Twas a Lozzo type of day

Sunday 11th. Co Down. No low sun in the eyes. Dry, cool but not cold,
low humidity, the sort of weather a 2-smoke engine loves.

That was the first proper run for the RD400 since it got to Ireland and
had the exhaust gaskets/rubbers sorted. Fair flew along, holding an easy
70 on the B roads with the odd foray to 90. Running in nicely it is.

 

Hooligan.

--
platypus

"Merely corroborative detail, intended to
give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative.”

 

Hog says...

That engine is the sweetest sounding RD400 engine I can ever remember
hearing. The cooling fins don't even jangle, it just purrs.

 

To be fair, it sounded brilliant when he bought it, even though (as we
now know) the engine wasn't that clever.

 

Ah. Fucked, then?

--
platypus

"Merely corroborative detail, intended to
give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative.”

 

Well, when I went to pick it up, I notied something wrong with the
gearbox. But it sounded superb: very healthy. Lozzo rode it, and gave it
the Lozzo thumbs-up which, as we know, is a copper-bottomed guarantee.

And on the ride back it went tits-up. Spark plugs not screwed in or
something.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, The Older

That was it. There were several other fasteners left only finger-tight
too.

I took it out for a pre-rebuild ride (I think I was the last to do so).
I am sooooooo glad that the horribly pitted piston didn't actually hole
whilst I was aboard, I'd have felt horribly guilty.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Falling apart) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

Wicked Uncle Nigel says...

It went surprisingly well and sounded lovely, for a bike that was only
half nailed together. I doubt the spark plugs only being finger tight
would have made much of a difference to its eventual demise, there was
so much else needed doing that the rebore was pretty much needed anyway
- plus, the whole motor had to be stripped to sort the gearbox fault.

--
Lozzo
Triumph Daytona 955i SE (Black with added black bits)
Suzuki Bandit 600S (Green with added shit bits)
Yamaha SR250 Delusion (It's "Special")
I'm a modern man, I don't mind buying tampons, but apparently they're
not a proper Valentine's present

 

If you hear of anyone looking for DG heads let me know. I have one standard
head and Johnny will flog me a second. TBF the real money for them appears
to be stateside on ebay.

 

It would have been worth it for comedy value!

 

In

28 years ago I'd have ripped your arms out for them

 

In