All posts by Supersquirrel

Engineering, New posts

What have I done?

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I like many people have a love/hate relationship with ebay. It requires a certain level of discipline, which late at night or when struck by the ‘I can’t miss this opportunity’ feeling, seems to be lacking in me occasionally. Mostly I find that these purchases were good ideas, but immediately afterwards I’m generally found shaking my head at my own impetuous behaviour.
So what did I do? I bought a lathe.
God knows what condition it’s in, I couldn’t afford to pay for anything that looked like it had sat at the back of someones workshop unused for 60 years so I’m fearing the worst. I know what it once was though and that was a very high quality 1950’s 4″ tool-room lathe, with screw-cutting capabilities. I’m just hoping that I can deal with whatever issues it has.

It’s a pretty difficult job to work on vintage bikes without having machine tool capabilities and a lathe is pretty fundamental. Especially if you are racing/ breaking bits. Fork spindles, spacers, gearbox bushes, hubs and drums, brake shoes, footrests, the list goes on.

I’m arranging to pick it up next weekend, so I’ll post pictures after that.

Images, New posts, Racing, Triumph Tiger 100

Triumph cylinder head

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I’ve decided to rebuild the Triumph this year, after being working engine-less since the last BHR Cadwell meeting in 2009 I think), when the 680cc motor blew the RH cylinder apart just above the base flange at the end of the start/finish line straight at Cadwell, just as I was going into Coppice. Fortunately, being used to a two stroke, I’m pretty quick on the clutch and I just pulled off.
The 680cc motor is very exciting in the Triumph, as it does make it bend in the middle a bit and that trait is at the heart of more than one story.
Although I’d probably prefer to keep the big motor in it, a change to classes in the BHR racing has meant that the old vintage class (up to 1934) has been joined to the post vintage class (up to 1948). The grids numbers became too low to run them separately. This meant that whilst before you could get two rides in the vintage with the Scott and two in the post vintage with the Triumph, I have only the ‘up to 48’ class and the ‘unlimited up to ’63 class’ that I can ride with either.
I thought since I can do those four with the same bike, it would be nice to have the Triumph running as a 500 to run in a separate class.
I’ve got a 500 iron head that I over-enthusiastically ported when I was about 15 years old and then later (over)skimmed to increase the compression. It’s an example in iron of what not to do if trying to make a bike go faster. I could possibly recover it, but I do actually have an unmolested one and it may be the wisest thing to start again with a bit more care.

Me and Triumph at Beezumph 2009
Me and Triumph at Beezumph 2009
Historical posts/ stories, Motorcycles, Scotts, Stories

Blue Rollers

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by Titch Allen around 2006

My Father, Roger, had known Titch Allen for many years. Titch had been a founder of the Vintage Motorcycle Club and was a great fan of racing, modifying and using the bikes.
He lived a very long and interesting life and was a mine of great stories.

He used to visit us quite regularly when I worked with Roger, and one day I made arrangements to make a recording of a story.
This is his blue rollers story.

Historical posts/ stories, Motorcycles, Stories

Colin Bradshaw’s Scott Sprint Special

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Some years ago, when the Scott Owners Club rally was still held at Stanford Hall I found myself stooping over one particular machine. There were lovely details to various modifications and I was very impressed. I think I spoke to the owner, whose name was Colin Bradshaw, and also his son.

Some time later, we appealed for stories through the Moss Engineering website and Colin’s son sent us a piece that he’d done about his father’s life with Scotts and specifically this particular machine.

Colin Bradshaw’s Scott Sprint Special