Having been off the road for a couple of months over winter I wasn’t surprised that the old girl was a bitch to start when stone cold - however two fresh tanks of E5 later and a couple of decent outings cold starting on the choke hadn’t improved so it was duly booked in Spa Motorcycles for a carb clean

Being an avid fan of Chris’s well documented MC18 build I read about his struggle with a perished reed/carb manifold which only came to light during a leek down test, something I hadn’t done as I lacked the tools to do one, so thinking this could be contributing to the poor starting and seeing as the carbs would be coming off anyway it seemed good opportunity to replace it with a new one



Turned out I’d wasted my money as there was nothing wrong with mine🤦 never the less whilst the carbs were off it was replaced - turn out my choke jets were blocked and causing the poor starting, which makes perfect sense as once warm it runs sweet.
Bike started first kick this morning despite being cold and damp first thing … so damp in fact that after starting it I didn’t venture out

Did find these old gems whilst cleaning some old gear out, actually had these two well before I got the NSR
Bought both of them from Donnington park when watching the GP, had to make a donation to a riders charity for Terry Rymer to sign the poster, never been a Yamaha fan but the Loctite livery was cool even if never graced a 2 Stoke racer




Sadly both have suffered water damage from being left in a damp shed for 30yrs - anyone got any other gems kicking around ?
_________________
Nick

Rebuild project NSR250 MC18 R4J