Stories, questions and answers about cafe racers and motorcycles in general
Sunday, November 21, 2010
"Just how far will your cafe racer travel on 50 feet of gasoline?"
This was the question asked of me by a Miami Beach police officer back in the day. We didn't call it back in the day back then, we called it living in the fast lane. But even in the fast lane there are pitfalls...one of which is running out of gas on Collins Avenue at 2 am. My 1959 Triumph cafe racer unfortunately didn't have room for a spare gas can or a siphon hose. The second question I was asked by the officer was "Young fella, where are you going with that garden hose?" As I explained to the officer, that is my motorcycle on the side of the road and I was out of gasoline and that the hose that I was dragging was borrowed from a condominium and was in fact full of gasoline. The officer then asked where was my gas can. I then explained how a wrecked Camaro had donated just enough gasoline to fill said hose. At this point he followed me back to the bike and trying desperately to keep a straight face as I began to put the gas from the hose to tank. By the time all was said and done neither of us could hold back the laughter any more. You would be amazed, as we were, how much gas a 50' garden hose will hold. If you would like to know exactly how far a '59 Bonneville will go on a hose full of gas please continue to visit, leave your comments, ask questions or tell us your own stories about your cafe racer.
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Hey I have a cafe racer styled '82 KZ1000 that is giving me a headache.
ReplyDelete1st headache: I have fuel pouring out the air filter on my far left carb,and it only does this while the bike is running. It will do this occasionally, but not all the time, and it does this at idle at a light, and sometimes on the side stand at start up.
2nd headache: I am loosing a quart of oil every 100 to 200 miles. There are no drips, my pipes are dry, and no unusual engine noise. I do have some blow by coming from my crank case breather, but the motor only has 30,000 miles on it!!
what could be going causing my headaches and how might I fix them?
A lot of motors have already had the head apart by 30k miles. How long have you had the bike? Did it start doing this suddenly or gradually? Does it blow smoke either at startup or during normal operation?
ReplyDeleteRun a compression test and compare it to the specifications in your manual. If you don't have one, get a manual.