From A to B, stopping at C,D,E,F and G for repairs.

On mobility

There are differing levels of mobility, and in a way clearing my garage of the accumulation of a decade (plus what arrived with us) is dealing with one type of immobility. If we wanted to move right now, if that chance in a lifetime came up, we couldn't.

Well, I'm sure we could but it would not be at all easy. So in removing these things we, as a family, become potentially mobile. Life opens up a little, even if it's just the existence of possibilities they are possibilities that did not exist yesterday.

A more modern form of mobility is the car. The specific one on my mind is the mini that is slowly rusting in my garage. It's only rusting slowly because its in the garage, if it was outside then it would be rusting quickly. Don't worry, rusting is what minis do, if they weren't so damn cool it's all they'd ever do. This was my third mini and I bought it from my brother over ten years ago, and when I collected it my future wife met my parents. Only briefly but still for the first time, and the first time for everything is a milestone, isn't it? Stop sniggering at the back.

As is the way with cars, we shared adventures and mishaps and eventually reached the MOT where welding was required. The car went into my garage for me to repair but time was never really found. Now it's time for it to go. It needs a new sill and A panel on the drivers side, and possibly some welding to the floor. I'm really not certain, I haven't looked for that long. The A panel on the passengers side would need replacing as would the wing which still has a horses footprint in it from when my brother had it. If you wanted a project then you would probably be looking at a respray, which is just as well because the paint is quite (no - very) shabby.

On the positive side, prior to being hidden away the brake master cylinder and most, if not all(not sure), of the wheel cylinders were replaced with new, steel brake pipes replaced with copper and flexible hoses with stainless braided versions. None of those thing is guaranteed to still be ok but it's a starting point and if they do work then the popular complaints about mini brakes are largely irrelevant with the other big positive on this car, which is a completely unmolested standard city e 1 litre engine. It may not have been touched for around ten years but my trust in these lumps has frequently been repaid, they may not be 100% reliable but they are simple engines, easy to fix and straightforward to strip down enough to decoke, free up, and get going.

The interior features the classic single central speedo and part vinyl upholstery typical of these cars. The rather nasty nylon houndstooth panels on the seats have been removed and replaced with denim in the back seat and drivers seat. I never got round to the passengers seat but am fairly certain that I have the material somewhere if wanted, denim is easy to match if I can't find it and you wanted to finish the job. It does look good, though I say so myself.

At some point someone decided they couldn't afford to buy as much petrol as it takes to fill a mini (not very much at all) and levered the petrol cap off, damaging the filler neck in the process I have a replacement tank to remedy this situation, I also have at least one, possibly two spare sets of sealed beam headlamps, some people find them not good enough and replace them with halogens and I got the spares. If I wanted more light on a mini I would always go with spots. Any other bits and pieces would be thrown in including a large pile of various mini magazines for inspiration.

Having checked similar sold cars on ebay and elsewhere, they seem to go for anything from two to four hundred, I would invite non insulting offers around the two hundred pound area, email or comment to ask for more info, including number to phone and chat about it.

 

IT'S SOLD

Suzuki RGV250 SOLD

Within 36 hours of putting this on Gumtree I've had four messages showing interest. While I was at work. Oops. If you genuinely wanted it and were only in the area yesterday Barry, then I'm truly sorry. My fault, I should have checked.

I'd better tell you about it while I've still got it then hadn't I.

About nine years ago I woke up in hospital with a morphine drip. Ironic really because last thing I remember I was on my way home from the hospital where I had just finished a 24 hour on call. The theory is that I fell asleep just long enough to hit the back of a builders van. "Luckily" I only broke both hands, although my right hand was badly enough mangled to need 3 ops and the surgeon was considering using spare parts to fix me. The bike was written off, it was a Honda Superdream fitted with a single cylinder DR400 engine and fit right in with my philosophy of preferring my vehicles to be interesting. As an aside, from the state of my helmet and my memory since that time I would say that my hands weren't the only things mangled that day.

So I needed a small cheap reliable sensible commuter bike. Enter the RGV.

• Small - check
•  Cheap - not too bad, the seller priced it lower than he should have really. BUT if your interested and you don't already know then 22mpg is about average if ridden properly - ie caned but with expensive two stroke oil to stop it's pistons firing up through your gonads.
• Reliable - it stopped for no apparent reason. Not the first time. As far as I can tell they do that.
• Sensible - no.
• Commuter - I did, for a bit, but the mileage is still quite low for something this old so that should give  you a clue as to how much commuting really got done on it.

I LOVED IT. I HATED IT. I LOVED IT SOME MORE. I HATED IT AGAIN. BUT I STILL LOVED IT.

I have never before ridden on something that handled so well (hur hur), you just thought it round corners. Amazing. You had to keep it in the power band, I swear it had about ninety gears to facilitate this, you changed gear approximately twice as often as you breathed. This isn't as often as you might think because you only breathed about once every thirty seconds, when you remembered to. For a short while this was the most exciting roller coaster way to commute ever.

Unfortunately  something this highly strung is not really suitable for the town part of my journey. Or the narrow twisting roads. Or the open roads, if you had any attachment to your driving license emotional or otherwise. Not keeping it on the boil resulted in not starting at all, often with dirty spark plugs.

It was a difficult beast to live with, but available power of a 2-stroke 250 v-twin with the weight and size of a 125 made it all worth it. Another aspect of the size and the sound of a two stroke was the teenage drivers of hot hatches trying to race you from traffic lights in order to increase the size of their favourite toys, only to find themselves scratching their heads in a cloud of expensive synthetic two stroke. Priceless.

At the end of the day though the hassle of keeping it going and the pain of the riding position on my newly repaired wrist meant that I didn't try too hard to fix it. It gave up just a week or so into a new MOT so as put away it was doing alright apart, of course, from the engine.

In the time it took to write this, it sold. As with everything concerning this bike, with astonishing speed.

I'm glad I owned it for a while, it was insane but worth it. I'm also glad that very soon I'll be able to see a bit of my garage floor!

Raptor headlight fairing SOLD

Boxed, carbon effect, twin headlight handlebar fairing. This was a bargain from the NEC bike show some years ago and was meant to look good on the RGV. It didn't. Not such a bargain then...

Could be someone elses bargain now though, has spent probably 30 miles on a bike (to work and back, once) and has at some point lost a screw (haven't we all...) but at less than half the price I got it for, which was less than the original price it can't be bad. As it has it's original box this one item I may post, get in touch via the comments or email and we'll work something out.

Sorry it's so short today - early start tomorrow!

The list of things in my garage SOLD

 There are three motorcycles in here:

See, told you. Where's Wally for grown men:

This post should remain at the front of the blog if I understand the tips correctly and will contain an initially expanding and then hopefully contracting list of the contents of my garage. Kind of like the universe, and like the universe it has quite a bit of expanding to do before the eventual contraction.

Prices are ALL negotiable, but I’ve given a starting point for most. If there’s no price then make an offer, I’m researching appropriate prices as I go. If you think I’m being optimistic then say, if I think you’re being optimistic then I’ll certainly tell you.

The list:

No, no, no…

THE LIST

Better.

• Old school (very) Ducati 900SS half fairing. Genuine, as far as I know, light weight fibreglass, nearly twenty years since I bought it used, note - screen screwed on with number plate screws, that's how I got it, that's how it stayed.  £30

• Nasty old green coat  - going to the bin

• Nasty old leather jacket – vintage biker jacket, my first. Free to anyone with the skills to clean it up and reline it.

• Half a bottle of olive oil – I still use this on some wood projects, and to lubricate saws etc.  Not going.

• Raptor head light fairing, carbon effect, little use, one screw missing from screen £10

• Suzuki RGV250 Wolf on a F plate, Japanese import, low mileage (kilometrage?) -will check, does not start, not seized, powervalves OK spare engine in pieces. Not sure of asking price yet, description to follow, offers considered. SOLD

• Kawasaki  KZ650 age related V reg US import, low mileage - again, will check. No MOT, should start, will wheel it out and have a go. If it runs I will be asking what I paid for it (£500) as it should never have had an MOT to start with and I have rectified the most major failings, if interested email and we can discuss, or wait for post with story and description - soon.

• Triumph Speed Triple - N reg, will it go, won't it go etc. I really don't know, has been garaged for 9 years and defies starting attempts but, you guessed it - low mileage! I wanted one of these from the moment I first saw the concept in a magazine, do I still want it - I don't know.

• Mercedes W123 230TE headlights, indicators, rear load cover/dog guard, rear brake pads. Offer a good price for the bit you need and take the rest as spares.

•  B reg mini city e. Needs welding and many of the usual panels replacing. Largely unmolested however with standard 1 litre engine, there will be much more to say about this one.SOLD

•  Dog basket, medium. Similar would cost £10 from tesco.com so this will probably go to the local dog home.

• More to follow.

Ducati 900ss half fairing - SOLD

This came from an autojumble when I still had a 1984 Ducati 900 S2.

The bike was beautiful in a brutish way unusual for Ducatis in general (google images will help if you've never seen one) but the 900ss fairing did sex it up a bit. It had the same frame and engine as the legendary SS but just wasn't as pretty, the chance finding of this fairing changed that a bit.

The mounting points of the fairing met up nicely and as far as I remember the only "vandalism" performed was a few small holes for the small indicators I fitted. And I sprayed it silver. Under this very thin layer of spraycan applied silver is the original red gelcoat. A gentle paint remover of the type used on fibreglass boats or similar should do the trick. I don't even remember priming or preparing the surface in any way.

I fitted straight through Conti megaphone exhausts and rejetted to suit and boy did she roar. That sound was amazing, starting her up in the dark resulted in foot long flames lighting up everything behind you, changing down from high revs did the same. She bounced on her sidestand, set off car alarms and upset the RAF Police who remained convinced that I was speeding even when parked. When I part ex'ed her for a brand new Triumph Speed Triple in 1995 I had rumbled, roared, bounced, slid and teetered for so many miles and so many memories. She was a joy to own right to the end when the straight through pipes and rejetting were clearly proving bad for the whole plot.


The bike this fairing was briefly fitted to itself became, when I thought a little about it, a metaphor for this entire project, the joy of ownership followed by the essential degradation and/or passing on of material possessions.

As the advert says, the half fairing - 30pounds. The memories it brought back - priceless.

Finding out your toughbook has an American key board, and therefore no pound sign - just a little annoying!

I think I'm going to enjoy this.

The beginning... SOLD

Every time I go into my garage at the moment I can't.

It's full, so it's time to empty it. There are tools, car parts, three unused motorcycles and a classic(ish) mini which has sat there for nearly ten years. It even starts outside the front of the garage with a trailer tent which was going to be sold this summer.

So this blog is starting up as a sort of postcard in the newsagents window to get rid of it all. Most will be for sale, but as I dig through the detritus there may be some, like the hinges where I bought twenty because they were cheaper than the eight or so that I needed, will just go to a good home if you need them after all the extras were cheaper than free.

Other things will be returned to their rightful owners, thanks for the loan and sorry it's fossilised/turned to peat.

Yet others I will be keeping as I still need/use them but as this is also a blog a description and pictures may appear.

You never know, I certainly don't.


And the hedgehog? I found him under one of the motorcycles this summer and he was promptly released to somewhere he could eat something more nutritious than my detritus, so he won't be for sale.