The teardown begins, with a brief interlude for stupidity.......Bring on the pain killers.

    So, it's been a busy week. Halfords (UK version NAPA), had a reduction on a bike lift, from around £120 down to £96. I chanced searching my Blue Light Discount card for Halfords offered 20% of garage tools. I applied that online and behold! The lift cost a paultry 76 quid, give or take. I was very happy for the 40kg addition to my garage. A breeze to buils, i like the colour too!

 650 Kg Lift capacity, happy days.

     So armed with my new lift, I tempered my enthusiams and got on witht he honey-doo list, making a house for the bins. First up, lay conctete slab, 2nd up - trip to A&E with a shoddy attempt to shorten my left hand fingers by 1/2 inch! All done with a 4 1/2" angle grinder.

  

  

     Was an ouchy with much sympathy (not) from my gorgeous wife. A pause of 5 days while finger tips healed enough for me to wield a spanner or two.

     I them began the teardown, a familiar story, lots of bubba'd nuts and bolts, shoddy repairs and general fuckwittery from previous owners. Got things going nicely, turns out that the tank that came with th e bike was a shoddy attempt at replacing the genuine article, so turns out I already need a new fuel tank, added to my initial list:

     Seat Unit, Mirrors, Clocks, Indicators, Exhaust, and now a Fuel Tank. Not to mention a polethora of sundry bits and pieces.

The offending article: 

    Mind you I get to eBay the original Indicators, hideous twin lights, fuel tank, plastics that survived the buffonery of previous owners, of which there were 5 before me. Anf the horrendous seat and a box of rust and some unusable pieces were suitably recycled at the local depot. Forgive the poor pictures, was in a hurry to post and update my progress. 

     And the time with a jet wash also helped with the cleaning of the sled. More to follow this week. My for subscribers are keen for updates.........😁

Well, it happened.......I got a new project, and boy does it need love. Welcome to the 1984 GS850G

      After the dissapointment of having the Guzzi sold out from under me I put a speculative add onto FACEBOOK....which led to all kinds of replies, but one, local to me caught my eye. Ned messaged me with 2 possibilities, a very nice CB1300 that needed very little work, a very nice bike indeed and a rather interesting '84 GS850G. Thats where it started, not Craigslist as before, but a simple add on FB. The picture sent:

     You get the drift, but somehow it appealed, anyways, long story short, it is now mine. 

First thing i did was to clean it, pictures below, first i gave it a good blast witht the leaf blower and then hit it with the Demon Shine soap through the jetwasher. Removed a lot of surface rust and a shit ton of accumilated dirt. The gold powder coat was not the best, and has flaked off in places on the wheels, not an issue as it all is getting blasted and recoated in satin blackThen i just wanted to put the tank on for an initial lookie see at lines and insirations.

     The tank doesn't fit, I googled the bike, and yup, its the wrong tank..Doh! Had an initial paddy, but needed to see, and now I know. I have no idea what the tank is from, i presume a suzuki of some lineage, but no idea from what. Thats around another £150 quid or so i did not budget for. Hey ho, not over the moon.

     

So the plan......or possibilities. 

     So, the big question - To restore to originial, cafe racer or bob it?

     The chopped rear of the frame, will make life very complex to restore it to original, but the bike in its former glory is a sweet ride: 

     Option 2 is the cafe racer, where my addiction for this all started. And there are some sweet modfications outh there. Although a shaftie, they do look good, with the rider - they are done well, something I am a fan of doing, using as much of the original bike as possible:

 or 

    You get the  drift, maybe a nod to the era with JPS paint...not sure yet.

    Or Option 3....the bobber, to bob a bike is basically ripping to minimums the same as cafe racers, but with the added loss of the rear suspension. Again, they do look right if done right, and there is the rub.

As with dodgy cafe racers, they is a plethora of dodgy bobbers around too. Here is the idea:

     So, decisions decisions.....But forst to strip down,and for that i am off to Halfords. Why? i hear you question, in a quiet and unassuming way. Well the bike lift they have is around 120 quid, down to around 96 quid, and with a Blue Light discount, it is down to a very reasonable 76 of your finest British pounds. Will make things so much easier for the restoration. Oh, and a gallon of WD 40.

More to follow very soon.

 

GUZUMPPED on a new project......

 Well.

I thought i had found a new project, a very ratty and in need of TLC Moto Guzzi V65. It was local to me, although pricey, was worth a look. So off i trotted, a 30 minute drive later i was viewing the bike. It was OK, which for a project is a good state of affairs. Anyhow, i try not to buy with my heart, so I thanked the seller and left. A few days later i asked if the bike was available, he said he had a buyer coming to look at it. I asked if he would message me if it fell through.

As you can see, quite the nice project.

A day later the sale fell through, i asked his best price, he told me, i had a barter, and during the online bartering he sold it out from me. Thats life, in the words of Del Boy 'he who dares.....'. So i lost that bike.

So i went to the garage, fettled my FZR and tried to start it. Petroleum flooded from the carbs. BOLLOX, that'll be a full strip then, and a clean.

Some grazed knuckles and turning the air blue, presto -

The carbs are off, now to strip them, clean them, not lose any parts and then reassemble.

Will keep you posted.