The Dark Wob

I think I'll get my CB900F2 out for a fettle whilst I'm up at my parents, was just pondering buying an economical vehicle so I can keep nipping up to check on them when I remembered there was very little wrong with it (apart from a gearbox noise) when I parked it up about 15 years ago and it should stand up to running up and down the motorway ok.
No room to take the pit bike up for the kids this time so I'll need to drag my XL250 out for them to play on.

paulplom wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:20 pm That'll be why it was a bit hard to start when Warren had a go.
In fact, it must have been him that broke it.

If you think that's bad then you really need to try pedal starting a pre '77 moped.

Changed the indicator switch on the C90. What a fiddly bastard job. It also houses the throttle cable which kept popping off everytime I breathed on it.

There's an annual Harley festival round the corner where thry're all camping on the rugby ground there must be hundreds if them. The street was lined with a crowd, officials and the like.
I had to ride down it on the C90. I didn't get an applause.

Couldn't get to my CB900 without shifting a tractor so I got my XL250R out, annoyingly when I checked it's not tax and test exempt till next year.
Anyway I drained the stale fuel put in a pint of super unleaded and it coughed, pulled the side cover off to give it a whiff of easy start and a bloody nose had made it's home in the air box and eaten the foam filter.
Once the nest and dead rodent was removed it started readily and was a lot quieter mechanically than I remember it being.
Didn't even have a stuck clutch! Not bad considering its been stood since 2007.
Unfortunately I've got zero lights working, battery is now very dead, it used to have the regular habit of blowing tail light bulbs. From memory it's only the brake light and horn that run from the battery.
Does anybody know about eliminating the battery completely, I assume if I just put a fresh standard regulator/ rectifier without a battery it will kill it as it will have nowhere to dump excess load? Does it need a couple of capacitors to act as a battery?

I'm going off to sort through my logbooks as I'm pretty sure I have another XL frame that is registered a year earlier..

A capacitor rings a bell.

I had my Bonnie running batteryless using a Boyer powerbox, as I needed a reg/rec anyway it made sense to get a ready made unit.

Decided to see if I could get the CB900 out, the answer is no I can't! Despite being dry stored both the front calipers are siezed and so is the front master cylinder? Just how I don't know as it has never seen damp/ rain or salt while I've had it.

Bought this last week
Collected yesterday. Seems sound, runs reasonably but hasn’t seen an Mot station in a very long time,- so I’m expecting all sorts of minor problems.
The front brake is bloody awful ( they all do that, Sir) & the indicators don’t actually flash unless you’re screaming it’s tits off ( no battery, y’see) - unsure what I’ll do there.

Anyway, it’s too hot to do anything other than unload so it probably won’t get looked at again before the clocks change.

Oh, it’s a Voskhod 175. Frightful piece of Russki junk.

Does it have a small capacitor to keep the volts up without the battery? I believe that's the normal fix* for the indicator sort of issue. Personally I'd be tempted to add a tiny battery somewhere.

It seems to be a pure magneto setup, very similar to the Minsk 125 we accumulated recently.

That uses the ‘ignition’ switch as an earthing circuit to effectively kill the spark. However, although that too has no battery, the blinkers do make a half hearted effort - probably sufficient for an mot tester.
I don’t really want to rewire these - unless forced, as it feels like it’s a job bigger than their diminutive value!

That too had God awful brakes that a full rebuild has improved marginally- in that I can now lock the wheel before the lever hits the bars! A little use should improve things here now, so a few sneaky back roads runs before it meets a tester!

Pre-86? remove the indicators for the MOT?