The two had acquired a XL500S, vintage unknown and fairly knackered from Axels brother a while ago. Beetlejuice rode the bike to work and back and on some dirt roads around Gordons Bay for a while and, with his superior bike riding skills, managed to break it. It had a terrible noise coming from inside the depths of the engine. It was so bad that he stopped riding it. Seeing that it was actually Axels bike, it appeared to be a good time to hand it back to him.
Beetlejuice was the proud owner of a Yamaha TT600 because about a year earlier he also got lucky when Marc Forrest came for a visit, bought a second hand TT600 from Linex Yamaha, thrashed it on a couple of trips up the West Coast and left it in his care when he returned to Oregon.
Back to the present. At this stage it mattered little that both bikes were broken. Both blessed with unparalleled organisational skills, many, many contacts and access to vast resources they were certain they had what it took to get everything organised with time to spare, so they started dreaming about the trip. Soon they were sleeping under imaginary stars after a supper of cooked lizards and sun dried grasshoppers washed down with a dram from Axels silver hip flask.
Riding off into the sunset and all that…
Then one morning they checked their digital calendars and saw that it was 3 weeks before they planned to leave. Lightly trembling, manicured, tanned and muscular hands reached for telephones, bringing it to ears on immaculately groomed heads. Numbers were punched. Brows furrowed. Views were exchanged, panic spread. They decided they’d better start working on the bikes.
It was a rude awakening because at that stage neither one of them had yet won the Lotto, much to their surprise. So certain were they of this that they never stopped poring over maps and trawling the Internet for every scrap of information they could get, from GPS way points to places to camp and places to see. Planning and dreaming was, of-course, infinitely more fun than working on the bikes.
But it had to come up sooner or later. They had to face up to the fact that a trip like that would require the use of a bike. Two actually, if they were to avoid the constant fights about who sits in front. So off to their respective garages they went and soon established that the XL definitely required a new crank and possibly a new piston and rebore and the TT 600 needed a new casing, piston and re-bore. Or a new engine.
Both bikes needed a lot of money to get fit, or a miracle of sorts to have them fixed just enough to last the trip. Needless to say, they set out to find these miracles. Off they went in search of a new crank for the XL. Their search taking them to the sleepy see-side village of Muizenberg, then to some idiot with a double garage full of XL spares (they saw at least 5 cranks) but who wouldn’t sell them a single thing.
Beetlejuice had the TT motor stripped and found that a bearing where the crank goes into the casing was finished. Some said it could be repaired but no-one recommended it. The alternatives were to find another engine or have the casing replaced.
So, with two weeks to spare they found a XT 550 and bought it for the engine that they could use in the TT, the seller threw in a crank for the XL, saving a lot of money. They were happy. The crank was taken to Grabouw Suzuki where the motor was still laying in boxes in anticipation of the “miracle”. More phones were raised to ears, buttons were punched, and Grabouw Suzuki were instructed to fix the XL500’s motor. It got a complete overhaul, rebore new piston and rings etc. At first the plan was to have them replace the crank and do the minimum to get the bike running. They called with the quote and it was a miracle Beetlejuice didn’t go round there and flatten them. New pistons kit, gasket kit, rebore the full Monty. Hannes, owner of Grabouw Suzuki, flatly refused to put the old piston back and they didn’t have time to do it themselves.
Two days before they planned to leave Beetlejuice borrowed his fathers pick up truck and went to fetch the XL motor and put it in but something was wrong, the kick starter didn’t move! Panicked telephone calls. Hannes saying, bring it back we’ll fix it, I know what’s wrong. Took it back and they fixed it – a washer they installed jammed the kick starter.
Meanwhile Axel had his own problems. The idea was to transfer the barrel and piston from the TT to the XT’s bottom end as the XT has a bad case of piston slap and the TT needed the new casing, which the XT had, giving a useable 600cc motor that should be OK. They were led to believe the parts are interchangeable on the XT/TT but soon found out the barrel didn’t fit into the casing. Axel called Beetlejuice and said pick a motor. He picked the XT motor, reasoning that a piston slap is the lesser of the two evils. So it was that the XT motor was transferred to the TT.
As it happened they were now a couple of thousand rand poorer and had 2 bikes that were running. The TT sounded very sick. The piston was slapping bad. It also had no electrical stuff. The day before they left Beetlejuice went and bought a 6V battery and put it in, thinking that’s all that was needed to get lights, cameras and action but - nothing happened. Maybe because the XT engine was 12V. But he only figured that out on the way back. The TT was also not registered to anyone in particular, so he found an old number plate in his garage and slapped it on. Then took the licence disk from the XT which was still valid although it didn’t match the plate of the bike. They were hoping the cops wouldn’t notice.
The XL was almost legal, having been registered and road worthied recently. In a moment of compassion for the luckless Beetlejuice Axel decided he’ll also go the illegal route so he fitted the XT’s number plate, saving himself R30 for a new plate and that was it, the bikes were ready and straining at the leash.
Not.
Tags: Richtersveld Adventure
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