She riiiiiiides

Well, ish.

She runs anyhow.



John came down yesterday and with John like skill combined the 3 wiring looms into one, lopping off connectors that are no longer required or don't fit together, deciphering my modifications to the old loom (to replace the old failed mechanical regulator with an electronic one, and so on. Having got her ready we turned her over and...she wouldn't start.

Much head scratching ensued, we took the carb float bowl off because we couldn't smell fuel in the engine (on the plug) and found blocked jets. Cleaned them, put it back together, still couldn't get her to start or smell fuel, took off the carb and found fuel in the intake manifold so...put it back on. Still couldn't get her to start so eventually attacked the bing carb on the Kanuni that's being stripped for spares. Having got that carb off and swapped it* she started first kick (after priming). And sounds sweet as an MZ-shaped nut.

Today I need to rig up a mounting for the front panel (which is held by two overly short and largely ornamental bolts at the moment, and lacks any mounting at the bottom), find a headlamp switch - Maplin appear to stock a sort-of-appropriate toggle switch. I might get two and knock up a kill-switch too. And a piggy back connector so I can have the rev-counter working.

Oooh.

That done it's just split-and-connect the chain (hence lurking in the house waiting for a delivery person) and bleed the brakes, oh and obtain a brake light switch (apparently these are scooter ones for this cylinder, as opposed to the standard MZ unobtainum switch), reattach the seat and get her an MOT. Before Sunday. Oh and keep an eye on the charging circuit because we're not certain if it blew the fuse or if the fuse was pre-blown...

Easy.

Oh, and I just stepped out from the shower and discovered that she was pissing petrol over the floor, so sort out the leak and try and get a correctly sized fuel hose. I may even splash out on a new filter that's got less grot in it. The chain splitter has (handily) arrived, so I'm going to see if Halfords can manage a battery and a brakelight switch now.




* I wanted to put the bing carb on because it's much better than the BVF carb. The BVF carb is prone to the slide wearing out and apparently gives less smooth running - although I never noticed that so much. The upside to the BVF carb is it does give better economy. The Bing (or the Mikuni if you can lay your hands on them) is less efficient but a better all-rounder. Sadly, with the death of MZ and the disappearance of the MZRC Mailing list a lot of this information appears to have disappeared. Unfortunately, I think I decided a while back to delete my MZRC Mailing list stuff because so much of it wasn't any use, keeping only the note about how to connect the rev counter...

Whining

Recurring theme:

Why are Maplin and Halfords so crap these days? I remember when you could go in and ask for a splined widget to attach to your kanarkle and they'd pause and say "lungified or unlungified? We have both in stock if you're not sure".

Maplin staff are generally lacking in clue, but the award today went to Halfords. I admit it was hopeful but I went into their miniscule motorbike section to look for a switch for the 'zed. The 'zed has a standard moped brake light switch. Not seeing one (but seeing other more obscure bike bits) I thought I'd ask.

I collared one of the staff who was carefully avoiding looking at any of the customers and queried whether they sold one. He looked clueless for a second and then took me back to the motorcycle 'section', looked around ineffectually and said 'hrm, if it's not here, then no, they probably don't sell them'.

Well, ta.

A few minutes later I thought 'hrm, I might be able to revive mine with a few squirts of contact cleaner'. So I thought I'd ask about contact cleaner.

"Uh...What's it for".
"Cleaning electrical contacts on well, cars, bikes, anything"
"Um. Is it a liquid or a paste or....?"
"It's a spray, normally"
"Um... I don't think so, I'll ask"
*wanders off to little gang of 'staff'*
Conversation ensues and then he wanders back
"Um, we don't stock it, unless it's over in these sprays here..."
*points at shelf full of a variety of sprays and looks very ineffectually at them*
*I pick up can cunningly described by marking it 'Electrical Contact Cleaner', a Halfords own brand product*
"You do stock it then, it's here".
*Wanders off shaking her head*

I don't expect everyone in the store to know everything, that's fine. But jeeze, between the 4 of them *one* of them might have had a fricking clue. It's a parts shop, ostensibly, so they ought to know at least a little bit about parts.

But I guess it's all about "Sheep in Wolf's Clothing" these days. As long as it's covered in stick on plastic and got a big spoiler it can run like a bag of spanners but they don't care.

More rants coming, incidentally, on the wrongness of the scrappage scheme (and how to fix it) and how Nikki's (and Electric Dreams - the book she suggested I might enjoy has) bloody broken my view of petrol engines.