MR BRIDGES MOTORCYCLE DIARIES

IN THE CURRENT STATE OF VIRUS-RID DEN AFFAIRS, IT' S PROBABLE THAT THE AVERAGE READER' S GOING TO BE SPENDING MORE TIME WORKING ON THEIRMOTORCYCLE. IT'S ALSO THE CASETHAT POPPINGTO THE SHOPSFORTHE ODD WASHER,OR WHATEVER,CAN BE SOMETHING OF AN INCONVENIENCEDUE TO THE SAME STATEOF AFFAIRS.WW

But the other side of that coin is that if you find yourself having to nip out and get the odd thing you need, then you'd save a lot of time if you had the odd thing you need lying around . .. unless, of course, what you're doing is nipping out for the odd thing via the pub. For instance, possibly the most common cause of failing the MoTfor motorcycles isthe absence of a split-pin from a castellated nut, most usually the rear wheel spindle nut. Assuming that there isn't a convenient source of suitably sized nails to be had, the usual remedy is to go to the local motor accessory outlet, and buy a pack of perhaps five split-pins of assorted sizes for two or three pounds. This is, of course, unless your local motor accessory store is a Halfords - there you have to order whatever it is you need on-line, then wait until they let you know it's ready to pick up, then go and stand in a queue of people waiting to pick up whatever it is they've ordered, and stand around for twenty-five minutes while some self-important ignoramus decides it's perfectly fine to hold the entire world up while they complain that this isn't the thingummybob they wanted, it's the other kind of thingummybob .. . (Or, of course, the store person pulled the wrong thing off the rack of odds and ends, and then you end up looking like the self-important ignoramus.) Having said that, Halfords do do an assortment box of split-pins which contains around 425 of them in six different sizes, and costs eight pounds . The obvious point here is that 425

split-p ins for £8 means they cost a little under two pence each (1.88p), whereas five for £2 means those cost forty pence each, but that isn't really the point - the point is that if you buy the pack of five, then you'll use one and , next time you need one , you'll e ither've lost the other four or you'll spend 20 minutes looking for them to discover that there aren't any of a suitable size left in the pack so, yet again , you're off to your local motor accessory shop . This makes the job take longer and, in my case at least, tends to raise your already dangerously high blood pressure .

Ifyou'd bought the assortment box, though, then you would have 424 splitpins sitting in a nicely compartmented box on a shelf in the garage/shed/ cupboard under the stairs . In fact, if it's a thirty minute round trip to your local motor parts place to buy a £2 pack of split-pins that does one job , then by the time the 425 piece assortment box is half empty the extra £6 you spent buying it will've saved you 105 hours and £418 (in theory) .

The other advantage of an assortment box is that it's relatively bulky, but doesn't take up much space on a shelf, or in a drawer , so they tend to be easier to find, especially if you have a shelf or a drawer for assortment boxes . I just ordered myself a box of spring-loaded fuel-line clips (which're common on Japanese motorcycles) that I found on Amazon at £7.99 for 75 because , although fuel lines willoften stay put without a hose clip, it's annoying when they don't - the hose comes off, and the paint gets damaged either because it's turned out not to be all that petrolresistant afte r all, or the motorcycle caught fire and burnt it off.

As well as replacing absentee or dead hose clips at a shade over 10p each , they're worth having because they simply look better than the rusty old ones if you're building a motorcycle . The idea is that every time you need something, buy an assortment box, because it's not that much dearer than buying a blister pack, and next time you need one you have them in stock . Nuts, bolts , and :Screwsseem likeobvious cand idates for this , and while a box of machine screws :toreplace allthose nasty, chewed

[up switchgear screws is a good idea {Fig.1), it's not necessarily a good idea

[ni gene ral - there 're some reservat ions to be had . The two major problems are that you have machine or set screws (Fig.2)which, irrespective of the head type (hex, Allen, crosshead , etc .), are screws because they're threaded for their full length . You get bolts which have an unthreaded shank, and you can 't always replace a bolt with a screw safely. The second problem is thread p itch - the Japanese very rarely, ifat all, use the same pitch thread for 10mm bolts as we do in Europe. As a consequence, the M10 screws you get in assortment boxes are invariablyM10x1.50mm,but the threads on a Japanese motorcycle 're going to be M10x1.25 or M10x1.0mm . I have a cheap , nasty tap-and -die set (or assortment box) that might possibly cut a thread on a cheese-string as long as it wasn't too old (Fig.3), but it does contain taps and dies for many of the oddball threads that're difficultto track down, and willclean up an existing thread and make it usable.

As well as that , it came with a

thread pitch gauge that lets me identify exactly which oddball thread I'm dealing with (Fig.4). If you're replacing a nut and a bolt then , on most occasions, the thread isn't a problem, but if it's a nut and a bolt it's usually in shear, and it really needs to be a bolt with the right shank length, and definitely not a set screw . An assortment box of hex nuts (as opposed to Brazils or pecans) containing M10 nuts tends to be less useful than it would appear for the same reason. And washers aren't that easy either, as they come in various forms ranging from A to G (Fig.5) so, for safety-related items, you should replace them like-for-like,but a box of them is still handy. I tend to buy storage boxes and, when I need something Ihaven't got, wander into my local fastener stockist and buy 50 or so, then add them to the box and make my own assortment box. When it comes to electrical connectors, the ubiquitous insulated crimp on terminals are readily available, and tend to be most people's immediate thought (Fig.6) if they need to replace, or alter, a wiring connection, but they're horribly unreliable . Using the original equipment-style connectors (Fig.7) not only looks better, it's more reliable and, by using double female bullet connectors (Fig.8)to replace single female bullet connectors, it's very easy to tap off a feed for an accessory without resorting to Scotch-Loks or reducing the reliability of the wiring. Wiring Products whose advert you'll find somewhere on these hallowed pages, sell two non-insulated terminal kits that lean towards Japanese motorcycle stuff starting at £29.05 (Fig.9), which include the crimping pliers, and should see you through most small electrical jobs. Ifyou run out of terminals, or sleeves, then they sell those in packs of various sizes to top up your box too. It's probably also worth mentioning that they sell electrical cable in assorted colours, with assorted trace colours, by the metre, which is handy if you want to match factory colours for an addition or alteration to the loom, and they also sell 30-metre rolls of 16.5 amp thin-wall cable for £8.44, either of which is far cheaper than buying blister-packed cable . While car accessory shops

Halfords are where most of us think of looking for much of the stuff I'm talking about, it's worth remembering that ScrewFix (#notsponsored), ToolStation, and a lot more tradeorientated car parts places also sell a lot of this stuff. Occasionally you find you need something that's a bit further off the wall than the needs of the average car mechanic, such as the hose to connect the rear mastercylinder to the reservoir without it dissolving in the brake fluid, and at that point it's worth remembering that kit car builders and motor racing enthusiasts have much the same problems, and are well served by specialist sellers . I managed to track down the hose to connect the reservoir to the master-cylinder on the KLR(Fig.10) from Merlin Motorsport (01249 782101), and theirs was the only hose I could find that wasn't priced as if it was gold-plated. Something else that varies wildly in price are rose-joints, or spherical bearings , which are great for solo seat hinges (Fig.11)or foot control linkages. While aerospace specification ones are always going to be expensive, there are far more mundane ones available that are perfectly adequate for letting a seat move up and down, and the average industrial bearing supplier can probably get their hands on them for you.

I'm sure this is no news at all to anyone who 's worked with motorcycles for a while, but for people just getting into it as a hobby, there are a few things to take away here.

First, if you have to go and track a thing down, then you can often buy several hundred of them in a box for not a huge amount more than you're paying for a handful, which saves you time and hassle in the future. Secondly, it's worth making the effort to track the right thing down, even if it means shopping in places that you wouldn't immediately think of. Finally,having the right stuff to hand willmake the job you do a better job. 0