back on(in) 4 wheels

[Vart]

drove my 340 to work for the first time in over two months today and only two breakdowns. after two cylinder head swops in two weeks and much tracing problems i have an idling, driving car again. makes a change from a honda 125 that never went wrong once.

a skimmed cylinder head (sorted by Mac, skimmed locally, stem seals replaced by me), a replacement renix, rocker cover, two gallons of oil, a spares or repair carb and service items and two months on and off roadside work and i was startled by its behaviour today.

overheated a little outside a navy base in portsmouth - red light came on, crunch noise - que emergency swerve into the base carpark and between that crunch and the car stopping the temperature was fine again. i put it down to a seized thermostat. the navy carpark attendants wanted to know what i was doing but accepted the explanation.

got to work no problems, slightly lacklustre performance but i'm not used to cars at the moment. lunchtime check - no coolant in the expansion. hmm... boss suggests i tighten the hose jubly clips. that and replaced coolant and i proceeded home very apprehensive of portsmouth rush hour traffic and overheating.

que next breakdown in a traffic jam on the motorway - idle goes wrong suddenly and i got rapidly tired of three pedal stop start motoring. hardshoulder, bonnet up. i leaned the mixture and bumped up the idle - nothing, richen it (about 1.5 turns out) and it starts and settles to a smooth 110rpm tick-over as if nothing was wrong. no coolant lost, temperature kept right and it saw me home no problems.

no emulsion under cap, no more black soot, no more getting cold and rained on on an under powered motorbike. just the choke to sort (perhaps a mixture related issue perhaps now resolved), a squeaky passenger seat (folding mechanism), intermittant wiper relay, high idle and a weird noise from the cold air vents and its back as it was 8 months ago.

sadly i think the whole running problem was originally caused by some grime on the throttle switch going to the fuel cut off but nevermind...

cheers for all input on these problems.

regards

toby