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quote:
Originally posted by Lady Griffin
ell but-----Too young to take much notice at the time of names of bikes etc but Sunbeam Talbot springs to mind.My Dad in his early years did a lot of motor bike scrambling and, Noel, at his funeral service it came to light that he had a shed? old building, right across from St James' Council School and Church in Lostock Hall at the end of Moss Lane where he and his brother built up motor bikes from bits.Long before the war.Keep up the memories.Linda
There's still a shed there Linda but it's grown into a big shed now and every day you can see the lights from welding torches. Think they make storage tanks of some description.
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I remember that the 'Cyclemaster', which I think was built by BSA, was known as 'Stinkwheel',for the amount of blue smoke it poured out.This was caused by the use of ordinary motor oil in the fuel, the mixing of which was never very good, hence the blue smoke. It was a clever design, but underpowered, and the NSU 'Quickly' soon showed the way. That, and the introduction of 2 Stroke oil.
John
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Sorry about the pollution John, when I bought it I was given a gallon of "special oil", I think it was Petrol and SAE20 with a bit of Redex. I didn`t notice the smoke, because I was most likely praying that it kept going, and anyway it was behind. The big snag was if it oiled up and you decided to keep going, you had to pedal, and they were very low geared. You welcomed every downhill for a freewheeling rest. When I was east of India at the ratepayers expense, we had some Sexton S.P`s (and Priests) and they really smoked on start-up. They were Pratt and Whitney radials, and if they had been stood a while you had to manually turn them two full revolutions by hand to clear the oil from the lower cylinders,then hand start them on inertia starters, by then you didn`t care about the smoke. Just a quiet prayer of thanks to P&W that it started!! Sorry for going on, Cheers, Bill.
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All very technical chaps but fascinating stuff.Don't stop.Have checked and my Dad had an AJS, and Sunbeam later on.Although in later times he seldom strayed far from home I remember he always went to the TT races in the I.O.M. and brought me my first pair of silk stockings from there.
The bicycle was fine for getting away but the mo bike and sidecar really began to expand the horizons for the working man .That and the Charabanc trips -great for getting about the country and the odd fleeting romance.
Linda
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There were two other reasons the Cyclemaster smoked so bad. The first one was that it had a piston with no rings, like a model airplane engine. I think it was made from lignum vitae, a very hard wood. The second was that, to keep piston and cylinder wear down, they used a high oil content in the mix (8:1, I think).
Even after the advent of 2-stroke oil, there were still a lot of smokers. I had a 1960 Ariel Leader. It used a 16:1 mix and put out a lot of smoke at wide throttle openings. It used to clog up the baffles in the silencers. I inquired of Ariel if I could use caustic soda to clean them out and their reply was "yes, and by the way you can go to a 48:1 oil ratio too." Apparently, they had settled on the heavier mix because they didn't have the resources to do the endurance testing to see if less was ok - they relied on their customers to do it!
Frank Damp
Anacortes, WA
Frank Damp (wife Eileen, nee Nixon)
Leyland resident 1941-1965, emigrated to the US in 1968,
retired to Anacortes, Washington State, USA in 1999.
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I think that the early models of Cyclemaster were 28cc or about that, mine was 36cc and had a detachable cylinder barrel and an aluminium piston group with two piston rings, (don`t fidle, very fragile) the rings were stepped joints, tho` one I had was fitted with square ends and anti-rotation pins. The assemblies were cheap to replace, as the barrels soon developed steps. There were some types which ran on the back tyre by a diablo shaped roller, but never had one of those. The Cyclemaster being contained within the back wheel was a marvel of minitiarisation(?) in those days, I wonder why they died out? Lignum Vitae pistons? Thats a heavy subject. Regards, Bill.
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I was off down Holiday Memory Lane and ended up in an Engineering Works, motorcycle division........They still sell the 'Solex' over here, with the motor on the front wheel, very nice machine and cheap.
Holidays! As soon as the first bits of motorway were built, we young ladies started hitchiking, often to London , on a regular basis, to get away from Leyland. There was no MOT then, and some of the lorries that picked us up were from the 1930s, averaging 30mph.
Sometimes we'd just go to Manchester , Liverpool, or Blackpool for a paddle, or simply hitch to Fortés Caff for a coffee- desperate times!
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Hello Caroline, Sorry, got carried away!!! Cheers, Bill.
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You were daring Caroline to hitch hike.
Afraid I was born too soon before the days of real liberation for women.My dad used to stand at the gate watching for me to get home whenever I was allowed to go out.Boy friends had to say their farewells well out of sight.
Had never even been to London until came home from NZ in 1988 over 30 years after I left.
Had a wonderful time wandering round the city -so much history to absorb.
Luckily I had a friend caretaking a block of offices in St James'St with an apartment for visitors so I stayed there and just walked for hours.
Enjoyed the techo stuff chaps.Have been proof reading projects by Asian Engineering students at Auckland University so am getting more knowledgeable about nuts and bolts.
Cheerio for now
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Lady G, I like the comments about getting technical.... don`t ever ask me how paper is made, the Forum aint big enough, but thats another story!! Cheers,Bill.
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