Motorcycle carb issues are the reason a lot of people get in touch with me. What I’d like to outline here is things that you can do to get your bike running. I have used all of these ideas myself for many years and with great success.

Often if a bike will turn over but not splutter into life it is a fueling issue. Lets say we know it’s not a ecu/points issue and the coils are good. Have you checked the plugs? Replacing the plugs is a cheap failsafe before you go any further. Look at the old spark plugs. These are the window to the heart of your bike. If they’re black and sooty it’s telling you there’s an issue with overfueling or oil leak issues. Alternatively if the plug is dry you aren’t getting fuel into the chamber. There’s a couple of handy tools at this point. A colourtune is literally a clear window where you can see what is happening in the spark chamber. You can also get a spark tester which sits between the lead and the plug and is a safe way of checking a constant and strong spark. Alternatively just sitting the plug on the side of the motor and hitting the start switch should show you spark.

Now do you have clean air getting into the carb? Check the air filter for blockages/dirty foam etc. Replace if necessary. It’s cheap and do you want rubbish getting into the heart of your beast. If ever I’m not sure that it is a fuel issue I will use ether at this point. A little squirt of aerostart on the filter as you are cranking the motor should get some action to bring a smile to your face. DO NOT get so excited at hearing your bike going that you empty the entire can onto the filter and come up with new and exciting ways to run the bike full time off ether. If this method didn’t at least get some action then I would go back and check for further electrical issues.

Now for the fun stuff. I won’t go into specifics here because there are so many different styles of carbs but I will give you an outline of what to try. First make sure you have fuel and it’s fresh in your carb. Most carbs have a drain screw at the base of the bowl. Find it and open it up. Try to catch the fuel that comes out. If no fuel comes out it shows that you may have a blockage or a faulty fuel tap. If fuel comes out and it smells like metho.. or in fact anything that isn’t fuel throw it away and allow your tank to fill it up again. Of course I am assuming you now have clean fuel in your tank by draining all the old fuel out.. yes ALL of it.

With fresh fuel in the bowl you try it again.. of course your battery is now flat so you put the charger back on the battery and crack a beer while watching youtube clips of bikes that actually run. Several hours later you come back and try again. Good news it runs. Your journey ends here.

Bad news: still not running. Time to pull the carb/s out of the bike. Remove the bowl and check for debris in the base. Clean thoroughly and use an air compressor to clean any little orifices you see. If things are really bad this might be time to take it to someone with an ultrasonic cleaner.. you decide no I am the master of this machine and nothing will beat me. Good for you. Find the idle jet and remove from the carb. It’ll be stamped with a number 15-25 is a pretty normal range. This needs to be really clean. You can use a needle or a proper jet cleaner and make sure it isn’t blocked. Even if you can see through it there can be build up that will definitely affect it so do this part right. Probably 80% of bikes that don’t run that have been sitting for too long will have been fixed at this point so re install jet. Check the rest of the carb including diaphragms, main jet and mixture screw. Take notes of everything you have done. A quick list like this might help.

Pilot Jet size:

Main jet size:

Needle position: ie 3 from the top

Air/fuel mixture screw: ie 2.5 turns out

This information will help you later when you want to double check your setup against a stock bike etc. Everything is installed again and you’ve checked that everything is sealing well. Again you hit the start button and after a couple of turns with the choke on she fires into life.

In the next post we’ll start talking about checking float heights and mixture screws.

Any questions Contact me here.

We Like Modern Bobber Builds!!

How many people have we pissed off already just with the title? I know what the purists are thinking..

1. It’s an oxymoron
2.  Therefore you are an oxygen burning moron
3. If it has shocks then it isn’t a true bobber
4. Kicking a bike into life is the only way to go
5. What?! You didn’t spend 100 hours building up that motor. Go away!

Yeah and in truth I may have said these things to myself as well but.. hear us out. Most people out there love the look of a gorgeous bobber. Maybe they don’t want to wait 6 months for it to be built. Then there’s the shame of stalling at the lights when you were trying to impress that girl in the Hyundai beside you and having to kick the bitch back into life!

Whatever it is, modifying a late model cruiser is an alternative. We’ve done a few and it has to be said that the ease, budget and timeframe all make it a novelty for us.

We had just such a customer come to us recently. Andrew had moved on from his LAMS and was wanting something that would eat the km’s while still looking the part.  A fairly clean XVS1100 was found for the right price and minimal damage to the exhaust (first thing to go anyway) so we snapped it up for him and he showed us pics of what he had in mind.

Candy apple red, whitewall tyres and some straight bars were the order of the day. Of course lowering the bike and doing something about the guards was always going to happen as well.

We make lots of kits up for the XVS650 and it didn’t take much modifying to transplant the guards from one of these to work with the 1100. We needed to do this first as the paint is what tends to hold us up on these builds.

Once we made the guards out of steel, it was time to strip everything else off the bike and make the three piles. Chrome, Candy and Black. The candy went to our painters and the Black to the local powdercoaters. As it was only a couple of pieces that needed chroming we thought we’d polish them oursleves in house to make sure everything could go back together in a  timely fashion.

The seat we had earmarked for the bike was a no go after we got it on there and realised it looked ridiculously thin compared to the oversized tank so it came down to a Stock Heist seat or one of the fat Biltwell seats.

Whitewall tyres went on next. The old ones were no longer roadworthy so it’s not like it was a waste. unfortunately there is only one company that makes 19 inch whitewalls and we couldn’t match the tread to the back but it wasn’t unusual to have un matched tread patterns when I was growing up anyway;)

Now the only hold up (and believe me it was a proper hold up) was the paint this time around. Our two week turn around became a 5 week turnaround due to holidays etc so we were stuck dragging this heavy lump of lead around until we got the call we had been waiting for. Within hours everything was back together.

We hadn’t shown Andrew the bike during this period. He was good enough to trust us with the small things and see we wanted to make it worthwhile. When he arrived he was stoked. Even at 5 weeks we had managed to deliver a bike that sounded awesome thanks to some straight pipes we made up for it as well as handle the road and absorb ‘most’ of the bumps that came his way. It’s still not a light bike but the stand over height has been improved and the motor with a touch under 40k on it has plenty of life left in it.

ROAD TEST

Time to take it for it’s first road test. The bike felt a lot lighter than when we started. Maybe that’s just psychological?! lol. The front end definitely tracked better and helped with the lighter feel though. The pipes are loud! A couple of extra baffles meant that it took the edge off it though so longer rides were a lot more enjoyable. Overall the impression I got from this bike was it was more than enough. Don’t get me wrong. I have a 1584cc Harley as well as a couple of 1100’s, 1200’s and even a 1400 Suzuki in the shed. This bike though with it’s single seat and low slung ride height felt like a rocket ship. Maybe it’s because most of our Bobbers are around the 650cc size that this one just swallows up the kilometres like a champion.

Overall a very happy customer and a bike that we would ride long after most hardtails were left behind.

(thanks to Andrew for the pics)

We guarantee the best price on all POSH parts for your Custom

As most of you know we have been in partnership for many years with POSH Japan. Our goal has been to offer the biggest range at competitive prices. We’ve achieved both these things although occasionally customers ask us for something that we don’t have and we are able to include into our catalogue.

We want you to do our work for us now though. If you find anyone in Australia selling POSH parts at a better price than what we offer (only new and not including postage obviously) let us know and we will drop our catalogue price for all of our customers.

Upside:

Best price guaranteed

Awesome Japanese quality

We get to practice our Japanese more

You do our market research

Downside:

You have to think of other parts to spend hours online shopping for now!

Check out our online catalogue here

“You’re only limited by your imagination!”

CAFE RACERS

Mostyn Wild

This build is one in a series of Braaap Mercury builds we are doing.

The 'Wild' includes:

• Whitewall tyres
• Custom paint
• Airbox removal
• Custom seat
• Different handlebars/graip and mirrors
• price: $7000.00

Mostyn Envy

The Mostyn Envy is one of our favourite Cafe Racer builds to date. The call was for a british racing green 'but in metallic'. The chocolate diamond stitch seat works really well with the colour.

The upgraded carb meant we were able to clean out the space where the airbox would have been and get another 10% performance out of the bike. Small touched like the headlight grill, bars and mirrors just finish it off.

Price:$4900.00

Mostyn Mild

Mostyn Mercury ‘Mild’   Introducing the dapper gentleman motorcycle in our range of Mercurys. The Mostyn ‘Mild’ is a brand new Motorcycle designed right here in Australia.   Features of this great bike include:

• Shinko Whitewall tyres
• Café Racer Looks
• Bar-end mirrors
• Chrome Guards,
• Flat Handlebars
• 250cc motor
• This whole package is available right now for $5500.00

CB550/4

This CB550/4 started off life as a quazi bobber with questionable characteristics. What we ended up with is a light and growly machine that had no troubles in the twisties and looks great standing still.

POA

BOBBERS

SR500

This is an SR500 that has been chopped at the back. Unlike a lot of our bobbers, this one kept some rear suspension for a slightly easier ride. Very low and very loud. An absolute pleasure to ride.

Jailbird CX500

The jailbird started life out as a late model CX500. We dropped the back and made custom fenders up. We also changed all the lights to our 'slotted' range. the airbox was removed and airpods installed. The 2 into 1 exhaust was ceramic coated and the custom seat was made in-house to get that low profilefeeling. in total we removed 30kg's off the CX and the satin black paint job finished it off.

XS650 Hardtail

This is how a lot our XS650/Triumph builds start. this jig allows us to get the frames millimetre perfect. From here we mock up the build before pull down and final paints etc. Notice the ability to extend/shorten the back end as well as change the head angle.

Interest Free Finance available on all Motorcycles at Mostyn

Motorcycles are cool. Our motorcycles are cooler. Getting one NOW is coolerer (yes it’s a word in our dictionary haha). So how can we make this happen?

The boys in our finance kitchen have been working hard to land a deal for any of our customers wanting to purchase a bike on finance. With recent changes we can now offer you low interest and 6 months interest free terms available.

What does this mean for you? Come in and check our range of bikes. We can put a quote together with any modifications and/or gear you need and in most cases have you approved within 30 minutes

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Snapchat Directory for Motorcycle Enthusiasts

What’s the difference between Motorcycle shops 15 years ago to now? We think there shouldn’t be too much.. unfortunately we might be a minority.

It seems that there’s more and more workshops with a cafe attached, winter wear/summer wear, surfboard racks, skateboards, restaurants, barbers and tattooists to name a few. It makes sense in a way. The more motorcycle shops there are, the more it’s necessary to branch out to find supplementary incomes to keep the doors open.

One change we have got on board with is Snapchat. Even if you think it’s purely a way to hide your dirty messages from your partner, it has become the fastest growth social media platform ever.

So why do we want to put together a directory of decent Motorcycle Snapchat accounts to follow? Think of it like this. Facebook and Youtube are like a Jackie Chan movie. Lot’s of great stunts, plenty of action and a good way to spend an hour and a half (if you are like my kids). Now think of Snapchat as the outtakes at the end of the movie. 10 second snippets of what is really going on behind the scenes. Hopefully the good and bad. It’s a way to strip back the rubbish that makes everything look easy and instead show the ‘back end’ of a business/person (not just in the motorcycle industry).

That’s the way we are looking at it anyway. So if you know of a great Snapchat account let us know and we will include it here.

@mostyn_mcycles

@harleydavidson

@nichecycle

Braaap Release New Cafe Racers

With the warm weather coming there’s a whole new range of Cafe Racers coming from Braaap.

There have been many changes since the Mercury 250cc Cafe Racer was released 2 years ago. Mostly behind the scenes as the bike itself has not needed modifications. For one Braaap and Sol Invictus are no longer ‘partners’ in the distribution of this bike.

Both companies now offer their own models with slight variations. Braaap are calling their model the ST-250 and have decided to market 3 variations. They are the Shadow, Atlas and the Cadet. Certainly early reports show the Cadet to be overtaking the popularity of the Shadow (the Matte black Mercury for those familiar with the old lineup).

The Cadet is set to be Braaaps most popular release. As Mostyn was the biggest seller of aftermarket parts for Braaap we can confirm that one of the most popular upgrades was the seat to the ultra slim design. This now comes as standard fare on this model in the brown that matches the Army green paint job perfectly.

The next variation is the Atlas.

This same silver finish was available in the limited edition version last year. It also proved to be very popular among the new riders interested in the model.

Finally fans of the Marquee would already have seen the Shadow. This Matte Black version is the same as last years and outsold the Red and Gloss Black Mercury hands down. If you’ve seen these bikes on the streets and it wasn’t customized then it was most likely the Matte version. Still comes with the single seat and Matte Black exhaust.

The lineup hasn’t changed other details. The wheels are still the 17 inch rims and the powerplant remains the same. The most noticeable change will be the new 450cc variation available in the next 2 weeks. In the past this was an upgrade possibility whereas now it is available from the factory as a standard feature.

We will have links available in the next couple of days to all the new models.

Yamaha Scorpio 225 Custom Build

We’ve known about one of the smaller Yamaha road bikes available for quite some time now. There’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ bike right?!

Through a strange turn of events I found myself riding a very standard 3 year old Scorpio with only 200 kilometres on the clock. I had the pleasure of riding around some beautiful mountain scenery not far out of Maxville on the NSW coast. Even with it’s small capacity (or maybe because of it) I really enjoyed throwing it around the twisties and stayed out much longer than the perplexed owner wanted me too.

Fast forward a couple of years and a new customer and all round good guy Tom mentioned he wanted a build done with the base being a Scorpio. We jumped at the opportunity and after a very long night meeting discussing  details we jumped head first into this build.

As mentioned the standard Scorpio is pretty uninspiring style wise so we really wanted to tear it back to basics. The build we decided on needed equal parts of Yamaha heritage, Island tracker feel (tip of the hat to some of the bikes we’ve seen in from Thailand and Indonesia) and our own design styling.

What we were left with when it was bare bones was a great platform in a super light package. These bikes will do the speed limit already but there’s no point in pointing it up a drag strip. Making it lighter and giving it the retro look was definitely on the cards.

After a bit of back and forth the Yamaha stripes were decided upon. Black and yellow have been done to death so after seeing a pic of the RZ paint job from the 80’s we went with the red/white you see here.

The seat was made with a plastic base and our in-house upholsterer finished it off in Black Naugahyde as you see here. There were a few different options for the tyres but we wanted something semi-aggresive while still not being terrible on the road.

Gauge, indicators and taillight are all POSH items that we already keep on the shelf so the only other custom parts needed were the loop and the guards which we make in our metal fab department.

Once the bike was together we wanted to get some cool shots and being 5 minutes form the beach and with this having an ‘Island’ feel from the beginning we called a good friend of the shop Jon Woods to do what he does best in the photography department. These shots were all taken at dusk with some very crafty flash work that I can’t begin to fathom. #nofiltershere

A big thanks to all the guys involved including Tom for letting us get this great bike on the road.

For further information or if you want something similar, look here.

Custom Guard for Cafe Racers and Bobbers

Due to the increasing demand of custom guards we have simplified our order process.

With different styles and widths etc available you can quickly and easily tell us exactly what you require. Once we have all the information we require we can get our team into making it up for you.

Here’s what you get:

• Guards hand rolled from 1mm Steel
• Brackets cut out of 1.6mm steel
• Hand rolled guard with brackets solid mounted or loose
• Light acrylic coating ready for base and top coat painting *
• No holes in brackets to allow for custom fitting to the bike
• Typical cost for front guard: $170 or rear guard $220**

* Guards are not ‘file finished’. If you want them bare let us know and we will give you a custom quote.

** Rear Guards are typically longer but do not come with brackets.