What have you done with your bike today?

[Rusty Nuts]

A pair of Ashmans with white fisherman's socks sticking out the top, any old jeans, a TT Leathers jacket, Barbour gauntlets and a bright orange Kangol Gladiator helmet with umpteen rattling press studs on the visor.

[Rixington43]

Launching yourself in the air and slamming your arse down on the seat like you're having a fit trying to get that float bowl to free up before the puddle of fuel catches fire.

[endintears]

The attire you describe TL was more for those riding things with dimunitive wheel sizes and more mirrors than a solar array around that time than me.
It was (my wife would say depressingly) easy for me to raid my wardrobe for chronologically suitable items.
Leather jacket, jeans and boots.
Just had to compromise with bootcut instead of flared with the jeans. 

[Brockett]

XJ600n Still unable to trace the cause of the engine bogging down at mid throttle. All settings are correct and I've cleaned the carbs twice with only a marginal improvement. If one carb had a problem would that be the cause? Or what is the common factor? Once the revs are up to 5500 the engine sings all the way up to 8000 smoth as a smooth thing.

[TLPower]

Check other things Brockett. are the plug leads and coil leads good? Check the wiring to the coils and coil connections, check cam timing and valve clearances.

Before teatime.

[Rusty Nuts]

Cards balanced ?( with no choke, unlike the berk who did my cbx cold and half choked) inlet stubs from carbs all intact and seated, inlet rubbers from airbox all intact & seated?

[Brockett]

No there's funny thing. When I switch on there is silence, Yeah Imagine.... there should be a whirring sound as the pump turns a few times. An hour of faffing with a meter and the Haynes manual and I found this:- I wonder if the fuel has been gravity feeding the carbs.

[pichulec]

Got the panniers rack and topbox rack powder coated black. Some company quoted me £200+ vat to do it. Got it done for free. It is good to have friends in manufacturing

[Asmith61]

Great find Brockett hope that sorts it 🤞

[2112]

Today I had a belting ride out by myself and racked up a hefty 320 miles, taking the tigger past 11,000 ! In a nutshell it was West along Hadrians Wall (very foggy and even some light rain at times), North to Moffat (avoiding the M74, a bit foggy in places), across to St Mary's Loch, Over to Hawick via the little single track roads and then South to the Carter Bar. From there I headed over to Rothbury and then home via some very small, single track roads (including the brilliantly named 'Bushy Gap'). I was surprised to see two fords running wet as they are normally bone dry this time of year? It was a cracking day out, the first two pic's are St Mary's Loch and the third is Rothbury.

[Asmith61]

Today I fitted a tank protector, then went out for a hour or two the temperature hit 29 🥵
Doing some more running in miles around some Essex villages, stopping to take this picture at the Mountnessing windmill which was built in 1807 and was restored to working order in 1983.

Later I stopped at a shop to get a bottle of water, ( there were 2 big steps outside and as I am still not good on my feet I decided not to tackle the steps )
Instead I asked a group of youths who were standing outside if one of them would go in and get me a bottle of water, and I was told that the shop had run out of water, but one of them said I will go in and ask if they have any out the back, he came back and said no they haven’t, so I thanked them for trying and turned towards my bike I then heard Excuse me and one of the lads was holding a bottle of water in his hand saying I have only taken a sip but you are welcome to it, I said yes please holding out some money but he said I don’t want anything for it, what a lovely thing to do my faith in the youth at that point helping out a thirsty, hot & sweaty  :old

[Brockett]

XJ600- Checking the valve clearance for a second or third time. The inlets are all too tight being less than .010 (should be 0.10 to 0.15 mm) The exhausts are all within limits. ( 0.21 to 0.25 mm.) I managed to remove a few shims ( one at a time) only to find the size printed on the top is not the size shown on my digital caliper except for one. So is my caliper no good? So I  measured the feeler guages only to find some read over some are right on and some read under. OK Ebay may not be best place to buy tools but where else can I go to get stuff that is accurate?

[Hugo Magnus]

Mitutoyo make very good measuring tools.

[kwackboy]

Brockett..
when measuring shims its often that the printed numbers are not what's measured with a micrometer however, they're always very close.

For example,  a shim that's got 260 printed on it can be anywhere from 258 - 262 , it's very minor and nothing to worry about unless you're totally OCD about achieving the exact clearance.

[Ianmc]

    Brock,just buy a normal vernier gauge and not a digital one,I have both and do not trust the digital one.

[kwackboy]

Personally, I have a digital micrometer and always zero it before measuring.

[Brockett]

I went to Halfords and bought some feeler guages that are printed in MM and their equivolent  in inches.  Back at home I compared the imperial measures with the readout from my father's old Moore and Wright ( of Sheffield) micrometer that must be 70 to 80 years old. They all came out within half of one thousanth of an inch. Which is pretty good eh. 
The inlets should be 0.13mm +/- 0.02 or within the range  0.11 to 0.15mm.
The exhausts should be 23mm+/- 0.02mm or within the range 0.21 to 0.25mm
That is a fine limit considering the shims are only available in .05mm increments.
The guages I was using yesterday are hopeless and are likely to go into the scrap bin.
Thanks for your support and ideas.

[Brockett]

XJ fun and games - To get to the camshaft, valves etc I had to remove the 'almost empty' fuel tank. However, I could not stop the fuel dribbling out of the tap other than tipping the tank on it's nose so the level was below the tap.  If I had a copy of the handbook I would have known the petrol tap has three positions, none of which are off.   I thought arrow down is "on", arrow up is "reserve"  and arrow sideways is off. 
Arrow sidways bears the legend "PRI" which, the feeble Brockett brain finally realised, stands for "prime" and that is ALWAYS ON.  In the ON or RESERVE position fuel only flows through the tap when the valve in the tap is opened my vacuum from the inlet manifold. Without the always on Prime position the fuel could never flow through the tap and the engine would be very difficult to start. Clever yes?  Unfortunately when I cleaned the tap intenals ( checking for rust particles) I put the diaphram in the wrong way around so the fuel was never turned off. It only took 2 days for the penny on that one too drop. You'd think that with 75 years of being me I'd have sufficient data to know that I am mostly as daft as brush.
I have orderd, via fleabay, a tap refurb kit because ... yeah me again.... After cleaning the tap last week I applied a smear of grease to the sealing "O" ring. A week or so  later the thing has now increased in size by enough to render it useless. Maybe when you can't find your red rubber grease, dielectric grease is not a good substitute.

[TLPower]

Naked in Morrisons and greasing your ring is not at all endearing young man.

[Rusty Nuts]

A boy's Got to pay the rent.....