Excuses, excuses…
Mick Payne reports on progress with the refurbishment of the Jawa combination – and adds an important piece of advice to all you gentlemen.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice and men. Gang aft a-gley”. So said Robert Burns way back in 1876. Those words are ringing in my head at this very moment. Things haven’t really gone to plan on the recon of my Jawa/Velorex. As I write this, it is only a week or so to the next Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride to raise awareness of prostate cancer. This ties in with one of my excuses; I’ve had treatment for it myself and need ongoing care in the form of regular injections with the attendant side effects. This meant the loss of at least a week’s worth of enthusiasm. Get your bloods checked, guys!
When on our trip in 2015 we ran out of petrol alongside Loch Ness and had to call out the RAC, even though there was still some in the tank. I even took the tank off to get the fuel in the left of it across to the tap – an outfit with only one outlet will probably have some trapped in the other side. I well remember a similar thing happening en route to a Hedingham rally in Belgium but, with the help of passenger Jeff, we could slop some fuel across. I’ve now got a ‘Long Haul’ petrol container to fit on the chair when needed.
Anyway, excuse number two, I took the Jawa’s fuel tank off to run some wires along the frame. It rattled when I shook it. Removing the tap I found that the filter had come off and the reserve part was totally blocked, it might be the reason there was so much crud in the carb bowl. What was worse though was the lumps of resin rattling around where an old treatment was breaking down. Modern fuel? My thoughts are that E10 fuel will probably dissolve the resin and I foresee blocked filters ahead.
Deciding that a better tank was in order I went online. Obsolete
Bike Parts in the Netherlands had a NOS blue one in stock but at 258 euros (plus postage) it was quite expensive although they also stock a lot of Velorex spares. Once again, David Angel came to the rescue with a near perfect example for £100, pus VAT and delivered the next day. I say ‘near perfect’ ’cause it’s red – a very nice red, but most definitely not blue! Looks like I’m going to be repainting it after all, so it’s to be a session in Halfords trying to match the colour.
I have considered painting everything a matte RAF blue, my dad served in the Air Force for his National Service and Jawa did market a limited run of military green bikes, so it’d be a nice tip of the cap to Dad. I’ll see how the colour matching goes! In the meantime I’m touching up the frame paint with good old black Smoothrite and making a few brackets for the chair. A sheet of aluminium chequer plate has sacrificed itself to the mini disc cutter to live on as a small rack and a bracket for the sidecar light.
I’m running out of time to get everything ready for the Llandovery Bike Weekend but I’m determined to do it. I’ll report again when I’ve achieved my goal. If I do! Plenty of other things to report on in the meantime…