Sunday, January 13, 2013

First Csepel Danuvia Ride of 2013

In my last Csepel Danuvia update back in November of 2012 I had installed new clutch friction plates. Before I put the gear oil back in the bike, I thought I'd pour it through a strainer just to make sure there weren't any stray pieces of the broken bakelite plate somebody had used as a shim. Well there was no bakelite, but there was a 5mm ball bearing. Somehow while I was replacing the friction plates the ball bearing that is between the clutch throwout rod and spindle had came out without me noticing. I had to take the clutch apart one more time to replace the ball bearing. Wouldn't be a big deal, but the clutch springs are kind of a pain to install on this bike. 


After finally getting my clutch issues resolved and the bike back together, in anticipation of getting the bike inspected and licensed this spring I added an original Csepel squeeze bulb style horn. I also added an Albert style NOS Bumm mirror. I really like the minimalist stripped down look of this bike but I needed the horn for it to pass inspection and for my own safety I wanted a rearview mirror. 


I was thinking I probably wouldn't be able to get the bike out until early spring but last Friday we had an unbelievably warm day in KC. It hit the mid 60's which is quite unusual for the middle of January. I took advantage of the warm day by taking the Csepel to KC Brake for an inspection needed for licensing the bike. KC Brake is right down the street from me and the owner is a vintage bike aficionado and host a big get together each year the weekend of the Heart of America Motorcycle Enthusiast Show in KC. After the inspection I stopped by a friends gallery/studio. My friend Dale suffers from the same problem I have. Our studios are being taken over by vintage vehicles. When Dale isn't making furniture he likes building and working on cafe racers. He had never seen the Csepel running so I thought I'd stop by for a demo. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but the Csepel seems to be running real good!! 


One other little change I had made before my ride was the spark plug I was running. I found an old Champion spark plug application chart for motorcycles  on a website called www.oldengine.org that had my bike listed on it. The chart recommended a Champion L-10 which I cross referenced to a NGK B6HS. I was running a NGK B8HS and wouldn't have thought it would have made that much difference, but the bikes starts much easier and runs better on the NGK B6HS.

No comments:

Post a Comment