This season I'll be mostly wearing.......

Previously on Wee Z: There had been some more bits travelling up and down the country. New bolts had been made, completing a simple job that was wholly scuppering further progress. Ahhhh progress, a word often spoken but rarely with any true conviction or, sadly in this case, convincing evidence to back up such bold claims. And yet......



In a rather familiar, de ja vu style, there was, once upon a time in a land far, far away from civilisation, a box. This box had been delivered to a flat that housed a young boy, two thorough* bred race bikes and a dream. This box had nothing to do with the openings of legs belonging to that slag Pandora (feel free to don your Welsh accents fine Sirs). The reasons were all to do with back bottoms and specifically their comfort and ascetic qualities.


The box looked like this:





Scrawled upon its lid in fine penmanship read this:





And in it:
































As you can see from the amount of pictures, the boy was a tad excited by the contents of the box!

Such excitement led me to get my pencil crayons out. Having the rear end sitting there made me think of what kind of tail light would work? A curved elliptical shape to go with the lines of the tail unit? Too modern? Perhaps a simple round light? A bit like or rather a lot like the old designs.... 


So mug of tea at the ready I used the bottom of my IQ vitamin things bottle as a template.








Then with the aid of some spellotape I stuck it where it would sit if someone with low abilities was charged with the job of fitting it.











Slightly wonky but giving a rough idea of what a round, red tail light would look like. Splendid. 


So that little snippet of news was one of the aforementioned ‘skips in the path’. So turn with me and take a few steps back, there, one more, that’s it, perfect.


So, previously I had attacked the tank of the Pimpernel with a hefty dose of effort and it had ended up in a rather morbid hue. He wasn’t very happy but after a careful extraction we were left with a black, streaked lump of metal. The sidepanels had also had a spot of attention after their visit to the kitchen body shop.


Following on from such professional work it was decided that the panels needed some primer. They got their first couple of coats back in Caithness and were then transported back to the ‘deen for a few more.


The lack of anything there again made things tricky. Such problems were nothing however for an idiot with determination and a professional level spray booth was quickly manufactured and pressed into action.
















The lads were quite intrigued with the process.





But then I ran out of primer and the weather cooled enough to make further spraying a bad idea. We were however left with these.








When the weather heats up I’ll get back to it and finish the primer off. However I have heard of some primers taking in water if left unsealed without a top coat? Does anyone know anything about this?




So that brings us back to the purchase of the seat unit which was fuelled by the annoyance of a lack of time and progress (that word again).

So on a fine day in Aberdoom I took a wander down to see the boys armed with the new seat unit. They quickly stripped off and flexed their metal in the cool air.








Then we proceeded with the dressing.


First the tank.





 




Then the side panels.








And then with some trepidation I placed the seat unit upon the Pimpernel’s bare back....





Feckin’ A! The Pimpernel lost his Gallic cool and the Phoenix burst with excitement in an outpouring of profanities. I will repeat myself, feckin’ A!!! 




There is however a slight issue. The seat unit is a Norton Manx wideline and the Wee Z's snakehips are certainly not. A slimline unit would no doubt sit on their frame rails with less overhang but the company only seem to sell the wideline and it was cheap.





I’m not sure how much of an issue this is going to be. From that angle it does look a bit too fat but from other angles it hides its girth well.

















 




We then took off the side panels to see how things looked.














All in all I think the side panels will stay. I am absolutely over the moon with how the bike’s looking at the moment. It’s nice seeing the reaction on people’s faces who know how the bikes looked to begin with.


So the bikes got thrown back under their increasingly spiritual covers and I returned to the flat with a big smile slapped across my face.


The promise of Hughs, Basils and Tonys previously given can now also be delved in to. Clearly what I meant was that we were to discuss the issue of hues, brushes and tones; basically what the paint was going to be like. Idiot? Yes. But it seemed clever at the time.


The question of paint has been floating around my cranium since I bought the bikes. I’ve had loads of ideas sparked and fuelled by inspiration from here, there and everywhere. The latest was inspired by the classic Lotus racing colours and their recent incarnation gracing the fluid flanks of the F1 Lotus Team. I was thinking of using the green as the main body colour and then use a thick yellow strip flanked by two slimmer white stripes.


A drawing of the idea done to no scale at all looked like this.





However..... seeing how good the simple white looked on the bikes has again caused me to consider alternatives. The white works really well with the black frame and other parts and makes the bike look quite fresh. So I’m now not sure. Again.


Any thoughts? Feel free to shout this is a no hands up question. I wanted some number boards on the back but with the tail being on the dinky toy side of things it may not work.


Other ideas have been a flip on the Lawson scheme, that looked oh so good on the ZRX 11 and 1200, but using white as the main colour with a green and purple line. Yet I’m not sure if the Pimpernel is chunky enough for that.

So here is where we be. I think... The bodywork will get some more white primer that is for certain. From there I am not sure. If I don’t make my mind up quickly enough I’ll just finish it in white and come back to it at a later date if I see fit. The later date may well be much later and so my mind may have turned over several new ideas in the interim. Time will pass and quite probably tell.


Feel free to leave your ramblings on the progress, there I’ve said it again, your personal preferences or orders for hot drinks. I’ll away and put the kettle on.... it makes a rather fetching hat I’ve found.


Adieu.



* interesting how ‘rough’ seems to leap out of that word... 

Bar Talk and a Bar-Room Brawl.... maybe.

Previously on Wee Z: Things had been procured and even graced the flanks of the ever stationary lads. The gracing however was swift and the bits and bobs were soon tidied away. The bikes had become barless during the process and two ravishing, young models had posed for the camera and adoring fans, no doubt peering over the garden wall.

Firstly, I have an admission to make. I have broken the sacred trust held between you and I. In the last post, nigh the last sentence of the last post!



I lied.



Sorry but we’re not going to talk about “Hughs, Tonys and Basils” .

There admission out of the way. Instead we’re going to speak about bars, and sadly not the alcoholic version. As I’m still trying to catch up with where we are currently, either cowering indoors or under two ragged covers, everything is coming from memory. That means that my wanderings often lead us down paths we shouldn’t have gone down yet or in jumping a puddle in said path, I then realise that, after looking back, there was something I was meant to say there....
So, no doubt making not much more sense...


Remember the bars that were a pain in the posterior? The ones with the controls clamped on with bits of rusty, mushy plastic who remembered in the backs of their chewed heads the times when threads were free running, the grease was clean and iron ran through their veins? Well the old feckers needed a good doing. In Aberdoom however I’m sorely equipped with not a lot. Pens and paper sadly do not a doing maketh.


Back home however we have a garage rammed full of things that if you can find them, or find a space to use them, can be incredibly handy. One of those incredibly handy things was a Bobby. We’ve found him and his fat sausage fingers previously in this project of slowness and ineptitude then in his normal kitchen position. In a stroke of luck however I found him in the garage and pressed him into service and general keeping me right duties.

In all honesty I think he just fancied a bit of time in the garage. When my brother and I raced motocross, he was in the garage all the time. I loved looking over his shoulder, passing spanners, generally getting in the way or lending the extra hand that was needed. Since we’ve both stopped racing the garage action has died down. Beeg Bob has got more in to his boats and his GS doesn’t need any spannering. His XT that does (the brother to my own) really doesn’t get used enough to warrant it, and the mx bikes are either in bits or unused due to uni commitments. Working on boats is fun but there’s something about working on bikes that he must miss.

Well it’s that or the comforts of a garage rather than the quay side and the gales.


Anyhooo, the simple plan was to drill the old fart ‘bolts’ out and make up some new non flatulent ones, using more of faither’s lovely marine grade stainless stuff.

So the bars were, as expected, all viced up with nowhere to go.

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This gives you an idea of the space issue going on.... Way too much stuff!

So I got drilling.

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Notice the snazzy purple foam grips. Why do people run bikes with these? They’re horrible! There is a set of Renthal grips waiting in the box of bits so order will be restored. If we ever get there....


So after some drilling the mush metal was removed leaving a nice hole. The cable is also absolutely minging!

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With the bolts away we could remove the controls. Super simple but without a vice in Aberdeen it would have been a proper head ache. It’s only when you don’t have the wee things that you realise how much you rely on them.

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Sailor boy pulled the controls apart and removed the thread. With the throttle tube off we revealed.....

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A rather impressive amount of flies. That was a resourceful spider.

So we then progressed on to the replacements.

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Resized to 94% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge

So rather than using the amazing powers of guess work we simply lined up the old threads to the new bolts and marked them off. Riveting stuff.... or not, on two accounts I suppose!

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They then got all snug in the vice and the Dremel came out. No good cutting shots as Fat Fingers was in charge of the picture taker....


So we did the other one and ended up with these.

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Resized to 94% (was 1024 x 768) - Click image to enlarge

So at least I can put the throttle tube on the new clip ons now.


I apologise for the dullness of this update but these are the crappy wee bits that I quite enjoy and that need doing. I’m getting a bit annoyed with the complete lack of time I have at the moment with the PGDE I’m doing but I’ve thrown caution to the gales and it buggered off at about a hundred miles an hour with a few pounds from my back pocket. There has been a substantial purchase made, mostly down to annoyance of not getting anything done! I’ll put some information up when it’s delivered.

Perhaps next time we will get on to the story of the Hughs, Tonys and Basils but then I may have forgotten something again....