Page 103 - Motorcycle Trader (February 2020)

3
cylinders out of three
4
noise laws. A good tuner – Charlie at
Turn One Motorcycles in Melbourne, to
name one – can get more out of them.
OUR BIKES Lately, it’s been suffering two issues.
The fuel tap has been acting weird and
developing an intermittent leak, while
starting and low-speed running have
become an issue.
Often, I’m only getting two cylinders
out of three until it warms up. Both
ONE Don’t try this at home, problems were getting progressively
folks. Spannerman worse.
recommends draining the tank This is a bike that gets ridden once
while it’s still on the bike. every couple of weeks, if it’s lucky, and
TWO Sidecovers and tailpiece its relatively minor troubles got put on
come off as a single unit. The
hole on the right is for the fuel the backburner while I dealt with more
tap knob. pressing problems with other toys.
THREE The offending fuel tap. Finally, I put aside a morning and
FOUR Now’s a good time to investigated. These things run some
replace the sparkplugs. interesting architecture. For example,
I’m only getting two
until it warms up
the sidecovers and tailpiece can be
taken off as a single giant unit. Once
you remove the very substantial fuel
tank (25 litres), you’re confronted by
a massive Fritz Egli-style main frame
spine.
As with a lot of machines from the
period, when you get this far you might
as well reef out the sparkplugs for a
quick clean. They can’t be reached
with the bodywork in place, so why not
make the most of the opportunity? It’s
also a good time to double check the
ignition wiring is all hooked up and
sitting where it should – so far so good.
THE DIAGNOSIS
It didn’t take long to discover the
culprit for the poor running. A couple
of dollars worth of vacuum line from
MOTORCYCLE TRADER 101