Knowing my propensity for buying expensive stuff at auto jumbles I thought it would be a good idea to take my Mrs with me so she could be a stabilising influence. It was working quite well really, we got out the van, started walking towards the entrance and my mates Steve and his son Jack pulled alongside in their car. I couldn't help noticing they had a rather nice looking classic Moto Morini on the trailer. I mean, look, I hadn't even got in to the sodding event yet and my plan to only buy some essential consumables was already in tatters.
I followed them round to their pitch and managed to resist doing the deal for about 35 seconds. I couldn't leave it there, there were no other Morinis and it would have been lonely and out of place. No, the best place for it was clearly in the back of my van. As usual they wanted a very fair price for it, I didn't haggle hard, I hope they made a few quid on it, there should be plenty left in it for me when I have done the work on it.
Being a race bike it is far from standard, the front wheel is part Honda CB77 and part Dunlop, it really looks the business but at the moment it is 9 parts useless, it should grip a hell of a lot more than it does. Not sure what the back is - possibly Ducati, will need to look further in to that. The engine is the original but I suspect it may have been breathed upon, it has more compression than I would expect for a standard 125 and it really barks when it's running.
The guys said they had heard it running but I took the carb off and gave it all a good clean anyway. It had been a bit of a bitch to start, I was using my roller starter as it come with the kick start mechanism in a box. I did fit the starter, what an absolute pig of a job that was, it's a really strange bit of engineering and it wasn't immediately obvious how to put it together. After numerous attempts and plenty of bad tempered swearing I got it all in place and working though.
I was not having too much joy starting it at first but once I had turned out the idle jet screw to 2 1/2 turns it started much better and had excellent pick up. It's now at about 3 turns, it may need a further tweak when it is fully hot but it's close enough for now.
It is incredibly loud, it has no baffles, it has no air box either. It runs standard petrol, it might be rather fun at some point to get some bigger jets to play with and try it on methanol but it will stay on ethanol infused euro piss for now.
it's going to be taken to pieces, the paintwork is best described as hideous, I shall strip it to bare metal and make it look much prettier. Any unused brackets etc will be cut off at this stage and the metal made good, it's not going to be a concours show bike, I want it to be used and ridden, like all my other bikes. It will look nice though, it's a very nicely put together thing that should perform really well. It's not as rare as the Maserati or the Bianchi but it is unusual and that usually sells a bike, it should appeal to anybody looking for a cheap way in to classic motorcycle racing.
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