A true story...

... as an addendum to the above. I thought I’d check online to see if the ‘120’ decal to replace the one that fell off battery cover was still available. I was a little surprised to find that there is a company on eBay selling really good new replicas for £16/pair.
I thought about it for a while, then went out to the garage to have a look at Bloop, and decided she looks better with the silhouette of where the ‘120’ decal was on the battery cover

... and the original one over the patina on the oil tank:

I think that is the right thing to do for Bloop, she looks just fine as she is - maybe give her a wipe down with my new oily rag later


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Craig380]

What's the green 2T in the tank, by the way?

Oh, and my hot tip for 70s strokers is to fit a platinum or Iridium spark plug with a non-resistor NGK cap. Those old points systems need all the help they can get

[mikerj]

Originally Posted by Othen

I think you are right about my bike being a B120 (I didn't know the chrome tank was the difference though) - it used to have a sticker saying '120' on the battery cover, but that must have fallen off over time. Bloop is much easier to pronounce - and the engine type is still stamped 'B100' (I suspect they all were, Suzuki didn't change much in 30 years) so I still call her Bloop.

To be fair they are pretty much identical apart from minor styling differences. The B120 engine is still stamped B100 as you say. When I was around 10-11 years old my father bought what I always thought was a tatty old B100P that someone had converted to a trail bike style with a high level pipe. He restored it and I used to rag it around the fields at my grandparents farm during summer holidays. However I only discovered a few years back that there is a very rare B105P that is a factory trail version of the B100P, so it might have been one of them. Sadly it got passed onto a cousin who ruined it within weeks.

Originally Posted by Othen

The header came from a private seller on eBay for £45 (a bargain?)- part of a garage clear out I think. I've just checked on eBay and the seller seems to have lots of older bike bits (many Suzuki), I have sent you a message with his eBay user name, it might be worth dropping him a line to see if he has access to another header?

Thanks, much appreciated!


Is your oil tank all good? Mine looked in similar condition but turned out to have pin holes holes in it.

Originally Posted by Craig380

What's the green 2T in the tank, by the way?

Oh, and my hot tip for 70s strokers is to fit a platinum or Iridium spark plug with a non-resistor NGK cap. Those old points systems need all the help they can get

The 2T oil? It is Screwfix’s finest (I use it in the strimmer) - I think it is blue but might appear green through the round window. It is really cheap and leaves a nice smokey trail so I can be sure the positive pressure oiling system is working


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[R1ffR4ff]

Originally Posted by Othen

The 2T oil? It is Screwfix’s finest (I use it in the strimmer) - I think it is blue but might appear green through the round window. It is really cheap and leaves a nice smokey trail so I can be sure the positive pressure oiling system is working


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Screwfix and Toolstation.It's a bloke thing<grin>

I use their Chainsaw oil on my chain

[QUOTE=mikerj;3101492]

Originally Posted by Othen

I think you are right about my bike being a B120 (I didn't know the chrome tank was the difference though) - it used to have a sticker saying '120' on the battery cover, but that must have fallen off over time. Bloop is much easier to pronounce - and the engine type is still stamped 'B100' (I suspect they all were, Suzuki didn't change much in 30 years) so I still call her Bloop.
[/url]


To be fair they are pretty much identical apart from minor styling differences. The B120 engine is still stamped B100 as you say. When I was around 10-11 years old my father bought what I always thought was a tatty old B100P that someone had converted to a trail bike style with a high level pipe. He restored it and I used to rag it around the fields at my grandparents farm during summer holidays. However I only discovered a few years back that there is a very rare B105P that is a factory trail version of the B100P, so it might have been one of them. Sadly it got passed onto a cousin who ruined it within weeks.





Thanks, much appreciated!


Is your oil tank all good? Mine looked in similar condition but turned out to have pin holes holes in it.

The oil tank is fine, it has not leaked a drop, I was surprised to see the 43 year old plastic oil lines and the pump were all good as well. I’d sort of planned to use pre-mix when I got the bike about 3 years ago, but was pleasantly surprised to find the positive oiling system worked fine (it was the reason the main bearings had failed 33 years ago - but that is another story).
I quite like the patina on the oil tank and battery cover - the bike looks like it was just parked up under someone’s porch 33 years ago - it even has its last tax disc (1986)
Thank you for the history lesson on the Bloop/B120 - I have not taken much interest in the model’s background, I only bought it because it was far too good to break and I enjoy projects, but it has turned out to be a little gem and now I would not part with it.
Good fortune,
Alan


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by R1ffR4ff

Screwfix and Toolstation.It's a bloke thing<grin>

I use their Chainsaw oil on my chain

Absolutely - us chaps can never have enough power tools

Originally Posted by mikerj

Is your oil tank all good? Mine looked in similar condition but turned out to have pin holes holes in it.

... this is the story of the positive lubrication system that I mentioned above (copied from something I wrote about a year ago):

The bike came with the original bill of sale and the white type log book, but had never been scrapped. The story was it was bought by the first owner in 76, he rode it for 10 years and did 15,000 miles then suddenly stopped using it is 86 (the last tax disc is still on the bike), pushed it to the back of the shed and bought another bike for his commute to the shoe factory.

I thought I might just get it running and riding as a winter project (remember, that was 2 years ago). A bit of welding saved the rusty swing arm, I found a new switch and key (brand new, amazingly exactly the same item is still fitted to some bike or another that is still in manufacture) and re-wired the bike one afternoon. The engine would turn over by hand, but to be safe I thought I'd better strip it down to find out why the bike had stopped working in 1986. As I did I found the right (drive) side main bearing had disintegrated completely...



... the engine/gearbox strip down was not too difficult and all the bits I needed (mainly bearings and gaskets) were surprisingly still available and quite cheap. Having got everything back together the first time, I found the kick starter pawl still in my box of bits - and so had to take most of it apart again to put it back in the right place!

The engine turned over nicely now (and the top end was fine), but I thought I'd better work out why it had suddenly stopped in 1986. I found the answer whilst inspecting the auto-lubrication system. Someone had replaced the check valve that injects oil into the crankcase with an ordinary hydraulic union, as you may see from the nail inserted into it, this item has no one-way valve to stop the crankcase pressure forcing oil back against the pump:



So, that is why it failed. The new check valve was still available (new) and has sorted that problem. The rest was just getting rid of the worst effects of 30 years unused in a shed: most of the chrome had peeled off and so I painted over with some mat black to stop any more corrosion, the frame got a quick rub down and a coat of lacquer and the exhaust was roughly repaired (with plates, rivets and exhaust paste). A new set of points and a plug had the thing running, and to my surprise the cycle parts were more or less okay (with a bit of grease and fettling). I had no intention of a full restoration, but the bike had been saved so I sent off to DVLA and got a new V5.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mikerj]

Well spotted. Mine was seized due to water ingress into the cylinder when I got it so had a full rebuild with rebore, new piston/rings, new con-rod and big end bearing and all new gearbox bearings. I spent way too much on it really, but once I get into restoring a bike I find it hard to stop.

Originally Posted by mikerj

Well spotted. Mine was seized due to water ingress into the cylinder when I got it so had a full rebuild with rebore, new piston/rings, new con-rod and big end bearing and all new gearbox bearings. I spent way too much on it really, but once I get into restoring a bike I find it hard to stop.

Gosh, that was unfortunate. I took a gamble on my Bloop and was perhaps a bit fortunate - although it looked a bit rough there were only a few things wrong with it. The right side main bearing had disintegrated but the bits had been contained by the crankcase seal and just fell outwards when I took it apart, as you may see the insides were fairly clean:



... and further inside:



Everything I looked at seemed fine as I pulled it apart - until I got to the drive side bearing, there was no debris inside the crankcase. Even the left side main bearings seemed alright (although I pulled them out anyway).

The engine went back together with the original clutch, big end, little end, standard barrel and piston and even the original rings (I only changed them for new standard rings a few weeks ago - and have increased the top speed from 50 to 60 MPH).

I think I was a little fortunate to realise the positive lubrication system check valve was the wrong one because that was not obvious from the outside, but something looked incorrect. Once I’d worked out what was wrong and found the right bit on the parts diagram it was a really easy fix - the check valve was available (NOS) from a Dutch dealer and not very expensive (from memory about €20 delivered I think).

I didn’t keep a log of expenses, but I suppose I must have spent about £200 on bits and pieces (bearings, gaskets, check valve, points, seals, a plug, a main switch, 2 tyres and tubes and most recently some piston rings and the NOS header pipe) on top of £200 for the bike and £25 for a new V5. The other stuff (replacement nuts, bolts, copper washers, connectors, solder, paint, grease, oil that sort of thing) I had laying around the garage, so Bloop owes me something like £450. These bikes seem to sell for £1200-£1400 (which is madness of course, but then FS1Es sell for £4500!) even in oily rag condition like mine, so I suppose I’m in credit, but if I included my time I’d still only be paying myself about 4p/hour!

It has been a fun project over the past 3 years, with no particular agenda or timetable. It has been good to force myself to remember how systems used to work (for example I remember having to draw out a contact breaker ignition circuit on the garage floor as I had not worked on one for perhaps 30 years). The result has been a great fun bike, I still use it for little errands around town and it makes me smile every time I ride it.

I particularly like it that the bike is MoT and tax exempt, and as I include it in a policy with 3 other bikes is almost free to insure (for 100 miles/year).

Good fortune,

Alan



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk