DieselBike.net

I stumble by here from time to time, though I have not been diesel-biking since last summer when a sudden rear puncture nearly saw the end of me. My bike is fixable, but I have not worked up the enthusiasm just yet. Meanwhile I have been doing a bit of museum volunteering, at a place just south of S...

I've seen a few of those - it doesn't seem right to me, you never saw a black-and-white 'L' but 'K' could go either way (thinking about it, our Mk2 Cortina was on reflective plates on an F, but Uncle's (on a G) was not). My diesel bike is staying on its reflective 'M'. It's nice if you have an ali p...

I might mention than MZ TS and ETZ 250s use a taper with no keyway on the (hardened) crank, onto which a mild steel female taper fits in the clutch centre. Contrary to what some detractors might suggest, this is not a constant speed application :) When they grip they're really hard to get off, but y...

Wouldn't 1:5 imply 2mm reduction in diameter for 10mm axial travel along the shaft? I think you could measure this with a cheapo digi-vernier (measure over the full length of the taper to minimise errors, and perhaps cover the shaft in permanent marker and scratch index points with a sharp scriber),...

That sounds interesting.

I don't have anything real to add, but this is just by way of encouragement as the forum is so quiet at the moment!

Thanks Alex - I'll give that a go. It smoked and went moody and wouldn't rev for ages, and then suddenly went 'pop' and went back to (mildly lumpy) normal. Who knows - I've spent years with this engine and it's still a mystery to me. Nearly as long as I have been married, in fact .

Hi all I think I may have gummed my injectors / pump with (carefully-filtered, but hey) wvo-mix. Bike is running again, but was hard to (kick) start and very lumpy for a while. Has anyone a preferred magic fuel additive / any experience of this stuff doing anything useful? Generally my experience wi...

All the refs I found suggest a 200cc petrol generator...might be looking at the wrong thing though!

Excellent engine in my friend's V50 Guzzi conversion. 55mph cruising (and, top speed, really!), about 100mpg.

Two Charade engines and a Ural-Daihatsu for sale on ebay inside about a week, and I missed them all!! :) (Actually I saw the bike, thought about my lack of room, agonised for ages, and let it go). Well, someone else has to get a look in and I have quite a lot of knackered bits of dead Daihatsu alrea...

Here you go - you can see where the rad goes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACn_W32nF4 I was wrong / had forgotten - the rear-facing outlet on the steel coolant tube on LHS is normally for the bottom of the radiator. This one I blocked, and instead used lumiweld to solder a 1" alloy tube int...

OK! I followed Johnny Flatau, who I think started all this silliness off. Let's see - there's a small cast alloy 90 degree bend at the front of the steel coolant pipe which goes up the left side of the engine (amongst other places). I drilled a hole in it and soldered a piece of alloy tube into the ...

Wow, looks good! I think a mini radiator might be OK for the non-turbo engine. Mine gets hot if I use boost for any time at all, and I've just bought a big thick aftermarket mini alloy radiator, so we'll see if that does much good when it arrives. I think I have a leaky headgasket, as always. There'...

I have this manual (which I bought from New Zealand, of all places) but only the non-turbo version. It's a bit of a sh*t manual - mostly exploded drawings, and not much else - but if you want to borrow it to scan, fine, just let me know. How's your Daihatsu build going?

Well, I'm still the right way up. Know 3 people who've been in hospital with it - only 1 came out. It's surreal really, and now people aren't scared anymore the press has gone back to normal (who's to blame? etc) whereas for a couple of weeks things were different in a good way, in my view. Looks li...

I don't know how you cope with that big list of bikes at the end of your post, gremlin-wise. I sold my second MZ 250 leaving three bikes, and that's too many to keep on top of gremlin-havoc, even while I'm not going anywhere! (Actually the remaining MZ250 is about as gremlin-less as any vehicle I've...

Hi - I have one of these in service in a Ural, and one spare with a dodgy head gasket. If someone steps up who needs this I'm happy to pass, but equally happy to be buyer of last resort if no-one else emerges.
cheers
Mark

I took 5 days over it - Manc-Mallaig was a long-ish shot and on the way back I did Iona-Manc in one go (well, with a couple of ferries), most of it in heavy rain. It was...damp! I ended up with no front brake, but apart from that nothing more unusual than the normal not-quite-right cooling situation...

My girls surprised me when they saw some 'cool kids' from school when we were out on our outfit, and asked me to ride by so they could give them a hard stare. Ours is not quite so alternative as yours, but shiny it isn't. I think these things that look like they fell from space confuse cool kids, wh...

Well, In the summer I did make it to Durness and back, much to my surprise. But the other day I stopped it with too much chip-oil mix in the pump, and would it re-start? It would not. That will teach me not to switch back to DERV a couple of miles from home. So a hint from a veg-oil fuel forum to sh...

Looks really good!

(On mine I have glow plugs on a push button, non-latching - push, count to five, kick, release when it starts. I need the non-latching button or I leave them on and cook the diodes in the alternator!)

That's an excellent price for an engine which has been used to great effect - if I were building another that's the way I'd go.

Slow reply, been away! c-stand lugs are still on, but now the thing is longer and heavier they're no use for anything. But my luggage is really robust and would cope with being laid-on - thanks for that idea of lying it down. If I could find a tall sloped verge with a 6" drop to the road, that'...

Enjoyed that, thanks! I was glad not to suffer a puncture on my recent hols, and not only to avoid falling off; I took levers, pump and a spare tube but I really need a trolley jack and a big block of wood to get a wheel off, and doing it on the move would be really difficult. Well done for keeping ...

Great write up! Maybe I'll try next year, if I don't blow it up again in the meantime...

Oh...and I nearly forgot - in Applecross I met a Scottish bloke in his 50s-60s who saw the bike and mentioned that he used to be the landlord of the Bat and Ball. I've never been to the Big Knock (I thought the South was a bit far for my bike to reach, but after this trip maybe I'll give it a go), b...

Hi folks Just back from 5 days riding and 1400 miles round Scotland. Since two weeks ago I broke down twice in 30 miles each way to Blackburn, I really wasn't expecting to get that far - but got home without an AA van, so that was great. I might write it up for the Cossack club mag (bike is Ural-Dai...

I haven't covered that many miles, but I am 10 years in with this. Oh well...

(Anyone know how to break Loctite 243? I have some M8 fine bolts set in with it, with countersunk slot heads. The impact driver is not moving them, just making a mess. Lots of heat?)

I read Diesel Dave's latest problem with bits falling off, somewhere on here today. I was hoping to go on an epic (for me) trip to Scotland later this month, but yesterday on a trial run to Blackburn, it boiled up and covered my left leg in rusty water. When I stopped fretting and started thinking, ...

I wonder what that industrial coupling is - it would be interesting to find it. The link you posted is interesting too. The UJ in the Ural drive line is available as a steering part (!) something like GU1944, so enormous torque is not expected! Regarding M72, yes it will be Austin 7 era - but I thin...