Sunday, October 16, 2011

Tyre painting, and Norton off the road again!


Got some whitewall tyre paint last week, and since it was mostly raining on Saturday I decided to paint the lettering on the rear tyre of the Triumph. Was pretty tricky and took quite a while, but looked pretty good in the end I think.

Spent a bit of time looking at the Triumph thinking about what to do with it this summer. The most important thing is to make a new seat. I'd sorta been holding off until I found a tank I wanted to use so I could marry the two up, but I'm now thinking I might just keep the original tank. I was trying to imagine what it might look like if I pulled the badges off and painted it. I'm thinking I might try that, and paint the side covers and front mudgaurd the same colour... probably black? Probably matte black. And then hand-paint something onto the tank and side covers. Maybe an HFoS thing? Dunno...

Had been thinking it'd be cool to get into it asap since the Norton seemed pretty sorted now. Then I went for a ride on it yesterday. Got as a far as Tai Tapu and there was oil pissing out of the head! It seemed like it was coming from everywhere, but since we'd been on the open road I'm pretty sure it's just getting blown all over the engine. It's definitely the head gasket, but maybe also other parts/places.

Strangely this is not a surprise. Before I left Auckland last year I had paid a guy up there $1000 to rebuild the head and fix my gearbox. Well I've spent the year since fixing the fucking gearbox myself, and now it looks like I'll be doing the head myself now too. Hopefully I can find the time (and help?) to get this done soon, because I really just wanna ride the bloody thing this summer!

Anyway I rode it back home, swapped it for the Triumph, managed to meet up with the boys out at Little River, and had a great ride anyway. That road to Akaroa is awesome on a nice day. Even with the missus on the back!

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