Made it! (With 5 minutes to spare....)

Doctor John the bike mechanic is a magician! What a guy - he has worked his magic on Doris and turned her from a rattly, unbalanced, underpowered slug to a smooth, quiet, mid-range sports bike! I have nothing but praise for what he has done and in good time too (just!)

Thoroughly recommended: Truebikes

Here's what was wrong:

• The engne was still on the original camchain, which appears to have been made out of cheese, as it had so much stretch in it that it looked like it had done 100k miles not 10k. Apparently there was an early recall to swap these original chains for DID - mine was clearly not done. It had skipped a tooth on the cam sprocket so the timing was on Eastern Standard Time I think! Luckily there is sufficient clearance between valve and piston and no damage was done. It would have taken me weeks before I'd thought of this as an issue.
• The carbs, that I sent away and paid lots and lots to have overhauled and new jets fitted, appear not to have had quite everything done..... There is a deep seated jet controlling low speed running in each carb which is very hard to get to and which had chewed up heads so couldn't be removed. They were completely gummed up, so lots of time was spent softening up old fuel residue and cleaning  to get those jets clear. That was why I couldn't get it running below 5000rpm - there was no fuel passing over the air screws, so it made no difference how I adjusted them. Lesson - don't assume that, just because you've paid to have something overhauled, that it has actually been overhauled......
• The pattern front brake lever that I fitted was not quite the right shape, so it was not fully releasing the master cylinder piston. The impact of this was that the return valve on the master cylinder wasn't being exposed, so the brake wasn't freeing off properly. No wonder I couldn't pump air back up through the system using the "syringe method" - the damn return hole was blocked. Again, I would never have thought of that.

The moral of this story is really to know your limitations. There was more "kerching"ing noises but you really do need to recognise asap when to bring in the experts. The forums are full of people "trying" to fix issues and stabbing in the dark (including me). I could easily have spent £100+ on swapping out perfectly good electrical kit trying to hunt down the source of my problems, and it would have been a complete waste of money.

Anyway, the end result is that Doris is now runing like a Dream - sorry, I lasted this long without an awful pun. She has her first MOT since 1986 and I got to the post office to get tax 5 minutes before it closed. Those who have read the blog right through will recall that the target I set myself 3 months ago was to have the bike ready to ride to, and display at, the Northwich Thundersprint on 12th May. Today is the 10th May and my Plan A was to ride to work in the morning, loaded with camping gear, so that I could go straight to Northwich after work and camp overnight ready for the early show entry time on Saturday morning. That depended on me taxing the bike today, so I really did make it with 5 minutes to spare!!

Of course I then needed to road test her properly, so off to the garage to fill up and then I got 20 miles around the local lanes in. I can report that she is a delight to ride. Sure footed handling, sounds lovely and all in all she feels like not far off a new bike (which of course she should, after all of the money thrown at her in the last 2 years!) I have never before sat on a bike that I felt so comfortable on and confident in from the off, and I'm really looking forward to some great adventures with her.

Doris is now loaded with camping gear and resting in the garage, ready for our first adventure to begin tomorrow:

Thanks for listening everyone - now let the real fun begin :)

Noel & Doris