July Catch Up; Royal Enfield Classic 350 Reborn, picked up and running in!

Catch up;

July has been real busy as usual with work hosting the Scottish Open Golf championships, I worked 14 days on the trot with the final 9 days split shifts, so there has been no beach riding, sadly the van packed in days into the shift work, a chocked DPF saw engine oil pumped out the filler cap and I still don't know if the engine needs replaced...

So the Jeep was pressed into commuting and it earned its keep for 5 days running perfectly, includuing a crazy thunderstorm where it never missed a beat!,  though it did cost £80 in fuel!

Roof up for commuting...

Midweek things warmed up real warm!

Final day and home we took the Jeep for a Macdonalds drive through and sat down at the town harbour...

After 6 days Jeep commuting I went up to collect the Bike from Saltire Motorcycles and persuaded G with a coffee and cake at the cafe and promise of some American stuff to see...

My bike...

Home and real happy with how it rides, real comfy and user friendly...

Home and I straight away made some changes, a standard one by many owners is to raise the gear lever a notch as UK folk will no doubt have larger feet than India folk, its a 5 minute job and you have to slacken 2 bolts on the underneath sub frame to allow the lever to clear it. 

I then removed the pillion seat as I will not be taking pillions, and fitted the rear pannier racks and bags I bought on eBay from India which were post free and half the UK price and arrived in only 6 days!

You will need a 110 x 8mm bolt to replace the longer bolt that held on the pillion rear subframe...

The panniers are great, they have waterproof liners, and treated outer canvas, which I reproofed anyway with a good spray of  the 5 litre container I have...

Out for a fill up of the tank and ready to press into service commuting for the coming weeks until the van is repaired/replaced...

And the next week would see dawn and sunset commutes whilst home during the day I slept and rested...

 

The weather finally warmed up proper and it was a dry warm week for the Scottish Open Golf championships, and ideal for riding the bike and running her in the first couple of hundred miles I took it easy and under 50 mph while using the gears a lot on the country roads, short journeys not overheating it and getting the tyres and brakes scrubbed in...

So were now already at 500 miles and its 300 mile service is overdue but booked for next week to check the valve clearances... I'm getting over 110 miles per gallon even doing short commuting! 

More info in this intro film I have made...

Song at start is `Dayvan Cowboy` by Boards Of Canada

UPDATE; after 3 days this film has had 259 likes, 66 positive comments, and 6500 views!

After 13 years and nearly 2000 films I may have finally made it on YouTube!

More soon...

Cycle and SUP fun at JMCP...

 

Heatwave conditions across the UK finally some summer weather!, and no better place to be at than at the coast!, G was out on her paddle board while I took the Surly Pugsley along the beach at Belhaven...

Out at Spike Island point where the posts and rope signal the start of the bird nesting area we met up to sit in the sun and enjoy flasks of tea, a sandwich, and the last of my birthday cake had packed in the Alpkit saddle bag... you can't put a price on sitting outdoors on the coast on days like this soaking up your surroundings...

G relaunched to paddle back along the coast to Belhaven, while I cycled across Hedderwick sands and back through the Scots Pine woods of John Muir Country Park (JMCP)...

Back at Belhaven after skirting the incoming tide via the Biel Burn bridge the bay was now full of day visitors enjoying the calm sea conditions in the heat of the afternoon...

A wee film of our SUP/cycle, songs are Olson/Dayvan Cowboy remix by Boards Of Canada....

More soon...

Willys Jeep; Exhaust silencer mounts - the Joys of Jeep ownership...

 

The brackets that hold on the Jeep exhaust silencer are not the standard set up and are home made on my Jeep so after yet again one of them broke after returning from a day with a bit off-roading...

It prob broke from vibration,  So I  purchased a fitting kit for around £30 from UK Dallas Autos Jeep supplies and as usual it arrived quickly and unpacked I laid the items out on a clean sheet in front of the TV where I watched an assembly video several times from the excellent Team G503 series on Youtube...

Cue the video and you will see it all looks pretty straight forward....

And I ended up with the front and rear assembly looking like this...

It was not mentioned in the film but I soon worked out this bracket bolts the exhaust pipe to the Skid plate, which my Jeep does not have...

However... things often never go as easily together on an old Jeep and further those nuts were clearly a different thread to the bolts!, luckily I already have an assortment box of AF thread nuts and bolts. I will drop Dallas Autos an email to make them aware of this with the kit...

The front mount on the silencer as the rear has these universal rubber bushes threaded both ends - which had sheared/ perished in two so removing it I found a threaded mount above attached to the floor...

While the rear has the same similar set up but the mount attached to the floor on this one did not has a threaded bolt inside and removal would need to be with a hacksaw. For no I left that rubber bush in place and just removed the Exhaust pipe U clamp and home made bracket and replaced it with the proper band and one of y own nuts and bolts the of the same thread...

The front exhaust U clamp and sheared bush was removed and the home made  bracket was unbolted - this one I made to replace the previous flimsy bracket that had snapped last year...

The stock bolt was not long enough for the band that goes around the exhaust - the band also needed a bit reshaping gently with a rubber mallet. No remember your working on a 55+ year old vehicle with parts from who knows where and things like this have to be expected to be tinkered with...

So I pulled the band tighter together using  long 6mm diameter coach bolt which shaped the band better although the supplied bolt was still not long enough, the bent 6 mm coach bolt was bent doing this and discarded afterwards and I looked out a longer bolt for the band.  A 8 mm metric bolt would have to suffice for now Balogh the threads were not long enough being a bit too long for the job but I used some spacers to use it until I buy a better more suited length bolt....

Metric bolt fitted on the inside and tightened after fitting the other lug that slips underneath the band...

The stock fitting was bending and you could actually pull the lug that slips under the band out so I got rid of this part and direct bolted it to the mount under the floor...

The rear was just a case of replacing the U bolt with the band but left the rubber bush for now...

The silencer is now up closer to the floor now...

So as you can see I only used half of the parts in the end and got the exhaust mounted ok, but this is a French Jeep with USA genuine and pattern parts and who knows what brakes have been added and removed over the years.  The Hotchkiss Jeep is often called a `Hotchpotch` by some owners though many of the 28,000 or so manufactured in France with firstly genuine spare parts then later French manufactured replacement parts have more original parts than most WW2 vehicles still on the road...

A wily Jeep is a Willys jeep wether made during WW2 or after the war under licence by Willys in other countries, though while the Indian made Mahindra and a few other counties who manufactured their own Jeeps variety slightly in design, engine choice, and looks, the M201 Hotchkiss is a near replica to the Willys MBin arts and the Willys Go Devil 134 engine...

The Joys of Jeep ownership!, very rewarding and fun to own and drive, but don't buy a Jeep if you think everything will just swap out when needing parts replaced and sometimes like here they do require some tinkering!

More soon...