The King is dead - long live the king!

I, Mario, declare that due to bobbing on a bit, have decided it is time to abdicate my throne of the Blessed Red Mario-Mobile to those with more energy required to maintain her. This necessarily forced poor Luigi to pass his beloved eyebrow-tanked steed on too.

The blog lives on though for those of you who might benefit from our wisdom - or even just our mistakes.

New steeds await...

Relationships!

As usual, click on any hand-drawn and crayon-coloured image to zoom in.

Luigi's facebook profile

Luigi needs to get out more.

Either that, or make sure his bird doesn't see what he's changed his facebook profile to.

Hopefully she'll be distracted by our family crest and the CAPITAL LETTERS.

New clutch cable fitted

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Well, that was a piggin' nightmare. What should have been a half hour job took hours. Luigi's clutch lever was heavier than an East German shot-putter on steroids so it was time to fit a new clutch cable - the old one had a nick in the sleeving where it ran under the engine and it had gone a bit rusty.

The footpeg came off easily enough and so did the gear lever. The nut came off the kickstart cotter pin fine, but that's when it all went Mario-shaped (think of a pear). The cotter wasn't for moving. Even putting the nut back on and trying to "persuade" it to move with a lump hammer wasn't working.

Fortunately, Luigi is a bit of a dab-hand in the kitchen so he went for his crème brûlée gas axe and we used that to heat up the kickstart lever enough to eventually get the cotter out.

As you can see from the photos, the soft metals had formed a ridge that were binding the two together.

It was time for Luigi to get on his push bike and ride a few miles to BSA Lightning Spares. Needless to say, I was feeling worn out from watching him do all of the above and given that it was hotter than Orcish Hell here this morning, I sat down in his arbour with an ice cold glass of Bud from his fridge. No flies on me.

Luigi came back (sweating) and I was still in the arbour (snoring) with four red and white 500ml cans lying scattered round my feet. It was tricky talking my way out of that one but it wasn't the first time so with a confidence born of experience I played the old, "Hey, do you want my help or not?" card. I think he mumbled something about a fart in a spacesuit as he stomped away but I was too busy putting the cans in the recycling bin to be sure.

The new stainless steel cotter from Brian has a bigger washer and nut on it than the old one. Luigi had also picked up a couple of Allen keys so he could remove the outer case. He only had metric ones and thought I'd been joking about the ones I'd used back when we still had an Empire.

I did the hard work and passed Luigi a file so he could smooth out the kickstart shaft and then take a little off the new cotter pin.

Still - all's well that ends well. His clutch lever action is now lighter and smoother than I was when I met his Mum. And that's saying something.

Ride out

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There's not been much nice weather recently but we got out for a bit this week after Luigi had replaced the thermocouple in his gas oven.

New centre stand + wheel alignment

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The centre stand on the Mario Mobile was bad. Shockingly bad. I had to put it on planks of wood to get it to stand up. If you tried using it on the road, the bike would wobble unsteadily - a bit like me walking home from darts.


Anyway, I splashed out on a new one and rode over to see Luigi this morning. He said, "Hey, long time no see!" to which I replied, "Hey, look what I've brought over for you to fit to my bike!" He looked so thrilled I was touched (with guilt).

As you can see from the shot on the left, he had to take off part of the exhaust to remove the offside bolt. You can also see me taking a well-earned rest - it's stressful watching him work on my bike while he's muttering under his breath about someone taking liberties.


As you can see from the shot on the right, the camera was more interested in what was on the floor than the stands, but the new one is on the left and the very worn one is on the right. Notice also how the centre hole is oval rather than circular.


The final shot below shows the new centre stand in action and that the rear tyre is off the ground - spiffing.






The second job of the day was to make good on the bodge job I'd made on Luigi's bike when we took a link out of the chain. The back wheel wasn't quite in alignment and you could occasionally hear the chain catching on the guard. Time for the old string trick! Tie it round the front wheel and drag it backwards through the centre stand. Wiggle the back wheel around until:

1. the string touches the front tyre in two places and also the back tyre in two places;
2. the chain is at the correct tension - not too tight or loose.

Time for another oil change

As usual, click on any hand-drawn and crayon-coloured image to zoom in.





There's not been much happening over the last few weeks. Surprising really, given that it's Summer but there you go.


I rode over to Mark's this afternoon though to do an oil change - it's been just over 500 miles since the rebuild so we put some new mineral 20w/50 oil in the Mario Mobile and Luigi put some Morris Golden Film in his before we popped out for a 40 miles jaunt in the sunshine.