As the engine casings are ally won't they need to be sprayed with an etch primer first? I know that on aircraft, the painters always sprayed everything a piss green colour before the proper paint. That being said how does lacquer stick? or is there special lacquer for alloy that contains and etch? P...

I was chatting to the man (Steve) from Piston Broke the other day and he had just had to open up the 'oles in the top crankcase cover for some fellow who had a serious big bore kit. Looking at the barrels, there didn't seem much meat between the bores. I understand that you can get 'em stroked as we...

I have heard of rolled threads on bolts / studs, but I have never come across female rolled threads - how would they be formed? On the topic of the cam end seals where they cut the outside of the head casting when the line bored the came bearings; I have bought new seals for mine and need to remove ...

Thanks for the info. I have got an air impact wrench. A very flash tool which cost very little money from machine mart and makes my workshop feel like an F1 pit lane! Even more so today when I had my lappy plugged into the Jeep trying to fathom why the bastard wouldn't run on gas! I have and eight m...

I need to strip my forks down as part of my restoration and understand that I will need a special tool . The last time I stripped a set of Kwacka forks was when I built a special many, many moons ago and I think the front end was from a GPZ 550. I vaguely remember making the special tool . I'm guess...

The bolts attaching both back and front discs are 10mm x 32mm x metric fine 1.25mm pitch thread. Whilst the items on the bike are seriously scabby they are functional. I am trying to replace the vast majority of the fasteners on the bike to A2 stainless, but metric fine bolts appear to be as rare as...

Jack (London Calling) very kindly gave me a sprocket carrier/cushdrive to go with my NOS mag wheel procured from fleabay to replace the non kwaka item my bike came shod with. The square headed bolts used to bolt the sprocket to the old carrier were a tad too short so I got some A2 hex head bolts and...

I bought a box section swinging arm off e-bay last year, before the building work started here, and somehow or other one of the taper rollers fell out during the build and is probably buried in the hardcore by now. I thought no sweat, there's load of on-line bearing suppliers ... the only problem is...

I feel sorry for the poor sod who buys the part causing the problem on flea-bay and then goes through the same pain and grief :!: Along with a huge number of people on here I also had grief from NGK plugs, even though they were fine years ago, and following advice on here changed to Densos and haven...

I've been agonising over how to paint the old gurl. I've now dceided that I really don't like the Thou A1 colour / lining out ... looks a bit as though someone had sprayed the bike themselves and bought a cheap roll of gold pinstripe and added it as an afterthought. :roll: I was tempted by the A2 co...

Steve I was having a gander at your site and noticed you do a taper roller head race set "Steering bearing set, BRG-1231.A" which is marked up for the Zed nine - will it fit a Z1000A1 :?: Do you have a lists of colours, lengths et al for building a new loom? Do you supply the plugs, covery...

Mark I've always done a bit o wirin'. My experienece is that the worst wiring on the planet is always found on sailing yachts. The myth that those with yachts have loadsa money is bolix. Cos most yotties haven't a preverbial pot to get taken short in, they will alwasy have a crack at anything. The o...

Thanks again Mark :D The box is back together now. Oddly in the manual it doesn't mention repacing the union/manifoldy casting that acts as the oil pressure switch. All its gives is the torque setting for the plastic part on the top which it describes as the switch but as far as I can see the hole c...

Now I understand! I thought that you meant that some quacks had a fault making selecting second difficult.

Have now assertained that all is well.

Many thanks Mark.

Best I get busy with the Wellseal and torque wrench!

See you soonish

It gets worse :swe I figured the only way I was to get to bottom of this mystery was to split the bloody cases again. I had dropped a bollock as the needle roller case on the inside end of the output shaft must have been slightly misalligned and had forced the dowel pin deeper into the casting so th...