Project Bikes

Now that I've finally taken the exhaust and radiator off it's very obvious that the huge gash in the front of the block wasn't the cam chain, it was a conrod.

Should've known but the noise I heard after the bang tinkle tinkle tinkle sounded distinctly like a chain being dragged across something.

Here's what I extracted from the inside of the engine

Have a guess what this is ....

(click on images to view larger ones)

...

I finally stopped sulking about it all (cheered by news that I have a replacement in the pipeline) and went and had a look at my Triumph to see what happened on the main straight of Paeroa.

The first thing to do was take the fairings off so I could get to everything and locate where the problem was. Even before I'd taken a bolt out of the fairings I could see the belly pan was full of sludge (oil and coolant mixed together). This didn't surprise me because even though it didn't ...

The alarm went at 9am, but this time there was no rush to leave the accommodation. We had two nights in Hanmer Springs, allowing us to explore the Rainbow Rd and Station without the weight of all our luggage, and also more time to do things at our pace. I wanted to leave earlier, as I knew the Rainbow would be about 3 hours, if not more, we had to do it twice and some side tracks, but at the same time, it was our holiday and time to take it easier, sample the food, enjoy the scenery and so on. ...

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Yeah nah.

Short story; something in the engine broke on the main straight and it made awful tinkling noises. It's not fixable and I'm not replacing the engine. So the worlds only TT450 triple race bike is no longer.

Talk about wet!! The ducks have more brains than motorcycle racers cos the stayed home.

5:30am is a ridiculous time of the night (even though there's light it's ridiculous to call it morning) to do anything, but that's the time I set my alarm for. A short while later I was out of bed and making a coffee for the road. Throw the rest of my gear into the car and I'm off to McDonalds for the traditional grease-fest that gets me through a race day.

Pulling ...

AMCC Round 1 at Hampton Downs signalled the start of Summer racing and the first race for me since Paeroa in February, 8 months ago.

This time I planned to get an unusually early start so that we're not rushed even if something doesn't quite go as it should so I'd set my alarm for 5:30am. That's an insane time to be awake. On the average work day my body might be walking around but my brain isn't awake until about 10:00am. Even then that's only after some breakfast ...

Well the one last time ride I expected the last one to be wasn't and was followed by 2 practices and and 11/2 days of racing.

This first practice was lots of heart leaping little thomas the tank engine's "I can do this, I can do this."

The second practice was lets get some decent laps times and was more than happy with 46 sec laps (about a sec off my top consistent times)

With first day weather packing up and I crashing I'd had enough and went home after ...

I finally got around to putting my bike on the dyno and did we get a surprise!!

Sunday I hooked up the trailer, loaded the bike up and got things ready to go visit Gary Pendleton. I swiped the mother inlaws Garmin because I wasn't exactly sure I'd find Gary's place without a little help and then watched some rugby.

Next morning I was up far too early for a Monday (I don't work Mondays, they're evil), into the car and off to McDonalds. Can't go anywhere without ...