wooden bikes etc

Here's my discovery of the day. You must see this guy's experiments. I found his site via one I discovered earlier this week and love, called Instructables



Enjoy!


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unusual garage jack - anyone know anything about it?

I have just acquired a curious garage jack, a Millennium, which if my initial searches are correct, was produced by Lake and Elliott, an Essex company. Catalogues for the forge go back to 1913, I believe. There are no hydraulics - the whole thing works on levers. When I first saw it in a corner of a garage I was clearing for a friend, I thought from its long handle and release lever, that it was a points changer....it has that look about it. As well as Millennium Garage Jack in the casting, it has the number P 191 A (that's what it looks like, anyway - At first I thought, hoped even, that it said 1914, but am pretty sure it doesn't, though the last figure is not totally clear)




Anyone know anything about it?




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one wheeled skateboards and tanks

Crikey, you really must see this! April 1st 1980-something I remember a hoax in one of the broadsheets about a one wheeled stretcher which had a gyroscopic balancing device, allowing it to motor up or down mountains without falling over, while carrying a patient. Like all great hoaxes, it was feasible because there was enough credible science included....

Meanwhile, way back in the 50s and 60s, this chap was adjusting the centre of gravity to achieve something which Dave Southall had been working on before he found these films, a one wheeled skateboard principle...a tractor which hurtles along with no hint of a wobble.

Incredible!

Who knows, if the principle had been turned inside out, this 1930s tank might have been possible...even without the stabilisers.

GURU

Been reading Dr Southall's website and think I have finally found my guru!




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Steampunk and monowheels

A year or two ago I got interested in Steampunk after reading an article about this aestheic cult in Rolling Stone. I spotted this steampunk concept cartoon today on Google when looking for monocycles, after seeing a Scrapyard Challenge repeat on TV this afternoon. I want one. The trickiest thing about making one has to be the bending of steel into a perfect circle; not a job for an amateur working in his shed! Then I discovered the blog of someone, Dr Southall, who has done just that...or rather he built one in his shed, but employed a tube bending company to do the tricky bit. So that is the solution!

The resident expert on the Scrapyard Challenge was an American, Kerry Mclean, who builds monocycles and rides them very expertly....inspiring stuff! He proves that in can be done.

Funnily enough, I designed a hubless wheeled trolley in 1992, when I was doing my degree, and that was inspired by black and white films of this 1932 contraption, which is more like a hamster wheel than a monowheel.

I really like the simplicity of Southall's Ring of Fire. It is superbly uncomplicated...and SMALL. And I like the look of the machine which appears to have inspired it,

the Bressen of 1969

I really must one day have a go at designing and making a monowheel.
They look such fun!

De-Cluttering and deals with neighbours

Lily has gone! She was taken away by Dez Stringer, who has been working on my J Type as part payment. Dez is a restorer and mechanic - in the real sense of the word; not just someone who replaces parts, but someone who repairs things. I have watched him work, while I have been his gopher and general dog's body, and from the depth of his knowledge I'd have imagined he was in his early thirties, but it transpired he is only 24!

I met Dez first at the Felixstowe Run a couple of years ago, and he realized who I was when he came to look at Lily, having seen her mentioned on a forum contributed to by a friend of a friend from work.

It was sort of sad to see Lily go but I really felt philosophical. I have got my money's worth out of her. The time was right. She needs to go to someone who can give her the attention she needs now...and I need to thin down on my projects. Life can feel cluttered when you have too much on.

Paul, my neighbour, whose garage I have been renting to work on my J Type, has been admiring my Lambretta Chopper, parked in the corner...and we have done a deal. He gets the scooter and I get 60 weeks' rent, power and access to the garage.
I have had my chassis in the garage for a little while but haven't been going in and out. Yesterday I built an easily opened gate through my immediate neighbour, Greta's garden fence to Paul's garden, where previously I had to move a heavy fence panel. The weight of the panel and concerns about their rabbit getting out acted as a deterrent to just popping in. Now I can go to my project whenever I want.

Greta and I had a chat yesterday and she is happy with the prospect of another year or two of me going across her garden, on the understanding that I will replace her garden fence panels.

All very satisfying.

A good day.....though twelve hours solid in my workshop...welding, constructing a metal gate and progress on my roof-rack and painting wheel plates etc left me with a back painfully in spasm!

But a feeling of satisfaction with progress, all the same.

Selling Lily

1958 Ford Prefect
100e

4 door

1172cc Sidevalve engine - 3 gear + reverse

Tax free - historic vehicle. I get comprehensive insurance (including business use) for £68! So she is cheap to insure, if you limit the mileage.

(1 month left on road fund and no MOT)

886 UXR (coincidentally, UXoR is Latin for wife) Period plate non-transferable. Original sold by previous owner.

Comes with spare windscreens, filters, radiator etc

£500 (negotiable)

I have decided to sell my Ford Prefect....and finally I am getting round to putting details online; so far people are already talking about this car online because a friend of a friend mentioned it on a forum, and as there has been some mistaken info doing the rounds, I thought I ought to set things straight.

I have shown all the bad points because I want nobody to be in any doubt about the challenges involved in restoring and keeping Lily, though I do have to admit that all I have ever done was keep her running, mechanically.

Until I took her off the road to work on her underside last year, I had run her continuously for 4 years and she was even more reliable than my Metro in winter. Never had a trouble starting her. Engine is sound.

In 2008: new battery and starter motor, suspension bushes and drive shaft bush and new lockable fuel cap with Ford engraved logo. Previous year I changed the exhaust manifold. This winter I put her on ramps (see below) and comprehensively waxoiled the underside, which has no holes and needs no welding. The chassis is solid. Carpets have been removed because of a tendency to absorb moisture - the windscreens leak because the rubbers are perished. Oil changes done regularly and gearbox oil checked too. I garaged it for the first two or so years I had it but this got expensive.

It looks ropey and work does need doing but structurally she is sound. Doors will need doing and bubbling just starting on offside sill needs to be nipped in the bud. A small hole is developing in the nearside sill, just beneath the rust in the front door.

This winter I went to bleed the brakes and couldn't remove a rear nipple, so brakes will need to be done. Currently she is held on handbrake, which releases fine, but you cannot use the footbrake for towing. You will need a trailer.

My girlfriend has convinced that I am over-stretched when it comes to projects (restoring 3 other vehicles) and that I cannot afford the time Lily really deserves to preserve her. She has only ever been a daily run-about for me.

Lily is huge fun to drive (I love the old fashioned sound the transmission makes and her second gear engine growl ....and her heater makes her warmer in winter than my house!) and she turns heads - everyone remembers a relative having one or having learned to drive in one. Other drivers are courteous and friendly and lots wave, especially other classic car owners. She has taken part in several classic car road runs, including the Felixstowe Run, twice. She will give loads of pleasure.

Here's the deal: if, like the bloke who looked at it earlier this week, you turn up, suck in your breath and shake your head in disgust and start banging on about how much time and money she will cost you to restore (in order to get the price down), it'll be £500 and rising. However, if your first reaction is one which shows that you can see how sweet she really is and you seem like you are going to lavish love on her, can manage a smile for me and feel to me like a fellow-enthusiast (rather than a scrap merchant) ....the price will gently descend. It is up to you.

Lily keeps me warm again

A few years ago my Prefect, with its heater whirring, was the warmest place to be on a wintery day - warmer even than my house...But failing that, the trick, as old folk know, is to keep active.

So, while others doubtless decided that when snow-bound, there was no alternative but to turn up the thermostat and watch TV all day, I was outside, scraping snow off Lily, bolting my newly-charged battery in, pulling out the choke and firing the old girl into life, before driving her up onto the ramps so that I could slide under her and inspect her bottom. I couldn't see the nascent hole which MOT chaps, last year, had said would make welding necessary before the next test (now past due), but I will have a better look when there isn't a stream of freezing snow run-off trickling down my neck.

I am hopeful that no welding will be necessary because the supposedly simple jobs always stretch out much longer than expected, and my time is far better spent. But I WILL have to tackle the rusty guttering above the car doors and the bottoms of the rear doors, as well as other bubbling patches on the bonnet and near the filler cap. No second hand price will compensate for losing the fun I have with Lily, so I might as well start looking after her properly.

I think I should seriously look at replacing the rubbers around the screens,which let in rain, the rust patches and along the trims....so that I can keep enjoying driving her. Quite frankly, she is more reliable than my "proper" car.

Eleven hundred miles by bike in 4 days

So, night three at a campsite near Glasgow on the way back (a site full of chavs and loud drunkards having a cheap holiday), some drunk comes up and says (roughly translated), "Have you put up a tent before, because you are doing that all wrong" to which I replied, "Have you grown a moustache before, because that one looks crap" and we fell about laughing. It broke the tension a bit after a tiring day on the road. We laughed and laughed.

ok, I waited for the drunk to walk off before I said it, to be honest :) but it was a side splitter anyway, though maybe you had to be there.

John had intended to get as far as somewhere or other even further north than Glen Coe and I pissed him off by not wanting to go that far, because, to be honest, we were rushing past some wonderful scenery to get to somewhere which neither of us knew and which was not certain to offer more than we were missing, as it was. I guess my philosophy of riding is just different from his, which is fine but it did make things a bit tense at times.

We covered over 250 miles per day, which I thought was pretty damned impressive, until we came across a cyclist who was doing 130 miles per day, just on a pushbike!

Glen Coe was absolutely fantastic. The campsite was a valley at the end of a long and windy road, and surrounded by 9 (John counted 10, but I didn't want to seem to boast, and anyway some of the peaks were parts of the same thing!) mountains. We discussed whether they were strictly 1000'+ and decided it was academic, as they were more than hills and bloody impressive anyway. Below them all round was forest, and beyond the mountains, an estuary from the sea. Marvellous. We followed the coastal road that night after supper, just for a laugh, and followed the 30 miles or so of the A838 circuit.

I figure we rode 1,150 miles in four days, which is easily the most miles I have done continuously, and certainly on a bike. I got really confident....better at reading other people's driving ; anticipating etc.

On the way back we stopped at Falkirk Wheel, easily one of the most ingenious engineering feats in the world. Have a look on this film on YouTube - speeded up by stop-motion.

The wheel cuts out the need for the 11 locks which were there (until dismantled in the 1930s)...in the space on just one and lifts boats 35metres! Wonderful, practically and aesthetically!

Here's a nice model of it in Meccano. There was a terrific architect's model of it in the exhibition centre, and I plan on making a moving model using some of the ex-school Fischer Technic John gave me this summer.






pics to follow -(they're on non-digital and on mate's camera)

5 days of biking - East Anglia, round Scotland and back

(John and the bikes at a really nice little kiosk at Felixstowe seafront a few weeks ago.)

This time next week I will have completed the first of five days with my mate and fellow-holidaying-teacher, John. We are counting down the days. On Sunday we are doing oil and filter changes, etc, test packing the bikes and planning our routes.

When we get back I am off to Sywell to learn to fly.

All in all, it is going to be a great summer!

Project musings

I got the GT550 repaired for the cost of a half hour's labour, though it will have taken a minute to sort it, at most. But it was money well spent because I was paying for expertise...and the man has saved me trying everything else the manual suggested; it didn't suggest this though! The tube which uses the vacuum created in the engine to draw fuel had somehow come off...and now I come to think of it, I probably knocked it when securing my tank bag. The result was that the bike was starved of fuel...though I think this was in one cylinder only. Anyway, I had a long ride after the repair and my confidence in the bike (recently purchased from the friend of a friend) has been restored.

Receiving a complimentary email from Tom, who came across my Lambretta Lowrider by accident and wrote to say it looks fantastic, makes me feel that I really must get it back on the road soon....when the van is finished. Tom is planning on building his own lowrider using an Li125 as a starting point. Good luck, mate.

I am thinking of selling Lily. She is getting rusty and I worry that I don't have time to deal with her deterioration. I feel ashamed, letting her go to hell like this. Mind you, I said this before, started getting her ready for sale (new battery, etc) and then taking her for a spin changed my mind! The few hundred I'd get for her would never compensate for losing her to some other lucky bugger. What a dilemma.

I also need to do something about putting my Cyclemaster back together. A local expert took the coaster hub apart and machined a replacement part which had sheered and jammed the brake on. I have all the parts of the bike ready to be reassembled, but it has sat cluttering up the box room for a year!

So much to do and so little time!

What next?! Bike breakdown - problem a mystery

After three hours glorious riding yesterday, I broke down on the A12 between Ipswich and Colchester - three times. Each time the bike started to lose power in top gear......and changing down progressively achieved nothing but a temporary reprieve....the bike died. Starting was hard....though leaving it for a while meant that it eventually started, except the last of three break-downs, though by then I think my battery was drained (electric start). Each time I got going I was able to cover only about a mile.

I didn't have a toolkit with me, though even if I had I would not have got further than checking plugs which I have checked and found fine today. I gave up and called the RAC who were diabolically slow and eventually a recovery truck arrived two and a half hours later, even though they'd only had to come from ten minutes away.

Today I checked the plugs, which looked fine, charged the battery, which meant the the bike did start, but it won't start without choke (even on a warm day like today's) and died when the choke was put in. It would not tick over without my hand on the throttle.

Damn, what do I try next? Tried all the simple things.

Air intake blocked, perhaps? Any suggestions?

Get on yer Bike and RIDE!!!

In fairness to the mechanics, they brought the bike in within the quoted price and seem to have done a bloody good job. I loved riding it home. And I am about to go out on it now. Encouragingly, they also said that what I thought was loose tappet noise was pretty normal and that I shouldn't worry.

Got that Queen song running through my head, albeit edited from bi-cy-cle to mo-tor-bike:

I want to ride my mo-tor-bike, I want to ride my bike di-na-di-na, di-na din........I want to ride my mo-tor-biiiiiiike........

GET ON YER BIKE AND RIDE!

If teachers could charge more when they discover that kids are thicker than expected....!

The GT550 failed its MOT on two points: headstock bearings were locking and the brake arm was floppy and needed retapping because it couldn't be tightened up. They are probably jobs I could have done myself....but you know how it is - if you start a job you will probably end up being interrupted, not having all the right tools, etc etc...and with no guarantee that you have done it to the MOT pass standard. So I bit the bullet and got them to do the jobs.

£46 plus VAT per hour - I swear, I am in the wrong business! That is twice what a teacher makes......and teachers can't charge for extra time spent on the job.

Worst case scenario quote was £230!!! SHIT.....and just when I think I can cope with that, they discover that their work on the headstock has affected the wiring, which they say they will put right at no cost because there was nothing wrong with the wiring before, but then they discover that the fairing bracket is affecting the run of the brake cable. So I tell them that if necessary I will rip the fairing off.....

Anyway, they are making good and hopefully they won't exceed the worst case scenario....but you bloody know they will and that they have you over a barrel.

How do they manage to sound irritated with you for feeling squeezed? You back off when the phone call is getting tense because they make you feel like if you play hard ball the price will go up.

But, all is not lost. I have worked out a way to foot the bill, I will just invoice the Headteacher for another 500quid this year. He will say that he has my contract which says I get 500 less than that, but I will just say that while I was teaching Year Two this year, I discovered that they were unusually thick so teaching them took a lot longer than anticipated. He will threaten not to pay and I will pull the old, "Well I can always open them up and take the new parts out" ploy.












In fact, I am going to float this with the teaching community :)





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Bat-Cave Manoeuvres

The turntable (or dolly) was purchased for a miraculous £39 plus postage on ebay and assembled in the bottom garage. I then cut away a step and put in a concrete ramp. I found, initially, that the floor locking mechanism slipped, so put holes in the concrete floor to anchor the dolly with steel bar.

Today I tested out the concrete ramp for the first time and the bike launched effortlessly up to the upper workshop and out the door, up the garden and through the new gate, which I wanted to test for fit. I adjusted the quick-release on the mirrors so that they can be folded in for this.

I turned the bike round (having turned the dolly round ready, because the side stand tray has to be on the left) and took the bike back down the garden for these photos...in which you can see the bike driving on to the dolly, the latter being turned around and pushed sideways out of the way. It is a terrific piece of kit.

Mantis transformed into Rack of Lamb

Discovered this bike last night and feel inspired. Been discussing it with Lori, a friend in Arkansas. I am planning on doing something similar on Mantis. I have never liked the dead space in Mantis's frame, where you'd ordinarily expect to see an engine. A crouching skeleton could be answer. In the next day or so I'll post a sketch of the idea. On Mantis I'd want the skeleton to be full size. I'd wrap the rib-cage around a rounded black tank (instead of the coffin tank). I like the halogen lights in the skull's eyes. I'd like the arms to be articlulated and fixed to the forks so that they move when the bike turns.

On mine there'd be less of the impression that the rider is shagging the skeleton and more the impression of riding on death's back.

Collected and cleaned Mantis

As planned, I pushed Mantis home today and cleaned her up. It was just as well I took a footpump with me as the tyres were completely flat. She was covered in cobwebs and dust and had lots of rust-spots on the chrome; altogether she was a sorry sight. But by the end of the evening she was looking pretty good.

I sat on Mantis this evening and it brought back just how much fun riding her is. John's right, I really must get the chop running again soon.

Getting Mantis from the garage

I am giving up the garage this month, so I have to get Mantis out this weekend and wheel it back to mine. She is in a sorry state but it wouldn't take more than a long weekend to get her running properly. John keeps nagging me, but it doesn't feel a priority right now.

The carb is on a rigid mount and really needs to be suspended on a rubber or flexi mount in order to stop my mixture from frothing, which in turn makes it hard to set the the tick-over just right. Apart from that, it needs general maintenance, cleaning, polishing and the headlight will need adjustment (also, come to think of it, the speedo doesn't register either).

I need to get it and the Cyclemaster back on the road this year for sure. The Cyclemaster only needs reassembly, though the front of the bike will need some tweaking after the crash down a flight of stairs had me landing on the front wheel, buckling it.

My wife, my car

When I was a ridiculous young romantic living in a fundamentalist commune 25 years ago I fell in love with a girl, but our relationship was forbidden under the strict courtship rules of the group, which required that before I could be married (no relationship at all unless it is for marriage), I had first to renounce all hopes of marrying, to then be told by the elders, years later, that despite my commitment to singleness, God had layed it on their hearts that I should be married. The Catch 22 for anyone in my situation secretly harbouring hopes of this happening was that the commune believed that God almost never approved such matches! It was in such circumstances that I wrote secret love poems in very bad Latin, because few would be able to understand them if they were found. Idiotically, I sent them to the girl herself, even though I should have known she wouldn't understand the code either, so that I then had to send incriminating translations.

I once got told off by a policeman when I scrawled one of these on a dusty back of a coach. American tourists to Oxford called me cute and took my picture when I translated for them.

This long preamble gives context to this posting, because one line included the hope that "mea uxor eris" (you will be my wife). When I went to the DVLA to point out that my 1958 Prefect had been allocated an 'A' reg in error (1963) when the old registration had been sold on, they acknowledged their mistake and said it would be put right for free. They gave me the next un-allocated period number (taken from a 1950s' London borough list), 886 UXR, which made me chuckle. UXoR means wife. My present girlfriend has always teased that I love my car more than her!

Spring cleaning 886 UXR

I spent some of this afternoon spring cleaning 886 UXR (is it Spring?). The garage roof leaks quite badly, so when I got her out after something like 5 months locked up, following the fuel cap scare, she was covered in crud and her floormats had puddles in them; though luckily they have waffle grids, so that it does not find its way onto the car floor.

Backing out onto the hill was hairy because the handbrake only just held her and the footbrakes were pretty hopeless. I shall need to tighten them up. Once in 1st, I held her on the clutch and then launched her up the hill, then ran back to lock up again....all the time more than a little anxious that she would start rolling back into the car behind her, even though I had left her in 1st gear.

I got her home and set about washing, waxing and generally sprucing her up. I de-mossed the window channels and sprayed son-of-a-gun on the windscreen rubbers in a last ditch attempt to restore them to life. There is no question that I will need to source some unperished ones, even if not the deluxe ones which take chrone trim.

Last night I got a cheaper-than-Frost aerosol of 5-wheel silver paint, which is for one job that needs doing before the Felixstowe run in May. I'd also like to get some rubber/cloth surrounds for the doors and window surrounds...so that water does not drip and gather in the bottoms of the doors. I am also going to have to tackle some rust spots along the roof gutter and at the bottom of doors.

But I must not be precious and I MUST NOT get too distracted from the 101, which is crying out for some progress, now that I have been sick for a week.I will get some pics tomorrow and put them on here.