Reg, and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Anyone who met or worked with Reg quickly realised he had a powerful intellect. It meant that he could turn his hand to almost anything with a couple of notable exceptions — making mayonnaise and food hygiene.

The main area where his enthusiasm outstripped his ability was motorcycle mechanics. The late seventies and early eighties were littered with examples of Reg’s slip ups while maintaining his and other people’s motorcycles.

Let’s start with a simple example. Jen and I borrowed his 900SD Dharma for a trip to Tassie. On the way home the clutch started slipping and just out of Albury it completely ceased to function. I called Reg to tell him and ask for any suggestions. Straightaway he says “Oh, that’ll be the clutch basket nut, I mustn’t have put the split pin back in”. He not only recognised what was wrong but what he’d done to cause it!

That poor Dharma suffered mightily from Reg’s tuning efforts. One night he was trying to kick start it when it backfired through the carbies and blew the front carbie clean off the manifold. It flashed out horizontally from the engine till stopped at the end of the throttle cable then dropped “clunk” back against the engine case. As usual Jen, Celica and bike trailer headed into town to collect Reg and the bike.

Another time it failed Reg came home under his own steam. The Dharma was fitted with two driving lights, setup like Mickey Mouse ears above the headlamp. Concerned they’d be stolen Reg took them off and put them in the pockets of his Bellstaff jacket. Once home he fumbled getting the first one out and it crashed to the floor shattering. The red mist rose and Reg snatches the remaining light out of his pocket. Screaming “you may as well have the other one~” he smashed it into the floor besides the first.

The Dharma retired and was replaced by a Hailwood replica. Which of course, Reg had to fettle. One morning I’m eating breakfast as Reg heads out to go to work. I hear the garage door open, the Hailwood wheel out and then hear Reg kicking to start it. There’s an almighty bang and Reg starts yelling “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck …”. I look out the window the see Reg ripping the side covers and seat off the bike so he can get the garden hose onto the rear carbie which is blazing away on fire. Reg drove to work that morning.

It wasn’t just Reg’s bikes that suffered. Another victim, sorry customer, was Kate. She rocked up one weekend complaining her Dharma was running rough. Reg, full of confidence, assured her he could fix it and proceeded to strip the carbies. After quite a bit of fiddling everything went back together and the Duke started and seemed to run AOK. Kate departed. sometime later we hear her dharma coming down the road and into the driveway.

Kate explained that it would not run at full throttle but coughed and spluttered like an old bomb. While clearing a space for her bike we found a tiny brass piece on the floor. It was a main jet and obviously had been left out of the carbie while being rebuilt. With it back in place the bike ran at all throttle settings AOK. It didn’t run any better than when she arrived the first time.

Kate eventually replaced the dharma with a Yamaha 750. It wandered around when riding straight, according to Kate. She brought it into the garage one weekend for us to look at. Reg dives in, doing a string line for the front and back wheels. Sure enough, the wheels were way out of alignment and the front is twisted in the forks. To straighten the front wheel Reg pulls the wheel around against the steering lock and brute forces it into alignment. With a re-adjustment of the back wheel position in the swingarm the wheels were lined up well. A test ride confirmed the bike was running straight and true.

A few weeks later Kate had to leave the Yamaha down the south coast and come home as a pillion from a weekend ride. She reported it was behaving very strangely and seemed to ratchet the front wheel from side to side. The bike shop that looked at it found that the steering lock had been badly bent and rather than retracting when unlocked it was pressing against the steering stem and making the front wheel lock into certain positions.

Kate never brought one of her bikes around again.