kendo phil

Ah good old Rugby, I used to live in Hillmorton and go to Ashlawn. This was almost back in the days of back and white mind.

On a 33bhp restiriction I guess that you have passed in the last 2 years, meaning that 6 points and your licence is gone. Last time I was up around rugby I saw 2 cop cars parked on the M1, one with the hair drier pointed at traffic. The police would take great delight in throwing the book at you for that speed. Keep your eyes peeled

Oy, oy oy! I havent broken much recently! Although I did thump my thumb (repeatedly) whilst using the impact driver the other day!

I used to race karts and went on to have a go on the Formula first at silverstone. The trick with cornering is that the car or bike does not want to go round the corner - it wants to go in a straight line, Newton knew a thing or two about this. The vehicle is travelling in straight(ish) line and you want to corner. You brake and act against the momentum of the vehicle, this uses up a portion of the tractive force available from the tyres, say 25% for example. You then want to corner, again the vehicle wants to go straight, you are already using 25% of the friction between the tyres and the road. Now you want to hit that apex so you are using 60% (for example) of the friction remaining to corner. This leaves you 15% of the friction force between you and the road, now you hit a pothole or oil or diesel. You now need 20% more grip to carry on, this means you are using 105% of the capacity available to you and are in a hedge somewhere. The technique I was taught for being really fast around a track is to brake up to the corners (brake boards are bleedin wonderful) gently come off the brakes and turn in. Ideally you brake less as you begin to corner so you dont load and unload the suspension and as you begin to corner proper you dont have any brake at all, then gas on the exit decreasing the cornering forces and increasing the accelerating forces. It took me months to change my driving style and take on board the advice that others gave me, fortunately I worked at a karting track and had access to lap timers and a nice run off / tyre wall when it didnt go to plan. I had the good fortune to be able to try different corners and techniques and have a computer to show me the lap times. Go on a track day, follow the instructor and ask loads of questions, you pay them for just that!

Oh god yes, the best (or worst) I found was a mechanic that had done an engine rebuild and pinched the arm that controls gear box selector locking it solid. I have broken open a DT125 LC engine and found a bit of what I believe to be coat hanger where the woodruff key should be. Undone caliper bolts - oh and I once found a set of feeler gauges under an inner tube! Basicly there are garages that employ shaven chimps to do their work!

To severe an eye lid you need the following; Several go-Karts A 'Murder ball' - a pair of mechanics gloves wrapped in duct tape Several stupid Karters We used to play murder ball on the Karts we used to race. On a closed circuit we would run in both directions and had a soft sponge 'murder ball' if you got hit with the soft sponge ball you were on and had to drive carrying the ball and throw it at the other drivers thus they were on. One day we could not find the soft sponge ball so somebody made one out of gloves wrapped in duct tape, more like a cricket ball than the soft ball we normally used. I had my visor open and I got the murder ball to the face, I was going about 30 one way and the guy coming the other was doing about the same. The ball went through my open visor and took the lense out of my glasses, this was pushed into the top of my eye and cut through my lid. I took my helmet off and thought, my eye is watering a lot then looked at my glove that had gone red. Oops - time to visit A&E

Heres my list, which is no means all of them; 1, got a length of hornby railway through my foot ending up in casualty after it was sliced into a large V shape between the big toe and next toe 2, Wicket Keeping and I went for what I thought was a wide ball off the batsman and got taken out by his bat full swing flat on to my face. 3, Wheelied my DT125 in bare feet landed on a broken tile and skinned the bottom of my foot. 4, Sawing floor boards I sawed through my index finger at the end of a stroke catching fowards then back again and took a V notch of skin and bone. 5, Knocked myself out with a tyre lever trying to prise an engine out of a frame. 6, concussion from a hand operated guillotine sheet steel handle after pulling it down on my head 7, broken nose after friend kneed me in the face trying to pull me up on the roof of a car 8, countless electric shocks from HT systems 9, Karting accident where I severed my eyelid and had to have it super-glued back on. 10, broken fingers from dropping a toyota engine on them 11, broken ribs from tackling a tree during a game of football And the list goes on!

Ouch - still he didnt seem too upset about it.

If you are anywhere near somerset I am happy to have a look with you! Phil

Hey mate, fancy bumping into you here - hope all is well! No serious mishaps of late, but I will post any fork / eye interface stories that I have. Cheers Phil

I got this PM, but no porn - where do I complain?

There was an ignition barrel from an RD250 (must find the key) a whole load of DT125 eletronics, CDI etc and I think a few bits of DT125 LC engine odds and sods! I have just finished rebuilding a suzi lump and once thats away I can get to the bits and have a proper look, dont want to mix up the bits.

I have just been going though my emails and found I had a PM from somebody on this site. Turns out that its a spam email, but it reminded me that I was signed up to this site. I am currently yamaha less, having sold the RD250 and the DT125LC I still have a hankering for a V-max though! Co-incidently I have just found a load of old Yam bits at the back of the garage in a box, these might be looking for a new home soon. Cheers all! Phil

I wouldnt mind, but I am just getting over a concussion that I caused myself a few weeks ago, also working on one of my bikes. Spent hours in the hospital being checked for detached retinas - deeply, deeply unpleasant!

I have in my back garden a VFR400 which I intend to rebuild at some point. It has be sat under tarpaulin for the last six month and when I wandered passed it yesterday I notice the cover had blown off. I lent over in and gave the throttle a pull, seized solid - bugger I thought! I took the tank off to find that the carbs were under water (god knows how) starting to panic I removed the carbs to find the inlet tracts full of water - SHIT!!!! I took the plugs out, now being a V4 I had to take the rad off to get the front 2 out. The back 2 point at the seat and without a triple jointed hand you cannot get them out. So I left them loose, but undone in the plug holes. At this point i wandered off and got an old sierra battery and my jump leads. My plan was to connect the battery up and after checking the engine was not seized by turning it by hand with a spanner then pump the water out afterwards. Unfortunately my clunky jump leads shorted the terminal on the solenoid and fired the engine over. The resulting chaos was that the water filled bores forced there way out through the front 2 plug hole and soaked my live battery charger. This was the least of my problems as the rear 2 banks still complete with loose plugs went of like a twin shot gun, one plug was caught by the tarp and embedded itself upto the thread. The other plug just missed me firing with a plume of smoking water about 10 foot in the air clean over an 8 foot high brick wall and out of my garden and out onto the road. I gingerly wandered around to the back of my house and found the errant plug, now shattered on the floor. I picked up the bits and buggered off before anybody asked any questions. My mate recons I could have been the first person to have been shot with a NGK plug. Bloody dangerous game this motorcycling! Please if you have done anything as daft feel free to make me feel better and post it here!

The main jet in my DT was forever clogging, usually undoing the bolt on the bottom of the float chamber was enough to cure it, otherwise whip that carb out and clean out the jets with some carb cleaner, a bit of fuse wire or an air line.

It would appear that we have descended into a mixture of youth bollocks and racism. This is not Channel 4 you know! Some of the gibberish posted here would appear to have been penned by an 8 year old and would be better placed on the Astra and Nova Owners Website. Besides everybody knows rock is better than rap.

The last lot that I got came from M and P (www.mandp.co.uk) give that a go Phil

Does it run carbs or fuel injection? If it fuel injection I could write a paper on what goes wrong with it!

I like the new look to the forum personal page, but it says that I have got no friends. If thats the case who are all the voices in my head telling me to go faster?

I have sent you my email address, could you send me some pics? I love to restore / rebuild older bikes sounds right up my alley! Cheers Phil

What is it? Where is it? How much do you want? Any photos? Phil

You want to get somebody to take a look at that for you!

I fancy putting an R1 front and rear end on a vmax! And maybe a turbo

what a bunch of dicks! Killing a bike like that is like kicking a puppy, should not be allowed!