Kickstart

Yep, looks like they forgot the colour coat and just clear coated the primer All the best Katy

A long time ago my boss and her partner did a lot of running of the Westfield owners club. This was around the time the Seight was launched and they had a go. Her comments were that you just had to look at the throttle for it to spin the back wheels up. All the best Katy

Yep, and these have broken outlines, but they keep people generally to the left All the best Katy

Some wider wides have a cross hatched section with a broken outline in the middle. These you can enter if necessary. Keeps people left while making overtaking still possible - down side if the centre section of the road has more chance of debris All the best Katy

We did use log tables briefly, although I have pretty much forgotten everything to do with them now. I got my first calculator 2 weeks before my O level maths exam All the best Katy

I still use mine regularly. Especially for bolts holding brake disk bolts onto motorcycle wheels. These round off way too easy with an allen key , or with a heavy duty electric impact driver. Mechanical impact driver, with some heat first, is so far the most reliable way of getting these out (and if rounded, Dremel a slot in the head and use a wide flat bladed screw driver in the impact driver) All the best Katy

I have various dSLR cameras, and one of the primary plus points was that they had an optical view finder. Any digital view finder I tended to notice a very slight delay. Not tried any modern mirrorless camera to see if I still find this I am in my mid 50s, and we never touched slide rules at school All the best Katy

Quite a few get used for working on vehicles, as the tool can be changed I have a cordless impact driver, but it is a pretty heavy duty one (think it is 750 lb ft). Useful for things like the nut in the centre of the clutch on a motorcycle, and more powerful than any of the air powered ones I have. All the best Katy

Think a ME109F (or BF109F if you prefer) All the best Katy

Yes, fairly small engines. Combined more powerful than the Pegasus engines combined, but only for lift. With the Pegasus making use of the rotating nozzles for vertical take off with the lift engine, I presume for short take off it it could just use the Pegasus. Either way, loss of lift from one of the engines on the wings would presumably result in a fairly dramatic drop of one wing, and at low speed with little lift from the wings the results would likely be so quick that it possibly wouldn't be controlable All the best Katy

The original photo had panda eyes on a panda themed aircraft All the best Katy

2 Pegasus engines (probably to be expected!) and it seems 8 small specific lift engines. Imagine that landing and taking off from an Invincible class ship. As an aside, I would suspect with the Pegasus on the wings, and the specific lift engines on the ends of the wings, a failed engine would have a dramatic effect at a critical time. All the best Katy

Love the Panda Eyes cockpit windows! All the best Katy

Yes, a good old suicide lane! Noticed one car with the old stick on heated rear window. Not something I have seen in a long time All the best Katy

Lots of M reg cars and a few N reg, which suggests 2nd half of 1974. I lived in London at the time! All the best Katy

Ouch on the Honda Forza Parts I tend to look at the online parts listings, and get a part number. Then I can search around based on that, and also search which other models use that part (eg, the suspension pin I have ordered for the FZ750 is shared with the FJ1200, and the part I have ordered was listed for the FJ1200). Fowlers, CMSNL and a few others are useful for that. For Yamahas it is worth trying Webbs of Lincoln, and for Suzukis Robinsons Foundry All the best Katy

My Diversion years ago was an early one. The one with the vacuum operated fuel pump, which is on a similar level of usefulness as a Honda cable operated disk brake. As an aside , ABE (All Bike Engineering) do list replacement 38mm fork stanchions for the early Diversion. One reason I hoard parts is because dealers no longer keep any real stock, so once the manufacturer gives up support there is pretty much no chance of finding items hanging around as old stock. All the best Katy

Entirely possible it is restricted like that. Or could be cams. Or a mix of these are other items. Think the Japanese limit was ~77hp, while the bike was over 100hp claimed in Europe (claimed, so probably about 90 in reality) Not easy to change the timing, as the ignition system uses pickups against the crank, and pickup positions and the crank triggers are fixed. So it would need a different cdi unit. As an aside, the ignition system is one of the changes between the early and the late fz750, with the early and late systems being pretty much completely incompatible. Early ones had 2 crank pickups, late had 1 crank pickup. Coils have substantially different resistance (and later coils on an early bike can fry the ignition unit). All the best Katy

Always at least 1! If I have taken things to pieces previously they tend to come apart OK as I tend to use copperslip, but the factory didn't and this bolt probably hasn't been removed in 35+ years. Few minor bits to do still then get the frame blasted clean before a couple of repairs (tabs on the back of the frame, etc). Then a mix of powder coating and Cerakoting. Undecided which exhaust system to use. I have an original 4>2 exhaust in reasonable condition, but it is from a Japanese market bike and they had a bit less power to comply with Japanese licence laws - and not sure if the way the limited the power was something in the exhaust. All the best Katy

Hiya FZ750 now almost completely stripped down. Still can't get the r/h footrest hanger off. Turns out the bolt is seized to the bush in the footrest hanger (the hanger itself has a pair of rubber bushes, with a steel bush in the middle of them - these rubber bushes are not available as seperate pieces). Probably going to have to drill the bolts out. Front engine mounting bolt is stuck in the engine on one side. It goes through 2 part of the engine casing, and is stuck on the side furthest from the bolt head. If I put a breaker bar on the bolt I can see it twist along its length. It is only an M8 bolt and I am unwilling to try putting more force on it as I will likely snap it. Probably keep putting penetrating oil on it for a bit before I try again (neither heat nor penetrating oil has done the job yet). Undecided how far to strip the engine. I will take off the head and barrels to refinish them, but not sure whether to split the crankcases as then I wouldn't know where to stop with replacing bearings, etc. After I washed the engine I got rid of the water, then connected a battery to the starter and cranked it over to clean out any left, then a bit of WD40 down the intakes and repeated a few times. Forks have been dropped off for rechroming. Brake disks are being their standard pain to undo. Despite only putting 3 bolts on each to hold them on for storage, it seems I used Loctite........ So blow torch time. One of the rear linkage pieces is a pin, and both the ones I have are damaged (the heads of the pins have chunks missing). No longer available from Yamaha, but found a new old stock one on Ebay in the USA so ordered that. Bearings all see ok and the swinging arm and one link have cleaned up nicely. Other link is cast iron it appears and while it would be easy to blast clean it would also wreck the needle bearings which are more expensive that they should be - I might just clean it with a wire brush on the Dremel and then mask and paint it. While I have never noticed it when riding, seems the r/h handlebar is slightly bent. Hopefully I can find someone with a press and the skill to straighten it. Annoyingly, despite the bar obviously being made from 2 pieces I cannot see how to seperate them. The chain protector on the swinging arm is very rotten. I have designed a copy to 3D print. The master seem almost right and I have done some tweaks, but not yet checked the updated one is fixed. If it works OK I will make a mould and cast a copy in polyurothane. All the best Katy

If it is heresy then you cannot be innocent? Only a heretic wouldn't realise this...... All the best Katy

It would probably be heresy to get it wrong, resulting in offenders becoming servitors All the best Katy

Plenty are still white metal. Tends to only be the items that will sell in higher volumes that can justify the cost of tooling up for plastic. Also some issues with selling white metal stuff to kids. Think Hobbycraft used to stock Flames Of War stuff but stopped due to the white metal used. Tanks below are white metal. Need to finish basing them still All the best Katy

This popped up a couple of days ago All the best Katy

And one reason I don't like turbo diesels! Playing with the gears is part of the fun. I bought a bike at the end of last year because I had always fancied that model with a red line at 19000rpm. All the best Katy