Today in the workshop .....

addjunkie · Sunday at 11:26 AM

Cato said:
It's a really decent bike, but given the market at the moment and their relatively low value anyway £800:00 is what I consider a fair starting point.

In my opinion it's worth £1,500 all day long. However if you take all the opinions, thoughts, prayers and well wishes in the world you're still going to need to chip in two quid if you want to buy a Mars Bar.

Id be tempted to try it on faceache market place for a bit more, pick a sunny day to list it. Its the right time to sell a bike.

roofman · Sunday at 11:32 AM

Cato said:
The stubby can that was on the 650 Bandit was just the perfect pitch and tone to drive me nuts (I have misaphonia) so a quick swap for a can from the spares pile and that's much better.

Nòooooooooo wait till i tell Christine. sell me the 650 can for the 1250

Cato · Sunday at 11:33 AM

roofman said:
Nòooooooooo wait till i tell Christine. sell me the 650 can for the 1250

I can send it up, just cover the postage. :thumbup:

roofman · Sunday at 11:35 AM

Pm incoming

Cato · Sunday at 11:36 AM

addjunkie said:
Id be tempted to try it on faceache market place for a bit more, pick a sunny day to list it. Its the right time to sell a bike.

Fair play to those with sufficient patience to deal with the whoppers you get on FaceBook, but I'd rather set fire to it in a ritual ceremony than list it there.

Bullet2012 · Sunday at 3:32 PM

Fitted , it’s under there somewhere

Cato · 2026-04-20T10:56:21+0100

Well I can't see that VN 800 engine getting done.

Now that it's mostly in bits he's going to need to spend £2,000 on parts, gaskets etc. Then £800 to send the cases, barrels and heads off for stripping, prepping and painting, then my labour to build it all back up plus the postage for bits to go where they need to be etc. So his "I want it like new." request would come with around a four grand bill. :dontknow:

A full gasket and seal set is £300, cam chains, tensioner blades, balance shaft dampers, rockers, one new cam and it mounts up fast.

badabec · 2026-04-20T12:24:55+0100

The DS specialist I use is restoring a DS Decap to 'original condition'. The bill so far is north of £100k. Last week he flew to France to a museum with swatches of Connolly leather to match the colour. The 'chassis' has been dipped and electrophoretically painted black, twice. The first time wasn't good enough.
It had already been restored by another specialist, who didn't own a tape measure. When it was put on a jig, one side was 10mm shorter than the other.
I just hope he is billing him regularly.

Nomad · 2026-04-20T12:58:35+0100

I sold a bike to a chap 5 years ago who was restoring a classic Jag (Mk2 ?). He told me he had spent £30k on the leather interior and was nearly ready to spend £40k on paint.

Farside · 2026-04-20T15:52:57+0100

badabec said:
It had already been restored by another specialist, who didn't own a tape measure. When it was put on a jig, one side was 10mm shorter than the other

It left the factory like that!

harveyp6 · 2026-04-20T15:58:12+0100

Farside said:
It left the factory like that!

IIRC the Renault 4 had different wheelbase on each side because of the transverse rear torsion bars.

Although I may have dreamt that.....

Farside · 2026-04-20T16:39:29+0100

harveyp6 said:
IIRC the Renault 4 had different wheelbase on each side because of the transverse rear torsion bars.

Although I may have dreamt that.....

Right about the R4, and the R11, too, iirc. I have a trailer with two R11* torsion bar rear beams.

The Hillman Hunter had a different wheelbase on each side because of the perfectly sloppy tolerances.
It was within factory accepted allowance, they said.
It didn't drive any different from normal, so we just let it go.

*Maybe they were R7.

oldbikedavey · 2026-04-20T17:08:23+0100

Mostly, I have been setting up the valve timing on a Norton 650SS, which is a moderately restful occupation.....

harveyp6 · 2026-04-20T17:13:38+0100

Farside said:
Right about the R4, and the R11, too, iirc. I have a trailer with two R11* torsion bar rear beams.

The Hillman Hunter had a different wheelbase on each side because of the perfectly sloppy tolerances.
It was within factory accepted allowance, they said.
It didn't drive any different from normal, so we just let it go.

*Maybe they were R7.

The reason I remember the R4 was someone I knew repaired a damaged one, and then wondered why when it was all straightened out the wheelbase was different side to side. It took him a while to work out that because of the rear suspension it had to be that way.

Cobbler · 2026-04-20T17:25:15+0100

harveyp6 said:
The reason I remember the R4 was someone I knew repaired a damaged one, and then wondered why when it was all straightened out the wheelbase was different side to side. It took him a while to work out that because of the rear suspension it had to be that way.

At the time, there was a story going around that a body shop had one in, stuck it on the jig & found it about 4” different side to side, so pulled it straight & wrote it off. It was a new model & they didn’t realise it was made that way.

harveyp6 · 2026-04-20T17:27:59+0100

Cobbler said:
At the time, there was a story going around that a body shop had one in, stuck it on the jig & found it about 4” different side to side, so pulled it straight & wrote it off. It was a new model & they didn’t realise it was made that way.

After some of the things I've seen, that's a definite possibility. :laughing:

Greeves246 · 2026-04-20T18:24:11+0100

oldbikedavey said:
Mostly, I have been setting up the valve timing on a Norton 650SS, which is a moderately restful occupation.....

I had a copy of the works Domiracer camshaft ( long story) but no timing figure for it so I phoned John Hudson at Norton expecting to be fobbed off but John was most helpful , explaining what the result needed to be and how to achieve it. Sometimes after stripping the engine it would come really easy but other times took hours. I think the PW4 camshaft is fairly close.

oldbikedavey · 2026-04-20T18:49:08+0100

Greeves246 said:
I had a copy of the works Domiracer camshaft ( long story) but no timing figure for it so I phoned John Hudson at Norton expecting to be fobbed off but John was most helpful , explaining what the result needed to be and how to achieve it. Sometimes after stripping the engine it would come really easy but other times took hours. I think the PW4 camshaft is fairly close.

Think that this one is something like 2S , but it'll be sweet enough....

Other Daniel · 2026-04-20T21:05:57+0100

badabec said:
The DS specialist I use is restoring a DS Decap to 'original condition'. The bill so far is north of £100k. Last week he flew to France to a museum with swatches of Connolly leather to match the colour. The 'chassis' has been dipped and electrophoretically painted black, twice. The first time wasn't good enough.
It had already been restored by another specialist, who didn't own a tape measure. When it was put on a jig, one side was 10mm shorter than the other.
I just hope he is billing him regularly.

These people are just in another league; but, kudos to them.
My good friend, who has a few bodyshops now in Melbourne,
restored, for himself, an E-type. Although he had done the lion's
share of the actual work himself, he still estimated that he'd
spent around £60,000 on it. £ not $aus !!!
He does keep winning concours prizes with it though. It's a real
stunner, and an artwork in it's own right.
I'll see if I can find some photos....