hmmmnz

you do need a bike, every one needs one, for cheap commuter duties if nothing else,

mono lever swing arms are probably the strongest of all the single sided swing arms that bmw have used,

quite often guys with the newer paralever  swing arms will change them out for the mono's , also the monos are filled with oil, where the paralevers are dry, so you tend to fuck shafts every 40k miles or so, essentially they are consumable parts on the paralever bikes,

ok, not long ago i bought an 1989 r80rt monolever beemer,

i was actually looking for an older r80/100 gs-pd or older g/s air cooled for a scrambler project

the reason was they had the wire wheels, and i detest the cast wheels on these old beemers,

but they were going for stupid money here in the uk,  and then this old rt came up for about 1/3 my budget of what i was willing to pay for the gs model, so i thought fuck it, i can some how make it spoked,

i was going to change the front end of the gs any way, so that would only leave the rear wheel that would need some thinking about,

so anyway,  collection,  i had to drive down into england to pick up a bath room for the old merc camper, and this bike was kind of on the way, in so much  as it was south of scotland

met up with the guy, paid him the money and would return in the after noon to collect after getting the bath room,

all was good did that and rode back to edinburgh with no issues,

 the rt models when they came out looked like this

whoa, super ugly fairing massive screens etc, perfect tourers, but one of the ugliest beemers ever

mine didnt come with the fairings (previously crashed) which suited me just fine

also the guy changed the rocker covers from the flat newer style to the older skool ones

no really fussed either way,

i had already ditched the tail section and gave it to a mate, as ill be completly changing the back end

any way the plan,

1 change the rear wheel to a r100gs wheel,  i bought that already and as we speak its being machined down to fit the monolever hub (there is no straight replacement wheel, but the gs wheel is close enough, and just requires 21.25mm (in my case) to be machined down inside the wheel itself)

so no biggie

after that will be the front end or exhaust

ill be using a usd front end of un-known manufacture as a replacement to the stock beemer forks wheels, triples, etc, probably a drz or crf may be some white powers, price will determine that,

the exhaust will be a high level custom made running high from the start either 2-2 all the way through like a cl360

or 2-1 like this

unsure yet

i will also raise /drop the swing arm and  probably move the mount onto the steel part of the swing arm

and possibly lengthen the swingarm to gain a bit of extra travel

im going to try and get it look a bit like this

but obviously a monolever, with exhaust on 1 side only, and usd forks

yeah, so, this will be a long-ish project,  im a bit low on funds after bumming around europe in the campervan for the summer, and skiing all last winter, really should start looking for a job   

in true red neck style we used to put in some kerosene or diesel if there was a pre det problem,

used to work a treat

sweet, better nick than what i was expecting,

whip that engine out and pull the head, and give us a look mister D:

hopefully no water has managed to get into the bottom end and seize the conrod to the crank  and all big end bearings seized(had this happen to a bridgestone i owned) 

hopefully its just a top end rebuild, gear box oil, and carb to sort,  and obviously all the frame stuff

keep us posted,  did you get that work shop manual i put a link up for?

they had oil pumps, best check though, racers tended to rip them out/disconnect them

here is a parts list and owners manual , and finally because im feeling the coolness of the old mt's  here is the workshop manual

yeah, well,   may be just get it road going and ride, with the de-tuned mt motor they were pretty reliable,

be a good commuter bike

well worth doing, in fact any 2 stroke air cooled honda is worth doing, they fetch reasonably good money in nice condition,

but are super fun reguardless,  the mt250 was pretty under powered, but if i remember rightly they had the same bore and stroke as the cr250 of the same era, and the cr put out way more power and the top end was a direct swap,

any way, pics if you get it

actually has some honda cars on the 2nd floor and some f1 cars on the 3rd floor,   such a wicked place

street veiw inside the honda museum

looks cool, i hope your arn't thinking of going hard tail??

we had an old one that was hard tailed, but being as light as they are you always end up taking them off road,

and sure enough end up popping tyres and bending rims not to mention bending the frame mounts,

any way, looking forward to progress pics

actually im thinking of a different scooter reguarding the expansion chamber,  so dont cut that one up,

but they do benefit from a good de-coking every few thousand km's

lol i had one of those when i was 15 was awesome, you could at the time get a bigbore kit which made them stupidly fast, 

but i didnt have the money,  but if you gut the expansion chamber of its baffles you can get close to 70kmh

200 kph? Riiiiiight

i know   may be the speedo was massively out, it was the days before gps's  it did have over drive which was cool,

just had a look at the specs and looks like it did have a twin carb motor 1725cc producing 107hp  so that surely could do 200 on the clocks??

condensor, they fuck out all the time, replace it

you should be able to do a 2mm over bore,  but i would just go up 1 piston size,  nothing worse than pulling off  barrel just too find you cant do another re-bore because its already maxxed out,

you can get 60cc pistons for them,  and decent kits

but for the least amount of money, i would increase the compression by skimming the head, you can remove about 1mm, with no piston impact,

a bit too much for some grinding paste   so you'd have to do it on the lathe

have a read of http://www.mopedarmy.com/wiki/Performance_Tuning_a_Suzuki

yeah i had a hillman hunter gls, im sure that it was just a single carb (but can't remember now) and it used to fly,  would do over 200kmh which was ridiculous considering how shit the brakes were,

some times bigger carbs arn't always better,  i down sized the carb in my velox, and got 5hp extra on the dyno and better mpg

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kawasaki-Z440-Z-440-KZ440-LTD-Rear-Back-Wheel-16x2-50-/330911801637?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts_13&hash=item4d0be16125

if they wont send it to you, get it send to me in scotland and ill post it on

ill check with my mate who is a bike wrecker and see if he has one in stock,

when i re-vinned my vf1000 i did the brake decleration myself,  they never checked anything,  its far too much effort for them, 

loads of vintage car places reline brake drums all the time, so shouldnt be too hard to get relined,

id say a regular specialist brake place would do it,  i got my velox drums relined at a brake and clutch place in new plymouth

the small ts bikes were the best in my opinion, with the rotary valve intake, they could be tuned really well and easily,

the 185 was considered the best out of the box though, almost as light as the 125 and almost the power of the 250,

the 100 would make a good bucket racer, or a good learner bike if you could get legal again

was pretty cool, i had an mz in new zealand  was pretty funny going to events because no one had a clue what it was, would def own another

hey guys, was wondering around berlin today, and spotted a sign for a ddr bike museum,

and having owned a couple of mz's in my time i thought id pop in and see what they had

ill let the pics tell the story,  essentially its mz's and simsons, with a couple of randoms

history of mz bikes

i loved this one, 2 main seats plus a kiddie seat and a trailer, fun for the whole family

a collection of simson mopeds

the 16 year old special   still see kids blasting these about in europe and sweeden/norway

not sure what the czetta is doing in here being made in former Czechoslovakia, but cool,  they were also made in new zealand  and rebadged as ....  nzetta's  

also a bmw r35, not ddr but still ace

one of the last simsons before going under

some monocoque framed simsons,

mz 500 with the rotax 500 4stroke motor in police guise,  a saxon tour i think

the probably ost recognisable of the mz shapes

army edition with black out lights

one of my most favourite mz's  the bk350, basically a 2 stroke boxer twin with a tiny exposed shaft drive

a pitty ....   never heard of them before today, essentially a mz 125cc 5hp engine shipped to belin where it was shoved into 140kg frame.. was never going to be a success, but looks ace

another police bike

rotax engined silver star

and with a side car unit

more side cars

the mighty mz1000, the only 4 stroke engine they produced, beautiful bikes to ride, they also did a naked version as well

a 500.. essentially 2 250cc engines welded together

yeah there you go there were some cool factory dirt bikes, but didnt get any pics

so it is,  you can buy them out of the uk for about 500 quid max,   buy a couple and ship them back to nz

i had one on a little 125 i bought in the uk, they work, but not so you'd ever notice, but i doubt they'd do any harm so go for it

well long time no pics,

when i last left ya i think we were in montenrgro, 

from there we went into albania, which by far and away is the most 3rd world country ive been to, except every one has merc's,  im talking flash v12 amg mercs, through to the humble 200 series,  even saw a amg sls, but the roads are so bad, soo soo bad, you can barely get to 60kmh on there version of the motorway with out hitting massive potholes,  or cars coming down the wrong side of the fucken road!!!   at one point in one of the cities, there was a car double parked so i passed it on the other side of the road, and while doing that was passed in turn, they are the most retarded drivers!!!   no patience whats so ever,

basically every stolen merc in europe ends in in albania,  no infristructure to speak of and rubbish every where,  any way,  albania - land of stolen mercs and mental drivers,

next was macedonia,  which i really liked, roads changed soon as we were over the border,  not great, but no pot holes and the drivers were better,  the country still has that ex communist feel, and there are abandoned towns and massive holiday resorts (we stayed in a couple,  was awesome if a bit creapy))  one we stayed in had a huge man made lake but it was like they gave up maintaining it and the whole resort when they gave up communism,  but free is free so a good night,

a couple of days ago we came into bulgeria, which is the first western feeling place we've been in a while, it still has a bit of the commy stuff, old statues and random Yugoslavian cars,  but western prices, if not worse,   but beer is still cheep,  1.30Bulgarian lev for 2 litres so about $1.10nzd  which isnt to be sneezed at

ok some pics,  ill try and stick to cars and shit intsead of boring you lot with "holiday pics"  we all hate that shit

the camper in albania

wicked lada ambo in montenegro

the merc at some random hydro lake we camped at

a pinzgaur,  possibly next camper base???

some booze i found that was 99.5% alcohol !!!

the top of a mountian road in macedonia  1600meters up

another lake in macedonia ,  my whole trip seems to be going from one lake to another,  none of them beat taupo though

possibly one of the coolest citreons ive ever seen

some polsie fiat 126 awesomeness

that creepy macedonian abandoned holiday resort with the man made lake

some cool old rear engined yugoslavian van

one of the thousands of statues in skopje (the capital of macedonia, and possibly the coolest capital cities ever)

a yugoslavian car  fuck knows what it is, in bulgeria

yeah so thats it, another 4 or 5 days here in bugeria then off to romania

wow been a long time since any sort of update,

well done 8000km so far, been through 12 countries,  drunk far too many beers... (is such a thing possible,  no your right, not possible)

the basic route so far,   

scotland- england- france- belgium- luxemburg- germany- netherlands- germany- austria- litchensteign- switzerland- italy- slovenia- croatia- montenegro

which is where we are now, of all the countries, germany and slovenia have been the best, we just arrived in montenegro so ill hold fire on judgement on that,  but seems cool, they all speak a variation of serbian, which to my ears sounds like russian,  and there are some cool old cars,  some random old yugos  and crotia was a country full of renault 4's  we must have spotted atleast 10 -20 per day,  it became the eyespy  of choice,  even though im driving, i won today 8-4

apart from the cool old cars in croatia, i wasnt impressed with the country,  rubbish every where, including the packed beaches,  and the national parks are run like theme parks, with comparable prices, and there is no freedom camping allowed, which sucked balls, because we found a super quiet lake, in the middle of no where, but because there was no beach or national park nearby, there was no camp ground,  fucken homos,

and to top it off i got clamped in duprovnic,  apparently you arnt allowed to park with in 1km of the old city in a campervan,  i call bull shit!!  but 50 euro lighter, i drove away, 

montenegro seems to be a european version of malaysia, except i dont stand out like dogs balls because im tall and white

its just as run down though, despite being a pretty new country,  but the beer is cheap, 2l bottle cost about 1.40euro so $2.80 approx nzd 

ok some random pics

first up a renault 4,  pretty cool cars,  id have one

and a Zastava  basically a serbian fiat

saw this wicked unimog 404 tonight,  i was very tempted to find the owner and get it shipped back for my next camper proect,

but the mrs wouldnt have a bar of it

even fitted with the original om617 motor (big brother to the om616 4 cylinder thats in my camper)

seen loads of these t a m trucks, which are also awesome, top speed about 70kmh  but ace in that eastern utilitarian way, made in the formr yukoslavia

you guys dont really want to see scenery so a couple of beers

yeah, missed loads of shit but you know how it is,  the mrs has been doing a blog thing, so if you want to see where we and the mighty merc have been,

then click the link

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/kirstyandlogan/1/tpod.html

will def stop off in london on the way back,

  in netherlands at the moment while the mrs is back in scotland at a funeral,  saw my first windmill, still havn't seen any one wearing clogs yet though,

went for a bit of a tour around some local towns with the parents of a dutch mate of mine who now lives in new zealand,  wa pretty cool, nothing like a it of local knowledge,  arh well getting my first home cooked dinner fr a whie, so better go,