Service
SERVICE
We welcome your technical questions and comments, and wi//publish those we think are of interest to our readers. Because of the volume of mail received, we cannot return any personal replies. Please limit your "Service" letters to technical subjects only, and keep them as brief as possible. Send them to: "Service," CYCLE WORLD, 1499 Monrovia Ave., Newport Beach, Calif. 92663.
NORTON BELT
Being very much into Nortons I sit here in my apartment and it’s 47° outside. Well, I’m very glad my bike is cooling off out there. Anyway, I happened to lay down my bike last week and put a hole in the primary cover. So being a little mad I took the cover off as fast as possible and started the machine. It runs as well as ever. Now what I’d like to know is if there is anyone who makes a conversion kit so I could run a belt drive. My Norton is a stocker with low miles on it.
James Nels Forsberg Duluth, Minn.
The company to contact is QPD (Quiet Power Drive), Box 99A, Rd. 2, Cochranville, Pa. 19330, phone (215) 869-8626. They manufacture a primary belt drive system for Nortons which includes a Uniroyal belt, sprockets, reworked clutch assembly, oil seals for the crank and mainshaft, breather plugs and grease for the clutch rollers. They have kits for all Nortons from the Atlas through the Mk. Ill Commandos. Retail price on the kit is $230. QPD claims quieter, smoother running, longer life, no adjustments and improved drive train efficiency from the belt drive setup. They make a similar kit for Triumphs.
If you have damaged your primary cover, you’ll have to find another as the QPD system uses the stock, unmodified cover and it is not included in the package. We don’t know of anyone who makes a belt final drive for the Norton, if you are lookingfor one. Most of the manufacturers we checked with gave limited market and difficult installation due to the relatively inaccessible countershaft sprocket as rea-, sons for not producing a final drive kit.
750 MANUAL
I am writing to inquire if you could supply the name of an organization which at present may publish a service manual for the new dohc Honda 750s (1979-1980).
D.C. Smith Sioux Falls, S.D.
According to American Honda, the factory shop manual for the new 750s is available through their dealers at a list price of $15.80. They say dealers in a few parts of ^ the country have been temporarily sold out, but more are on the way. Clymer Publications, 12860 Muscatine St., Arleta, Calif. 91331, phone (213) 767-7660, says their dohc Honda manual, order number M337, will be on the stands by Aug. I,
1980, or by the time you read this. List price will be $8.95. Haynes Publications - has one in the works, but no firm release date as yet.
GUZZI SCONOSCIUTO
Enclosed with your dirt bike survey form is a cry for help. I would like any information that you or your readers could .come up with. I have a Moto Guzzi chain drive four-stroke of about 200cc (?) and forward mounted shocks. The tank is red and has small flags bordering the edges. I would guess that the bike is about 20 years old, but I really couldn’t say for sure. It is a four-speed left side shift, with a huge frame backbone running under the tank. I am just curious as to what it is, and any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
George Rohr Huntsville, Ala.
Without more description (tank shape,
cylinder angle, seat design, fork type, etc.) it’s hard to say exactly what you’ve got. Moto Guzzi produced a 247cc model called the Airone from 1939 to 1946, which featured a small solo saddle, girder fork, horizontal engine and mousetrap valve springs, and a similar 250 called the Albatros from 1939-1948. From ’56 through ’66 they made the Lodola, a 174cc Single with a Gilera-like buddy seat and tank, cylinder slanted forward at 45 ° and telescopic forks. Those are a few of our guesses; we couldn’t find any photos of a Guzzi with flags bordering the tank.
If you’d like to look through a good collection of Moto Guzzi photos and model designations to identify your bike, Motorsports sells a book called, simply, MotoGuzzi, by Mario Colombo. The book is big, colorful, expensive and printed in Italian (the photos, one of our quick staffers noted, are in English). Motorsports address is 6115 Gravois, St. Louis, Mo. 63116. If you’d rather not invest in a book, send us a snapshot of your bike and we’ll see what we can dig up.
GS11000 VALVE ADJUST
Request info; 1980 Suzuki GS 11000 tappet clearance and sequence of adjustment. Thank you.
Brooklyn, N.Y. Ernest Vereker
Suzuki has yet to publish a shop manual for the GS11000, but our dealer service bulletin says 0.07 to 0.11mm on all valves, intake and exhaust. These specs should also be hidden somewhere on one of the emission-and-tuneup decals under the> seal or elsewhere. Saddleback Suzuki, our local dealer, says the adjustment should be done cold and each valve set indi vidually. In other words, measure the clearance for each valve between the valve stem and the adjuster on the forked rocker arm, rather than between the cam lobe and follower. No particular sequence of ad justment is necessary as long as each set of two valves is adjusted while the follower is resting against the back of the cam lobe.
ODD LIGHT
I had the occasion to replace the sealed beam headlamp on my 1979 Suzuki GS425E. It seems they are an odd size; approximately 154mm and harder to find than cheap gasoline. My dealer gave me a price of $13.95 but he was out and would be for a couple of weeks. I called around and found one at Karson’s Suzuki in Joppatowne, Md. He wanted $19.93. I didn’t have much option, so I bought it. I called Suzuki in California (direct—they wouldn’t accept collect). They informed me each dealer could charge what he pleased. Seems to me the law of supply and demand is certainly aided by the fact the headlamp is impossible to replace with anything but a Suzuki. I would like to replace the entire assembly with a unit that would take a 7 in. sealed beam. Got any ideas? Seven inch sealed beams are $2.95 in Baltimore.
Ivan Rotkovitz Baltimore, Md.
Your best way around the high price of illumination is probably to find a used 7 in. headlight shell such as a shell from a larger Suzuki and adapt it to your brackets, which may have to be bent outward slightly to accept the wider shell. A pain, but cheaper, no doubt, in the long run.
CAFE FRAME
I am interested in building a cafe racer around the TT/XT 500 Yamaha engine. I was told that Dick Mann builds a frame like this but have been unable to find out how to contact him. Would you please let me know the address of his shop and or how and what it would take to build this project. Any information will be greatly appreciated.
I have seen modified TT’s on the track at the Ontario Six-Hour race and would like to build a street legal version.
Chuck Ehlen Ontario, Calif.
At the moment we talked to Dick Mann, he had one cafe style frame left in stock for the TT/XT/SR series Yamaha 500 engines, and said he will build another group of frames for that engine if more orders> come in. The frame costs $725 and includes swing arm, footpegs, steering head bearings, brake pedal and engine mounts. The rear swing arm is designed to accept any of the current racing wheels equipped with Kosman or Barnes disc brakes. Other rear^wheels and brakes can be fitted with the use of appropriate spacers. The steering head uses Timken tapered roller bearings and will accept a variety of forks. You can get more information from Dick Mann Specialties, 904 Wright Ave. #34, Richmond, Calif. 94804, phone (415) 234-6556. By way of mention, Dick is also building a new series of frames designed around the Honda XR500 engine.
650 TAP
I own a Yamaha XS650G (1980) and I am having trouble setting the valves. The manual says a light drag should be felt on the feeler gauge, but this always brings a tapping noise on warmup. 1 set the valves cold and according to recommended 650G clearances. The bike has a sohc, 6000 mi., and runs well. Can you give me advice on eliminating the tappet noise at warm-up?
Wade Rankin Shingle Springs, Calif.
If valve clearances are properly set, tappet noise during warmup is nothing to worry about. Some clatter is inevitable because the initial setting includes room for expansion of the valve gear as the engine warms up. There is a safety factor included in the clearance to prevent the loss of compression and burned valves that might result if heat expansion prevented the valves from seating completely at normal operating temperature. If you have doubt about the accuracy of your settings, it’s always a good idea to kick the engine over a few times after adjustment and recheck the clearance. This insures that all the components of the valve train are firmly seated against their respective surfaces and that the gap gauge is taking up all the slack.
Z1 DRAW
I own a 76 KZ900 and would like to ask if there is any way that I can modify the electrical (charging) system to give me enough voltage to add some after-market accessories. As is I cannot add any accessory that is electrical (i.e. QH headlight, fog lights, tape deck, etc.) without the whole electrical system going dead within 50 mi.
I have changed the rectifier three times, the voltage regulator twice, the battery twice, the alternator and the entire wiring harness once apiece and have seen no improvement at all. All the components are brand new and operating as designed. The electrical system and parts are all factoryissue stock and there are no additions to the drawing load except the stock headlight, tail light, turn signals, points, etc. Each accessory I have tried was installed by a professional shop, so it was not my installation ineptitude that caused the failure. I have taken the bike to four different Kawasaki dealers/shops and have been told that, “you just can’t add anything to a Zl.’’ Is this correct?
Is there anything I can have done to the bike to increase my voltage enough to at least let me add a QH headlight? Or is there any aftermarket gear I can add which will do the job?
To note also, whenever the bike was fitted with an electrical accessory the bike was run at 6-9000 rpm whenever it was on the road. I sure hope you guys can help me. I’m tired of riding half-blind in this hill and curve country.
Dara Benjamin Brownville, Maine
Because the Z was designed primarily as a sport bike, the size and weight of both alternator and battery were held to a minimum. The 228 watt alternator is adequate for the electrical demands of a stock Zl, but is low in output compared with some of the other big bikes on the market and will handle only a small accessory load. Accessories with a heavy draw, such as a pair of fog lights, for instance, will overtax the charging system and gradually drain the battery. There should be no problem with a quartz halogen headlight, however. Most QH headlights designed for motorcycles are rated 55/60 W, same as the stock Kawasaki headlight, so make sure the QH lamp you install is within that rating and you should be okay.
We don’t know any reasonable means of increasing your alternator output. You might try using accessories only when absolutely necessary and trickle charging the battery whenever possible. Installing an external connection on the battery, such as a cigarette lighter-type receptacle, and a matching plug on the charger can make this task easier.
