Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: guest18 on May 12, 2009, 10:34:25 AM
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Was having the usual insomniac mind wanders last night and one of the things that crossed my mind was that perhaps our gallant home engineers who convert enfields to diesel are approaching thing the wrong way..
They look at bikes, look at diesels, mentally combine the two and the obvious answer is to use a pre-unit gearbox (heavy) which is easiest if we use a pre-unit frame like an enfield (also heavy) fitted with otherwise standard (heavy) parts... which knackers the already limited performance.
Perhaps a better approach might be to pick a nice light chassis/bike (lighter the better) and take the drive straight out the engine to a bicycle style derraileur gearchange... light, efficient and compact...
What d'ya think? Would a mountain bike transmission handle the awsome power of a Yanmar (copy) diesel?? The modern stuff is pretty reliable with 15 stone thugs stamping down on it!
I reckon if it worked it would take the dieso bikes from slug to useable *and* improve the already remarkable economy.
Of course I could be talking complete horlicks ??? :D lol
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its not the power of a diesel that would destroy the setup you describe, but the torque. when folk convert enfields to diesel they tend to use the enfield boxes because they can cope with the torque. tbh the best oilburner conversions use small car engines. the fave if you can find one is the diahatsu charade td, its a 1000cc three cylinder turbodiesel. famed for being capable of 50bhp yet able to do in the region of 100mpg. using bicycle style gears will tear them to bits within yards.
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I had a suspicion someone might say that ;) was a thought though :D
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So why not a mag cased Quaife box - good strong, lightweight.
£2600 each.
Oh! that has stuffed that idea.
Plan c
R
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Talking of diesels, anyone else coming to the diesel bike rally at the end of the month? (see events forum for details).
GC