A Mostly British Obsession
I’m planning on a longish motorcycle tour in a few weeks, and the Daytona will kill my ancient bones if I try to ride it 2000 miles in a week. So it’s up for sale or trade–I’m looking for something like a late-model Speed Triple, Ducati Monster, Moto Guzzi Brevia or similar. The Daytona only has 3,600 miles on it and is in very nice condition. Looking for about $4,500, but that’s somewhat negotiable.
I finally have sussed what was wrong with the Amal 276 on the BSA: The float was set too high (mind you, straight from the maker, but that’s not much of an excuse). Imagine my excitement when I kicked the machine to life and it idled, stone cold–which it has never done. The carb was absolutely full of crud, too, which I suspect is the remains of the old cork fuel taps. (I’ll check it again in a couple hundred miles, but the tank itself was sealed when it was restored.)
Alas. Back from a short “victory” ride, I discovered I was leaving a trail of oil. The photo above shows why: the return line from the cylinder head decided enough was enough.
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I have had very little time to work on the Jaguar the past few weeks, and have been waiting on suppliers to get me some pieces back…some of those arrived today: the instruments. I sent them out to West Valley Instruments in California to be rebuilt, and they look great. And now that I have them I can do some wiring in earnest (you can see it’s just a spaghetti-fest back there right now).
The toggle switches are going to drive me nuts. They’re all new, and they all sit at slightly different heights, especially the left-most switch. I am hesitant to do much “judicious” bending as that leads, with these expensive-but-fragile pieces, to judicious breaking.
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