Wrong stroke, too many cylinders, but...

[robG]

Any advice about what to look for when viewing a Jawa (two stroke) 350?

No reason... 

GC

Skip.

Rob.

[guest7]

Gareth and I have just bought the outfit.
Will write more tomorrow
GC

[squirrelciv]

Is this going to be your Dragon ride or is the plan to break it up for the chair??


(Congrats BTW )

[guest7]

Bike has to go off to local mechanic to see if it's Dragon-ready. If yes then it will get reunited with the chair, if no then the chair will go onto my XBR.

Here are some piccies:







As you can see the chair is in superb condition with the exception of a broken light lense. It comes with a canvas tonneau and the hood and frame.

Price £400.
GC

[squirrelciv]

Looks OK for £400. Best of luck at the garage.

[guest7]

Cheers for that Pat. The bike is off the sidecar now and in the back of my van waiting to be delivered to the (unsuspecting) mechanic on Monday morning. The bolts were all easy to remove and hopefully indicate a fairly sheltered life for the old nail.

I hope the bike is a runner as Gareth has definitely taken a shine to it. 

I don't know if you have come across one of these outfits in the flesh, but they are so bloody light! We had to wheel it up my dad's steep drive today and in the past, with my outfits, this has been a hassle. However, I reckon I could have done it by myself, onehanded.

One other good thing is the presence of a fairly new car battery in the sidecar boot, this came in very handy yesterday when we towed the outfit home in the dark and I was able to use the lights, even though the bike wasn't running. The brakes were less useful and I was pretty worried about running into the back of the tow car more than once.

GC

[Mark]

I am quite envious, I've had a couple of these outfits in my younger days, no problems and loads of fun.

[guest7]

I am quite envious, I've had a couple of these outfits in my younger days, no problems and loads of fun.

(In a whisper) the brakes are a bit shit though aren't they? 

If we get the Jawa back on the chair then this will be the first sidecar-braked outfit I will have ridden, I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out.

GC

[SteveC#222]

One other good thing is the presence of a fairly new car battery in the sidecar boot, this came in very handy yesterday when we towed the outfit home in the dark and I was able to use the lights, even though the bike wasn't running.

GC

Nice looking outfit GC. Looks like you might have got a good 'un.

Do I take it that the bike's alternator is charging the car battery? ( replacing the bike battery)

If so, a word of warning.  They did this a lot  in the Cossack club. No problems as long as the car battery is fully charged. However, if the battery has gone a bit flat and you try and recharge it by just going for a run on the bike, you can burn out the alternator!  Because the car battery has such a high amp hour rate, when it's flattish it tries to draw more power from the alternator than a bike alternator can provide (car alternators are about 500 watt output or more, bike generally less than 200)
and so the alternator can burn out. If you decide to keep it it might be worth seeing if an MZ disc brake front end would fit or if you can fit a Honda TLS front wheel ( That's what I did on one of my old MZ's and it works a treat!)

[guest7]

As is entirely typical of my biking life, I sold a TLS Honda wheel at Stafford in October... Doh!

Thanks for the battery tip.

I noticed that the bike is still on a Barum front tyre... please don't tell me that it's likely to be the original tyre from new 

GC

[Richard]

Grham,

I can probably provide an MZ front wheel and disc brake, even a whole front end, although it is cast and therefore fairly ugly.  What I lack is the time to strip it down but let me know.......

Ricard

[Andy M]

Do I take it that the bike's alternator is charging the car battery? ( replacing the bike battery)

If so, a word of warning.  They did this a lot  in the Cossack club. No problems as long as the car battery is fully charged. However, if the battery has gone a bit flat and you try and recharge it by just going for a run on the bike, you can burn out the alternator! 

You can do this with a bike battery. No vehicle system is designed to deal with anything more than what's used to start the engine. The problem is cooling, made worse on most bikes by having the alternator bathed in boiling oil.

If you fit a car battery you gain nothing in terms of over all capacity, you can't suddenly run a bank of spotlights and three heated jackets. What you gain is a battery that will hold enough charge to start the engine at low temperatures (half of 60 Ah is a lot of cranking, half of 8 Ah and you have to hope the coil is good and the carbs are right), plus, a replacement Ford Escort battery is £30 rather than £80. At low temps you don't have the charge issue as the capacity has dropped, you will have to replace the lost charge as the battery warms up but that's a lot more gradual than starting with a battery that's half discharged and wants charging*. On a bike with a kickstart and a very small alternator I'd wonder why anyone would go to the trouble of fitting a car battery, the bike battery charges faster plugged in to the wall and the kicker gets you going on cold mornings.

* For those readers of this site who think in terms of electrical pixies, the pixies get hot and bothered carrying buckets of pixie food from the alternatior (food factory) to the battery (cupboard). The pixies want the battery to be full and will fill any unused space as quickly as they can. When there is only a little space they fill it up and can take a rest, when there is too much space they kill themselves working to get the job done.

Whats the VR on the Jawa? If it's mechanical I'd want it off ASAP, they can be horribly unreliable and inefficient.**

** The Pixies don't like moving the big heavy gate that's there to stop them overfilling the battery, so they don't bother if they can avoid it. They only bother when the battery is almost empty and then they struggle to fill it up. The gate has a habit of falling off it's hinges.  

Andy

[002]

Jawa/CZ did a Disc brake on their later models,find one and its a straight swap !

Yes the charging system is Mechanical and the alternator output is around 100/120w !!!
Pretty low output as its not needed for much.

Jethro

[guest7]

Jawa/CZ did a Disc brake on their later models,find one and its a straight swap !

I believe some club members advocate stopping Eastern European two stroke sidecar outfits using hedges and walls. 

GC

[trophydave]

Whats the VR on the Jawa? If it's mechanical I'd want it off ASAP, they can be horribly unreliable and inefficient.**
Andy

It's a common mod on the 2 smoke MZs to replace the VR with an electronic one.There is a car one{forget which} that fits.It's cheap and it works well.

I had a complete MZ disc brake front end.I sold it to a mate but I know that he hasn't used it for anything,it's still sat in his garage.