Jawa 350 Style

[moilami]

CDI ignition. Should be reliable and pretty much issue free. Contact breaker Jawas has got a lot of hate.

[Zorge]

Oh, that is good!

I heard from local "Jawa" riders so many... to put it mildly - bad words about "Jawa's" contact breakers.

BTW, did herra Simpanen revealed to you some mojo, how to start "Jawa's" engine without a hitch, something like - open petcock, choke, kick softly, contact, give some throttle and kick manly, or similar sequence?

Are "Jawa's" still fitted with "Jikov" carbs?

[moilami]

Yeah, it does have Jikov carburator. Have you heard anything of it? I have heard some bad things like that if would not be very quick to supply fuel as requested if you go full throttle. Not sure if it is the carb or that the Jawa have such a huge fly wheel that it doesn't get revs as quickly as some MX two stroke. I haven't had issues with the carb, but I have driven very tenderly as I am breaking in the engine. People bad mouthed MZ's Bing carburator too, but the mechanic was enthusiastic of it and said it is a good carb. I dunno what's wrong with people, they seem to appreciate only over engineered stuff in bikes. As an B.Eng. myself I appreciate the most simple, low cost, and reliable systems. An engineer should strive to design low cost, purposeful, and reliable systems. Guess "purposeful" in markets is some over engineered high price status bike?

Simpanen did instruct me to open petcock, open choke, and then kick three times, enable electricity, and kick once without touching the throttle at any point. Said it will start each time if cold engine. Appears to work. When I drove the machine to home I stopped to eat at half way. When I was about to continue driving the Jawa went "temperamental" and refused to start up. I kicked it 5 minutes, thinking how I knew this would happen and how stupid it was to not drive the bike straight away to home. However, the man called who took me to the merchant and asked where I am. I explained the situation and he said that when he had IC 350 (his father and brother had Jawas) when the engine did that he gave full throttle when kicking so that the spark plugs would dry out. I was a little sceptical but chose to give it a go. Full throttle and Jawa showed signs of life. Another kick with throttle and it started up happily and idled like nothing would had happened

I am in heaven. Cars should be four stroke, bikes are good if two stroke. We have in Finland a word "prätkä". I don't know what would be a good translation for it. Jawa is a prätkä, or the prätkä, even, with MZ, there is no question of that. It is not "moottoripyörä", which translates to motorcycle. Prätkä is not a humiliating word, it is like, hmm, the real thing with no faking motorcycle.

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[moilami]

Not by the way saying over engineered bikes would be bad. Just saying less than over engineered bikes can be good.

[Krasi]

Underengineered stuff can be repaired, or rather "repaired", with spare parts from any local hardware store, like hammer, wire, zip ties, WD40, etc. You can't really fix a fuel injection on the side of the road, can you?

[moilami]

Yeah, local hardware store is the shop to get stuff, and there is no hi-tec to repair. When the design is simple it is usually easy to repair too.

[Zorge]

From what I heard, those "Jikov" carbs (at least, those "Made in Czechoslovakia", up to early '90s) were OK, and I don't have a reason to believe that ever since something changed in a bad way. Allegedly, with well tuned "Jikov", "Jawa" consumes averagely 4,5 l/100km, (in every day life, from 3,5 to 5,5 liters). As practice shows, "Jawa" also runs nicely with "Dellorto" VHBZ 26 carb, but if somethings works nicely, why to experiment?

This little thing you mentioned about delay, when you quickly twist the throttle... It is the case with every single "plain vanilla" slider type carb, without acceleration pump or some similar... thingie. IMO, when you have small displacement, low power bike, this deficiency of a carb is not so noticeable - in any case, when you quickly open the throttle, your engine doesn't have enough power to spin-up rear wheel immediately and what you get is only this annoying growl. You will see for yourself is this peculiarity of slider carb bother you on your bike.

I see that "Jawa" still have, almost air-tight, full chain guard. Do you know what is the best chain lube for that sort of protected chains? A good molybdenum disulfide grease - grease generously and forget about it 'till the next decade. I'm serious. You can go to car spare parts shop and get for patty cash a tube or two of CV joints grease.

One more thing considering chain. I think that "Jawas" are fitted with Czech "Favorit" chains. From my understanding, they were OK for low power bikes. But few years ago I bought size 415 "Favorit" chain for my old "Tomos" ATX, and fit him together with the new sprockets... I was unpleasantly surprised how much pretty soon he stretched. To be honest, I expected him to be much better. So, pay attention to the "Jawa's" chain too.

[moilami]

Thank you of the information, will have to get that grease, Simpanen said that is the best, but did not specify what kind of grease. I used grease in MZ too.

I am happy with the Jikov carburator, Simpanen opened one and it looked like a very simple carburator where jets are easily accessible. I don't care if my Jawa is a bit "temperamental". I can live with that easily

[barnone]

moilami,
That Jawa looks nice but where is the picture of the Jawa woman that came with the bike?

Hope she is like the other one you posted.
Jawa bike.jpg

[moilami]

Hehe, the position for Jawa Style woman has not been filled. There are some candidates, curiously enough Jawa has attracted them, but the position for Jawa Style woman is not very easy to fill.

Here would be a picture of rainy day joy ride.

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Was a great trip, I totally enjoyed of the rain and the colourful autumn. Now I am looking forward to get winter tires for the Jawa.