Little Z appraisal

I enjoyed your article on the Z200 and KL250 in last month’s Old Bike Mart, asIhada

Z200 as my ride to work transport for many years.

My first motorbike was also a 200cc fourstroke single, a trials Tiger Cub with energy transfer ignition. The Z200 was everything the Cub was not, reliable and bullet proof. The Z200 was one of the early ones and I bought it from a work colleague who had been knocked off it by a careless driver. It had a permanent dent in the tank made by his knee.

Although it had an electric start I never used it as it was so easy to kick over and always started first kick. I never experienced any cam bearing or chain tensioner problems but I did always use car type 20-50 multigrade oil, changed regularly.

I do agree that the mechanical selfadjusting disc front brake was pretty terrible; I never was able to stop it over adjusting and jamming on, but I had a spare Norton 18in front wheel with 8in drum brake from a mid-1960s Matchless, so I made an adapter spindle and spacers and used that instead. I then had adequate braking and could feel what was happening. The end of the silencer rusted out but I welded on a reverse cone which produced a deeper more pleasant note and seemed to go slightly better. It would cruise at 55mph which was fast enough, although on a trip to watch the Manx Grand Prix I did see 80 on the clock on the approach to Brandish on the TT course.

Gear lever spline wear was never an issue if you kept the pinch bolt tight.

In the end the swing arm bearing became worn and I decided to break it up. The

Norton wheel was sold for a good price and the engine – which was still running well – was donated to a secondary school for a design and technology project.

Continuing with Kwackers I then got a

Z250 twin, not good, an ER5, great bike but horrendous riding position if you are male and now a W650, great bike if a bit heavy.