Autumn is here

It’s a magical time of year at the moment, well colour wise anyway, the dropping temperature is a right pain in the a*se. Scotland at this time of year is amazing (when its not raining) natures colours blazing out and instead of the green and brown that dominates our landscape in the summer we have a full kaleidoscope of colour to enjoy as you ride along. With Autumn though comes harvest time for the farmers and that itself presents a problem for us motorcyclists, around every corner is a potential trap laid by a farmer to catch out the unsuspecting motorcyclist so be careful out there as you enjoy the last rays of Autumn sunshine.

I’ve been doing a fair mileage recently, mostly in the North and another thing that struck me is the state of the roads, the road surfaces after last winter were in poor shape and now after the summer traffic the roads are even worse. Road maintenance seems to be getting ignored due to the “recession” and some of my favourite roads are now quite dangerous in bits, the usual scenario is that you are half way round a bend which you know , making good progress when right at the apex the surface is broken up, the tendency then is for the bike to jump across the road a few inches, not good for the suspension or my underpants!

After my Romania trip in 2008 I decided they had the worst roads in Europe but now if we are not careful we could soon be up to Romanian standards! I suppose a positive note is that at least the immigrants will feel at home!

As I write this our politicians are deciding what not to spend money on and how to cut the public finances, now here’s an idea, I just read that one of the banks (remember they are main reason we are all in this mess) is paying out over £8Billion in bonus’s for this QUARTER! How obscene is that, they don’t make anything or come up with ideas to make our lives better, or even research the intricacies of Amal carbs, they manipulate money, that is all they do and they think they are worth these obscene bonus’s. What about we take the money from them and spend it on making the roads (our personal playground) better so that we can enjoy ourselves and smile our way out of the recession!

Tales from the shed

Fair amount of activity in the Rondelli shed (as always) Nortons always keep you on your toes, I had just got my 750 Roadster running well after spending several hours working on and checking Mr Amals finest, the previous owner of my Mk3 Commando which Fiona has been using all Summer was coming to town so I thought I’d go meet him for a coffee to show him his old bike. The bike had just come back from Braemar and was running fine, I treated it to a oil and filter change and when I rode (luckily only a mile) to meet him it turned from a nice sounding example of Nortons best into a Diesel cement mixer! Investigation showed that the inlet tappet on the right side had mysteriously gained and extra 1/8 inch clearance. Head and barrels off to discover that the stellite foot had come of the follower and was lurking in the sump, luckily no other damage and the head was due to come off to fix a stripped thread anyway (thanks Alex). There is apparently a batch of these out there so be warned. Investigation showed that the foot part on the bottom of the follower appears to be much bigger than the “good” type followers.

Another quandary was that on investigation it was clear that the rods were the “D” type which allegedly explode. Eventually.

After speaking to several people (Including Nick Hopkins at Andover) I decided that most of the stories I heard couldn’t be backed up with hard evidence. The last two engines which grenaded (within the last year!) which I saw were after Conrod bolt failure and not the rods themselves so I’ve decided to leave well alone, my mantra being that the rods have lasted over 30 years and the bike isn’t used hard so fingers crossed it doesn’t give me something to fill another newsletter with in future!

After ordering the parts I decided I’d go out on the fastback for a blast to restore my inner peace and calm (never!) jacket, gloves, helmet on, kick, kick, perfect it starts, choke off (Mikuni) engine dies, repeat this process long enough for the sweat to start running down my back and for my neighbour to come out and laugh at my pathetic attempts to get going before realising it wasn’t happening. MVD dragged out only to find the battery is flat and then finally the roadster for a final attempt to save face. Luckily it worked. The Fastback when I got round to checking had a blocked pilot jet caused I think by a mix of petrol and part of the fibreglass tank innards.

Of course this brings us to another problem in the future for those of us with Fibreglass tanks, in the UK petrol companies are allowed to add at the moment up to 5% Ethanol to the petrol to save the planet (and boost profits) Ethanol is a sustainable natural product as opposed to petrol. Ethanol can boost the Octane rating so its good from that point of view, the downside is it eats Fibreglass, some plastics, cork and some rubbers so even if you have a steel tank when they up the allowed Ethanol content to 10% from 2011 then it may attack your fuel system anyway. The USA already has 10% Ethanol (or E10 as its labelled at the pumps) so they are getting the real issues first. Tank sealer will be the only answer (But research them first not all work with Ethanol) or it’s a new non fibreglass tank.

Who said it would be easy?

End of season Event

Killin Hotel, Killin November 27^th

I’ve negotiated a deal with the hotel for £45 Dinner Bed & breakfast PPPN which is excellent, in order to keep the price down single guys (or girls) may have to share.. Please book direct with the hotel on 01567 820296, quote either the NOC or my name, bookings will be required to give debit / credit card details to hold the room.

The Hotel is first class and they looked after us well last year so make sure you book now before all the rooms are taken!

Norton News

The owner of the first 961 sport has just taken delivery a couple of weeks ago….good news…..bad news is I bet the guys still waiting for their 961SE’s which were ordered over a year ago are not impressed!

And finally

I’ve been having a dig at the NOC Executive Committee this week about the lack of info coming out to the branches and members from them. I think I may have upset them but hopefully it’ll wake them up a bit and we get more info through on what’s happening in future.

Remember as Autumn dawns so will eventually your own Autumn, closely followed by Winter, get out on that Norton and enjoy it while you can!

The Small Print

The views and opinions contained within this publication are not necessarily those of the NOC or of the branch but are probably mine as I wrote it.

No one accepts any responsibility for anything, if you have a good time don't say I didn't warn you.

Gino Rondelli

October 2010