Rushed Dragon build

[guest7]

Yep, I find myself in the strange position of not having a taxed bike ready for the dragon. To make matters worse, two of the bikes I could have taken are up for sale.

This leaves my old sidecar bike as the only real option. I don't really want to ride it as a solo so I intend fitting my new (old) Velorex chassis for the rally. I was going to use the bike with nice leading link forks and a 15" rear wheel, but all that mularky can wait until i get back from North Wales. For now the bike will be built up on its standard XBR wheels. I was also going to fit my refurbished 650 motor, but in the interests of saving time I think I will chance getting the 400 miles out of the humble 500 lump that is fitted. It is rumbling badly, but I think it should last for the weekend of the rally. If it is really bad then I will be able to do an engine swap in an evening so I'm happy leaving it till last if necessary.

I dragged the chassis of the sidecar out of hiding and offered up the Velorex wheel that I had bought from another source. To my relief they went together well enough. My wheel came with a brake plate, but the chassis came with the alternative bearing cap that will allow me to fit the wheel without the brake plate for now... one less thing to worry about.

So on day one of the rebuild I checked that the wheel fits and it does. I took out one of the wheel bearings and checked the code and I will see if they are easy to get. I have no idea of the history of the wheel I bought so I reckon it's best to chase up some bearings now rather than closer to the rally.

The next step is to offer up the chassis to the bike and see what fittings are needed.

Watch this space
GC

[guest7]

Today I took the chassis off to the car repair business run by a very old friend of mine (amongst other highlights he witnessed my tragically misjudged Raleigh Tomahawk Evel Knevel impression in the summer of '73).

Somehow, despite an abslute embarassment of tools I don't own a power bar and I needed one to loosen off the bolts on the sidecar chassis struts. Mike and his lads did a great job of freeing off all the bolts and they also used the oxy to heat up and reshape the bent front sidecar mounting lugs, which they then welded back to the chassis. I even got a cup of coffee whilst I was there.

Recently the lad who works there asked if I wanted to buy his tool cabinet as he'd bought a new one. We agreed on the sum of £20 and I brought the van down to take it away. I looked in the drawers and saw they were full of tools. When I asked him about this he said "I own Snap-on tools and that's all I use now". I tried to argue with him as £20 was way too little for the cab and three drawers full of tools. He said "If you want to buy the cab it's £20, if you don't want to pay that then don't have it, that's the end of it". Obviously I said ok and took it all away.

The haul of tools included lots of Britool and Draper and a set of Blue Point sockets. I was pretty pleased. He is genuinely happy about the deal and today he was laughing because a day or so after I'd taken the tools away they had a Britool catalogue through the post and it featured one of the tools he given me, a 1/2" drive Britool ratchet... for the reduced price of £76  He's a good bloke and obviously I owe him a favour. As an aside, he's also the son of a girl that me and his boss used to play with when we were kids, which makes us feel very old.

Back to the sidecar chassis. I will be offering it up to the bike in a day or two, it all comes down to when I can get the bike back onto its wheels.

GC

[guest27]

As an aside, he's also the son of a girl that me and his boss used to play with when we were kids, which makes us feel very old.

GC

And is why he calls you Dad..

R

[guest7]

Very droll Roger 

No work on the project yesterday apart from tracking down the bearings for the sidecar wheel. I was delighted to discover that you can buy 'em on Ebay at prices starting from 99p each  Bloody marvellous stuff.

I gave the sidecar suspension a bit of a bounce and bounce it did... not even the last vestige of a ghost of a hint of any damping left in the shock   
Oh well... it will handle like a Watsonian Squire then 

Given recent difficulties in uniting my £600 CB500 with a buyer (it was a Cat 'C' write off in the past and that is an issue if you ever intend part-exing the bike) my brother and I talked about it and I have to agree with his argument that the CB is probably the better bike to mate the chair up to for the Dragon. All the sidecar lugs can be put back on in half an hour and I know it's reliable. Also, I have to get the CB MOTd and taxed anyway so I may as well use it for the rally before returning it to its full solo glory.

I haven't done any work with the XBR so I haven't wasted any time going down that route. I was going to build the XBR up in a temporary form for the rally and strip it all back down again after I got back so in one way using the CB instead saves a lot of hassle.

GC

[guest7]

Slight change to my plans...

I am keeping the CB as a plan B and I will ride it to the rally solo if I have to.

I will be having a push on the XBR this week to see how close I can get with it. There are problems with putting a chair on either bike, but I'd rather get it onto the XBR if I can.

GC

[guest18]

Good luck! From someone trying to sort out an XBR outfit with... erm... "patina" I think the salesmen call it ( ) you have my sympathies and best wishes!

[guest7]

Well it's not like I haven't tussled with a reluctant XBR and chair in my garage before 

All the motor has to do is last 400 miles for the trip to the Dragon and back. The chassis is a bit tatty, but it was a fully functioning chair puller until very recently so I'm quite confident.

One glitch is the monumentally notched head bearings, but I have a new set of taper rollers on the shelf and I will begin fitting those tonight.

The wheels have brand new chunky Mitas tyres and the brakes are ticketyboo (once I've pulled them off my GB and refitted them to the XBR).

As I said, all it has to do is pass an MOT and then do 400 miles. After that I will tear it back down for a full refurbishmnet.

GC

[guest18]

Doddle then  Just whatever you do, DON'T attempt to remove the ***** spark plug!!

[guest7]

Well, popped out to the garage tonight and pulled the forks off the bike. In the process I managed to snap three of the mudguard mounting bolts. I was expecting that so I'm not worried, the forks are now in my hallway and in the morning I will throw them in the van and take 'em to my engineer to get them helicoiled.

I backed off the head bearings and they felt immeasurably better so I might leave them and see how the MOT goes. I had them tight because I don't have a steering damper fitted and it helps with the shakes if the bearings are nipped up. This was a tip from my some-time Elefant riding partner Tim and it has worked well.

I refitted a standard XBR tail light in place of the old CG light that I fitted in an attempt to go more than one week without a tail light fault... if there is one XBR bugbear that gets me really annoyed it's the way that the tail light gets all the road crud thrown at it and then fails.... grrrrr. The CG light was bloody brilliant in comparison with the XBR 'un, but in true Honda fashion, even though it fitted the aperture perfectly, the mounting bolts were just that bit too different to enable you to securely fit the bloody thing.

GC

[guest7]

Forks were dropped off this morning to Mr Brian North, an excellent motor engineer. Whilst there I got him to check out my GB wheels to make sure that they are fine... I don't want to sell them as fit for purpose if they are not. He said they are good to go, phew 

I'm going to wire up the tail light tonight, but then it's off to the pub for a game of skittles (yes, yes, I know, but I was forced into joining the team).

GC

[guest7]

Experienced a slight stall due to lack of spare time over the last two nights.

Rear light is now wired up.

I should be able to pick up my forks from the engineer tomorrow morning, freshly helicoiled.

With the forks back in I can refit the front wheel and brake and get the whole thing off the axle props which currently support its weight. Then I can slap everything else back on, start it up and give it a pre-MOT once-over.

The next step after that is to mate the bike and sidecar. This will almost certainly involve some fabrication so I need to get to this stage pronto so I can get my drawings off to the fabricator I use.

GC

[guest7]

I offered up the chair to the bike and emptied my box of fittings to find some that will enable me to cobble a complete set of mounts. The two upper struts are fine, but one lower needs modifying and the other needs fabbing from scratch. I will try to get this sorted tomorrow.

The bike is now back on its comstars with brand new Mitas tyres fitted.

Somewhat against the odds the XBR's battery is still holding some charge so I will try charging back to full power tomorrow.

GC

[robG]

What's happened to the Jawa?

Rob.

[guest27]

What's happened to the Jawa?

Rob.

Parellel project in the hope that one may work?

R

[guest7]

Exactly right Rog. The Jawa is over at my brother's place and he has sorted out a couple of niggles. We're meeting up this weekend to see if it's worth trying to get an MOT on it and riding it to North Wales.

The good thing is none of this work will be wasted, the Jawa needs an MOT and the XBR needs sidecar mounts for a Velorex anyway.

The back-up plan is getting my CB500 MOT'd tomorrow (fingers crossed). This also needs an MOT even if I don't use it for the Dragon as it has to go for sale soon anyway.

It just down to which one comes good first.

GC