chasinthemirage

Varies somewhat depending on brand and quality but there's been a few bulk lots on trademe pretty cheap, last lot I saw was $70 for about 10m worth of flexible track.

I can't deny that I'm tempted to just buy some new track, I've got probably 15-20m to clean up.

I think some PVA is water soluble but I have no idea what sort they've used when they built the track. The issue with using anything that vibrates or levers up the track is that it tends to snap the tiny tabs off that hold the track onto the sleeper and once the tab is gone it's stuffed. Only 9mm between the rails to give some idea of the size of the tabs. I'll try some steam/warm water if I get time this weekend.

I'll give that a go, internet reckons solvent would work but I'm concerned it might melt the plastic track sleepers.

Anyone got any tips for removing PVA glue from timber? I'm hoping that I can remove the tracks from my train set without stuffing them as someone has secured them with copious amounts of glue.

Haven't touched the front of this one, just replaced the rear shocks with some spares I had. The mags on it were rubbing when I bought it, I think the fella that had it before me was a bit of a Barry so I'll give it a check over this weekend

Doesn't sound particularly promising then. I'll have a look under it tomorrow, considering the shocks I replaced last week were OE the bushes may be the same.

Hmm interesting. Hasn't had an alignment while I've had it but it's only with the BMW alloys which increase the track width by about 20mm a side so maybe something to do with that.

@Shakotom do you have issues with the tyres rubbing on the floor behind the pedals on full R/H lock or is that just a VL thing?

I went for a wander around there a few years back with a mate. Fella was very suspicious of us and warned us that he knew where everything was but softened up a bit once we'd told him about our own old cars. Pretty much everything there was stripped and had all the usual places that rust already chopped out.

Planning on trying to get to Muscle Car Madness on Sat arvo. Won't be able to make the Skope Classic though as I've got family stuff to help out with.

Welcome to the forum @Kevin Ban. Looking forward to pictures of your cars!

Yeah nah, Stout looks cool but sounds like it's only a matter of time before the coppers give you a sticker. I reckon @nzed is on the money, if you want it that much buy it outright and keep your Crown. Best of both worlds that way.

Anyone fancy heading out to Muscle Car Madness next weekend? I'm working the Saturday morning though unfortunately

Are there any Mk3 Zephyr's there? Keen to hoard more parts.

I used house carpet underlay in my Chevy, $60 worth was enough to do the Camaro and my dads LN106. Just cut it to shape and laid the carpet over it but I could have probably used tape to secure it if I'd been doing the fire wall and doors too. Seemed to do the job, I'd use it again.

Bloody hell bro, do you ever take a brake from building cool stuff?

Not too concerned about the range, can always detour and fill up in Akaroa or take a container. Those Safari tanks aren't cheap! Are BMW bike parts as dear as the car parts? Just curious, still definitely buying Japanese haha

Sounds like I can't go too far wrong with a DRZ then! All the bikes on trademe currently are a bit spendy but hopefully something local will come up soon and I can organize a test ride.

A fella I used to work with has done a few at Ruapuna, haven't seriously looked into it yet but it'd be fun and improve my riding too!

Very gun shy as far as Euro stuff goes, I've only really been looking at Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki. I don't want to spend that sort of coin as I want to put some coin towards other hobbies and I'm keen to have a go at some track days etc so will probably end up canning it at some point.

23 minutes ago, 00quattro00 said:

The drz go pretty well with a few mods to un restrict them a bit, they are nice and reliable and dont need an oil change every 5min like the more race orientated bikes.

 

Another option is to get a road legal dirt bike and fit road wheels and tyres. I am doing this with my xr600r, im using 17" wheels from an mc22 cbr250, they were only $200, lots of info out there about using them

Is your XR already road registered? Just swapping the wheels over? I've ridden an XR500R and while it went well I'd like something a bit more modern and don't want the hassle of doing modifications/taking a bike through VIN as part of my motivation for getting a bike is to escape from constantly having stuff to do/figure out on the VL

I'd like to stay under 5k if possible but as I'm not really sure what else is around I don't really know how realistic that is. I'd rather buy second hand, I can't justify having too much tied up in it and I'd be gutted if/when I dropped a new bike. I figured the same as far as why they hold their value.

What are they like as far as servicing goes? Something I could do myself or best left to a dealer? There's tonnes of info around on tweaking them but I'm sure stock would do me fine for the time being as I get my confidence back.

@Vintage Grumble Does the softness come at the cost of some handling? My KZ was bloody horrible for vibration, used to make my hands and feet go numb and continuously shook everything loose.

So I've gone and got the bike bug again, it's been a couple of years since I've had a bike but I took a friends XR500 for a blat down the beach a couple of weeks ago and had a ball. The only bike I've had was a heavily modified KZ440 that looked cool but didn't ride particularly well. I'm pretty keen on picking up a motard, they seem to tick the boxes for most of the things I want in a bike. I'm not overly concerned with top speed, so long as it will cruise comfortably on the open road and have enough grunt to pass should the need arise I'd be happy. My main concern is having something reliable and fun, our family has a bach on Banks Peninsula with some nice twisty roads on the way there. I'm still on my learners and only 60kgish/172cm tall so whatever I purchase needs to be LAMS approved and hopefully not too tall or heavy. I want a four stroke, preferably 00's onward and factory road legal as I just want to ride the bike and cbf with the motard conversion and registration process.

I've been looking at Suzuki DR-Z400SM's, although I am yet to actually ride one. They seem to be very popular and from what I've seen on the internet there doesn't appear to be too much that goes wrong with them. Unfortunately they haven't got the range to get to the bach and back but that's not really a drama. They are relatively spendy but I suppose that's a testament to their popularity. Has anyone got experience with the DR-Z's or recommendations for other models I should be looking at or avoiding?

Cheers fellas

Are the gaskets actually splitting or are they just leaking exhaust gasses? The Zephyr's have a different style of exhaust manifold face compared to the Kent motors but I used this stuff on mine without any gaskets and it seemed to seal up just fine. It's a bit fiddly to keep it tidy looking but I see that they list a black coloured option on the website which shouldn't stand out too much.