Retrograde Mechanica: July 2013

Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Friday, 26 July 2013

Atom Bomb Overlander

I know it's been kicking about the place for a while now - but seriously love this bike, and the fact it's not a bobber, chopper or some other .....er

Pics from the awesome Silodrome

Thursday, 25 July 2013

Ha Fixed!..........5 speeds are a nightmare, but after some swearing and sweating she's better than ever!

~~Right spent hours on this now - got it indexing correctly, can get all 5 gears when stationary...can't get above 2nd under load - any one got any ideas?~~

It all started when it was dropping out of 5th into a false neutral, so a new cam plate went in........then could only get two gears...so apart again (several times) then got all 5 back....took it for ride and can't get above second.....so new index plunger and spring went in....still the same....so new springs went into the selectors....still the same.....tether has ended.......help!

The Flat Tracker Project

58 Pre Unit with a 60 T110 Engine, bought for a song.....now just gotta turn it into something like Pitty Tink (See earlier post)....Hell Yeah!

Why i've bought it when the Bonnie Gearbox is still playing up I have no idea!

Saturday, 20 July 2013

Pitty Tink

I've always LOVED this motorcycle....well tomorrow I pick up my new T110 project.....and well we can guess what it's gonna end up like........(maybe not orange tho)

Looking for some short magneto type chain cases, a magneto and a single sided hub - if you can help give me a shout!

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

Mountain Cub For Sale

Tom's selling his lovely Mountain Cubbie - Here's what he says....

'Time for a change, not ridden this for almost a year now - its no good sitting in the garage - needs someone to love it and take it trials riding, plus I've got the urge to buy something else! - sensible offers considered - 07540015100'

Ton Up Day

Great ride over with loads of mates, and a great morning to booy!

"Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of a "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself"

"That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's mind — number three tappet is right on too. One more to go. This had better be it — .I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this...that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes...pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts...all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees "steel" as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's "potential"? That's also in someone's mind! — Ghosts"