SA Dealers News and opinions about topics in general

So the wifey went to got fetch her mom for a visit and I had to do something to keep the little one entertained. I looked on Zwartkops website and saw they had a trackday. Whoohoo free entertainment!!

The wifey packed a bag for the kiddie the night before and on Sunday after the obligatory McDonalds breakfast we were on our way.

Thankfully Zwartkops has a nice layout and as a spectator you can choose a number of different places to sit and watch the action.

We first stopped off at the kart track where a few guys were throwing their karts around the track and global warming or not you have got to love the smell of two-stroke in the morning!

We made our way to the seats above the pits, where the next photo was taken,

As you can see he was more interested in the sweets his mom packed in than the bikes! Below is the best result from a number of attempts to photograph bikes in motion, guess you can’t really hope for much with a point and click camera.

The Suzuki GSX passed us as we were walking in, it looked so good I thought I should take a photo, it’s really good to see bikes of this age in such a good condition, give me hope that one day my son could appreciate (hopefully) the more classical bikes.

Another interesting bike we saw was the Suzuki RGV VJ 23, if I remember correctly this came out just before major legislation clamping down on emissions, this is probably the second one I have ever seen, don’t think many made it to South Africa.

Also interesting was a GSXR in Rizla colours, it even got my sons attention.

We walked around a bit an come upon a workshop with this Tazz rally car parked outside, seems quite well done,

outside the same workshop was a Triumph (Stag I think, not too sure),

and a Porsche that looks like it’s not going anywhere soon.

Last thing we did was pay a visit to the play area that Zwartkops has for kids, even though it was quite hot he had some fun playing on the slide and in the sand pit

I am surprised by how many bike seemed to be dedicated track bikes, I went on a track day years ago and almost all of those bikes were road bikes.

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So a while back my wife decided to go pay her mom a visit, naturally she took the Tazz (our other car being a Ford Ikon with a noisy power steering pump).

Unfortunately on this trip the Tazz ended up not being as reliable as it has been for almost 10 years, so after some neglect and a lack of a sevice in a long time the cam belt broke, leaving the wifey stranded. Luckily our insurance has a free tow in service, so the car was brought back to the house and pushed into the garage.

I started stripping the car the next day, being a Sunday, in the hopes that no valves were bent, but as soon as I had taken off the tappet cover I realised that this would not be a quick and easy fix. When the cambelt broke the piston hit a valve forcing it up, which in turn broke the rocker, I later saw that 2 rockers had been broken.

So grudgingly I removed the head, and phoned Steves Auto Clinic’s cylinder head division to find out how much it would cost to have the damage repaired.

The head was sent in and a few days later I got the head back all nice and shiny and new. Boy was it clean!

So clean in fact I felt obligated to take pictures! From the top,

On the inlet side,

On the exhaust side

and showing the valves, the head was incredibly clean, leaving me wondering what method they use to get all the crud off.

As the car is used primarily for city driving the pistons had years worth of carbon buildup on them. I used a wire brush to get the carbon buildup off the top of the pistons as well as to clean off the remnants of the old gasket on the block.

Photo above shows hoe much better it looks, was so chuffed I took another picture!

Not too bad….

Once I had the block mating surface fairly clean I proceeded with getting the cylinder head on

What you were supposed to see in the above photo is the marking used to set the cam timing, were supposed to…..

Cam chain tensioner replaced even though new does not feel very different from the old one.

No gasket was supplied for this in the set I bought, and I noticed that a sealant had been used when I removed it, so I got some high temperature gasket maker, made by Bostik. This seemed less ‘oily’ and much easier to work with than the ‘Car’ silicone sealant also made by Bostik.

Now I don’t remember if I had had enough for the day (I work kinda slow) or if this was just checking where things go.

One thing I realised is that when I had taken the head off I had taken it off with the carburetor attached. When I replaced the head I did so with the carb removed, which made work more difficult because it’s a real pain trying to get bolts tightened in the small spaces you have to work in when the head is already bolted down.

It took another weekend before I had the car completely assembled and running again, and by then I was too tired to take pics, I just wanted to get done!

What is unfortunate is that I had to go and buy a new torque wrench (got it the cheapest from Litt’s Motor Spare in Kempton Park), mine seems to have ‘disappeared’ when we moved, probably along with my Black & Decker drilling machine, that was older than me.

So the service I was planning to do got pushed forward by a few weeks, and costed me a whole lot more! Lesson I won’t neglect my car again.

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