http://www.startright.co.uk - Spares for more bikes than I have space to list here right now - including Japanese, Chinese, Italian, American, etc. ; if you want the full overview, why not have a look here!

After my Honda CB500 was (mis)diagnosed to suffer from a blown headgasket, I trawled the net looking for more information on the topic.

What’s a headgasket

The headgasket is the seal between the cylinder head and the engine block. It ensures the pressure stays inside the cylinder(s), coolant stays inside the water sleeve (and doesn’t seep into the cylinders).

Symptoms of Headgasket problems (”blown headgasket”)

1. Loss of power - because compression from the cylinder(s) is escaping due to a leak of the headgasket.

2. Coolant can leak into the cylinders and evaporate inside or mix with the engine oil.

3. Mixing fluids (coolant and oil) causing either fluid to look contaminated (milky).

4. Compression from the cylinder may escape into the coolant system, causing coolant to bubble and gush out of the overflow tank.

5. Reducing coolant levels will cause the engine to overheat, which may seize the piston and cause further damage.

6. Excessive white smoke coming from the exhaust (caused by coolant evaporating inside the engine), damaging the catalytic converter (if your vehicle has one).

When your headgasket is damaged, it may be that you do not instantly notice a difference in how the vehicle drives. It could run like normal (but leaving behind clouds of white smoke) until all the coolant has gone and the engine overheats.

Repair

Depending on what type of vehicle you have (how much it’s worth to you!) there are two ways of countering a headgasket failure. Either take it to a mechanic and have the headgasket replaced (or if you feel up to it, replace it yourself). This could be quite costly, which may or may not be worth it considering the value of the vehicle.

You may also want to try a less conventional method; Steel Seal. It’s a liquid which you pour into your radiator. It then moves around and (hopefully) seals the damage on the gasket to make it “as new”. Now I haven’t used this, so can only go by people’s opinions in various forum posts and reviews. The crowd is divided. Some people say it’s crap, and some say it’s brilliant. But it’s not that expensive so you might want to try it out before shelling out hundreds of pounds replacing the headgasket….

Prevention

There is no way to prevent your headgasket from blowing. As the engine gets older, the seal may become weak and just give up after a while. All you can do is pay attention to what your vehicle is doing (is excessive white smoke coming out of the exhaust?) and try to limit the damage to just the head gasket rather than driving around until your engine overheats and causes all sorts of additional problems!

Unless you’ve got some sort of treasure cave filled with car / motorcycle restauration and bodywork related products somewhere close to your house, chances are you’ll need to buy a lot of stuff from Halfords for your automotive projects. I’m no different. Almost all my materials have come from Halfords at this point; from sand paper to body filler and rust treatment. 

And if you’re anything like me, you don’t exactly have a bottomless money supply for your custom paint experiments, so every little saving is welcome.

Get 5% off at the Halfords UK Website:

Quote this code during check out: AFF5APR

And you will get 5% off everything. (Not including MP3, SatNavs, Gift Vouchers and Alloy wheels). 

Enjoy!

As people who have read previous posts on this blog are aware of, I’m trying to respray my 1996 Honda CB500 to make it look a bit less aged. You might imagine that if I repaint the body panels and make them look all shiny and new, the rest of the bike will look even more old and shabby in comparison. So it is important to consider repainting the engine casing and the exhaust. 

Now what type of paint can you use on such components?

While researching this project, I came across a forum on MSN Groups dedicated entirely to Honda CB500’s. Unfortunately, since then MSN Groups closed down and all that valuable information was lost forever… But I do remember reading some posts from people who wanted to repaint their engine or exhaust and the prevalent opinion seemed to be just walking into Halfords and picking up:

1. Extra High Temperature Paint (comes in a rattle can) 

2. Plastikote BBQ Paint (also a rattle can)

Since both components tend to get quite hot while riding, it is vital to use a paint that can stand such temperatures. If you don’t, you may end up spoiling your brand new paint by having it flake off or discolour due to the heat.

For your engine, if you would like to match the original colour, Aluminium seems to be the shade of choice (In Extra High Temperature paint). Now I don’t know for sure if my engine is still the original colour or not, since it looks like it has been painted at least once or twice, judging from the flaking. However, it seems worth a shot, as I like the shade shown on the cap of the spray can. So I think I’ll try that out in the near future, when I get a weekend of dry weather. 

High Temperature paint comes in many other colours too though. You could get matte black for your exhaust, or even Red if you’re daring! 

For my exhaust, I’d like to stick with what it is now (sort of) - Black. And since people seemed to have a high opinion of the BBQ Paint I mention above; I’m highly tempted by the promise of a satin black finish that will hopefully last a while. The advantage of going with a satin finish rather than matte black, is that apparently matte black paint can rub off at times. Also, hopefully it will be easier to keep clean if it’s satin paint. 

Painting the exhaust seems less straightforward. At this point I am not sure if the downpipes can (or should) be painted also. They are quite rusty an flaky, and one cannot be certain if they would survive a good sanding. Perhaps I’ll just have to put some anti rust treatment on them and hope for the best… 

The exhaust itself is not in a great shape either; there is a small hole in it somewhere as well as some rust & scuffs. Since I’ll have to spray paint this, it also needs to come off the bike somehow, and the bolts are totally rusty. I foresee plenty of problems trying to open those bolts… 

So the action plan is as follows:

• Try to take above mentioned bike parts off without damaging anything (like bolts, brackets, or the parts themselves of course). 
• Sand off the scuffs, rust and loose paint until I have a fairly smooth surface to work with. This may be impossible on the downpipes, so I’m aiming for at least the exhaust can itself. 
• Use Hammerite Rust treatment on all rust which could not be sanded off. 
• Give everything 2-3 coats of BBQ Paint, or keep going until an even finish is achieved - Sanding inbetween coats to smooth out any dripping or bubbling paint and to prevent flaking of the paint.

If anybody has any suggestions regarding repainting engines and exhausts, I’d be very grateful!

Before you can even begin to consider painting or even priming your bodypanels, you need to make sure they are in a good state. Since I had bought a cheap tank from eBay for my Honda CB500, I’d pretty much set myself up for a fair bit of prep work. The tank looked pretty reasonable on the picture with the eBay listing, but unfortunately upon receiving it I found a whole lot of rust, dents and bubbling paint. Now I’m extremely stubborn and wanted to prove to myself (and others finding themselves in similar situations!) that with a bit of reading, and some cheap tools and materials from Halfords and High Street, I can restore this bodywork and make it look great after paint.

So as you can see, the tank looks decent (on a picture, not in real life!) with the paint still on. But some of the paint is bubbling, indicating that there is rust underneath it which will sooner or later cause it to peel off. Therefore I cannot paint over the existing finish.

In that way the state of the tank pretty much decided my next step; which (power)tools to buy! I impulsively went ahead and bought a Black & Decker Multisander from Argos (it was on sale…). It’s a random orbital sander which comes with a triangular base as well as a round one. However after trying to sand some of the paint off, I found that although it could do it (eventually), it eats up the sand paper way too quickly.

So today I went on another shopping spree and bought a little 600W Draper Angle Grinder. I know it’s not the most powerful one out there, but that’s OK; I’m not particularly strong (and for those that aren’t aware - I’m a girl) and the thought of having to wield a huge 900W angle grinder was not very appealing at all. I also bought a poly carbide abrasive disc to go with the grinder.

As soon as I got home and unpacked my stuff, my husband couldn’t contain his curiosity and immediately assembled the grinder, putting on the abrasive disc and taking it to the same tank. Turns out (in spite of its relatively low wattage) this grinder is actually quite effective. Have a look at 5 minutes worth of paint stripping:

We figure it will probably take 30-45 minutes to do the whole tank.

However, the rest of the body panels are made of plastic, instead of metal. So they will need to be sanded down with the multisander and by hand, which should take a fair bit of elbow grease.

UPDATE:

So last weekend we felt like making a mess as well as a whole lot of noise… The tank is now fully stripped, eating up the entire grinding pad. It took about an hour, but the result is not bad:

Note the big dent on it, well there are plenty more on this tank, so the next step will be trying to get rid of them somehow…