the sporty project lurches forward like a saturday night drunk, loads of backslapping last week with the mountings for the carbon numberboard, looked at fabbing a mounting bracket for the trail-tech speedo/tacho and realised i'd cut them too short, make two more and trial fit, bollocks i've forgotten the first rule of engineering, 'measure twice, cut once', two more pieces of stock hit the bin, right, have a brew, calm down and think, leave them too long so i can cut them back at a later date, grab a piece of 25mm square stock, centre up and drill a half-inch hole through the centre, need some way of stopping the bracket 'yawning' on the round stock, turn the 25mm stock through 90 degrees and drill a 5mm hole, tapping size for 6mm, run a tap through so i can pinch the bracket to the round stock, the square stock slides on and i can mark up the holes to mount the trail-tech unit, needs a lot of work to lose some stock off the mounting and keep the unit low on the  top yoke just behind the carbon numberplate, the top photo is the chain adjuster on the end of the swingarm, it usually has two mild steel pressings that fit in the end of the swingarm profile, i made these two 'buttons' out of the scrap left over from the speedo/tacho stock, you know what they say, 'waste not, want not'........

mick jones, saw him with the clash at the kings hall derby on the 'out of control tour', he gave me a can of warm red-stripe lager when we were hanging around outside during the afternoon listening to the sound check for that night's gig, me and my mate glendon were trying to catch a glimpse of joe strummer but he never came outside that cold november day back in 1977, the gig was one of those seminal moments, history in the making, i next saw mick twelve years later in 1989 at the town and country club in north laandaahn, the clash had gone their seperate ways long before and mick was now a member of big audio dynamite, i was on a course for work and staying in leicester, i cadged a lift down with my mate malc who was one of the trainers on the course, the gig ended in chaos, the audience invading the stage and stealing don lett's keyboard and cassette samples, mick came back on stage and appealed for the equipment to be returned so the band could play an encore, i remember getting back to the hotel in the early hours, sleeping through most of the course the next day and then going to see the jesus and mary chain the next night but thats another story, some things never change i guess, oh yeah, malc's just got us tickets for the big audio dynamite gig at rock city in nottingham...... 

the season is approaching fast and in between sorting out the sporty project and  the dangerous bonneville, the mz racer has had a bit of therapy, well, i've wiped it over with an oily rag, my mentor and racing hero des davies contacted me to ask if i would partner up with him for the bmzrc championship this season, to say i was honoured would be a massive understatement, des is very, very quick on a motorcycle, me?, well. let's just say i will be out there making a right fucking nuisance of myself acting as a mobile chicane, getting the famous english two fingered salute off the front runner's as i baulk them on the track and making the marshall's earn their lunch boxes, des posted on the bmzrc site today and i quote, 'having just emerged from our winter quarters of caer bannog, des #42and tim #51 have morphed into ginja and ninja, be afraid, we are'..............

masuimi max, i'm sorry, i'm a bloke.

carbon fibre. i love carbon fibre, you can hacksaw it, [your blades won't last long mind you], file it, grind it, wet and dry it, drill it and even tap it, [if you have sufficient material], i like it because it's like nothing else, it's light, strong and doesn't splinter like fibreglass, [that's not quite true, i got a beauty stuck in my thumb that made my eyes water when i dug it out with a stanley blade], i roughed out the fuse-box cover with a hacksaw and ground it to shape on the bench grinder, [taking full advantage of dangerous still being on his holiday], filed to shape, mark out mounting holes with a sharpy, onto the pillar drill and mark out with a centre drill, 8mm hole, [don't need clearance on such thin material, the drill will 'wander' enough to give clearance], lightly touch with a milling tool to countersink and wet and dry to clean up the edges, three 8mm domeheads and drilled out six tap washers to act as shock absorbing mountings, i love carbon fibre me.......

couple more hours last night saw the seat unit trimmed back 80mm at the front, i always thought my stortz seat i had on before was a bit too long anyway so it was a good oppurtunity to whack a bit off the pattern item, the edges were very rough on the bottom edge so i stuck a piece of masking tape along the edge and hand sanded it back to give a nicer profile, satisfied with that i dropped down to see my mate roy at his unit and he made me the loveless engineering stickers for the top of the tank, this is the second version, in old english font the 'v' looks like a 'b' so he had to trim it up so it doesn't say 'lobeless', with that done i was away up to mad john's so he could get on with the paintwork, the tank just needs a good scotchbriting and a few coats of lacquer but he's got to seal, prime, paint and lacquer the seat and mudguard, got a sneak glimpse of the dangerous bonneville tank and sidepanels in primer too, can't believe it's the same tank, he's pulled out the dent and filled it brilliantly, you would never have known it was in such a state beforehand, back in the shed sorting through my bits and i noticed the little fuse holder cover that fit's on the primary side just in the 'v' of the frame and shock mounting, dug a piece of carbon out of the stock bin, scribed around it and i'm ready to start cutting.......

sunday, better get my finger out and get the bodywork sorted out so i can get it up to mad john the painter, he's well on with the dangerous bonneville tank and sidepanels, i know this because he called in for a brew yesterday and told me to get cracking, never met anyone like mad john before, he can see tiny little imperfections in paint that i would need a microscope to see, he was horrified when i told him i was thinking about going satin black, anyway, i pulled a damaged aprilia rs125 front mudguard out of racing lines rob's bin yesterday, 'how much do you want for this mate?', 'just take it you pikey, it's broke', i cut off the damaged mountings and trim it back to the moulding at the rear of the guard, did the same on the mz racer, some things work, why try and look for alternatives?, the seat unit i bought off barse, he was going to fit it to his sporty, i already had a genuine storz seat unit but it wasn't quite right for this bike, i sold it to barse and had this pattern instead, it's as rough as fuck, spent most of the day sanding and cutting to shape, got to make a subframe like we did on the mz racer to carry it as it's a race item and very flimsy, i'm covered in fibreglass shavings, my fingers are sore where the weave has bitten me but i'm moving forward, spent the rest of the afternoon on the lathe, dishing out the engine mounting bolt's, can't stand to see any threads protuding through the nylocks, measuring and turning each bolt down one at a time, maybe i need to stop fucking about with mz's and harleys and get myself a wig and an r6?.............