Exhaust ......

........something like that!

Look Familiar?

Found this for sale in India, only ships in quantities of 10+, somehow looks strangely familiar to me! Even the photograph is pretty similar.

Heavens Above

Coming at ya right out of the leftfield, what do you reckon to this then ??? I reckon is so different that it's great. Made by Sachs as a bit of a concept I think, but what a piece of kit.

Wheel Building

With the festive activities pretty much over and done with, and a break in the Arctic conditions, I popped over and picked the wheels up. Pleased ? Well you could say that, they're looking as cool as the weather and twice as bright. The rims are Akront Morad and not Borranis, a shame in a way but the drive towards period originality in the custom world has pushed the price of original Borranis through the roof. These look the same and Akront were a big player back in the day, don't matter which they are they're still a bastard to clean. Wait for the holidays to finish now and get 'em rubbered up.

Off to the side

Sorry chap's too cold to get down the shed so I offer up this for your delectation. From Heiwa in Japan, it knocks my socks off, can't find anything that I really dislike about it.
I reckon that Street Trackers and this, the Brat Style are the future of customising, because donor vehicles are available and they're still cheap, get in early.

A Bit Of An Update

Andy Berry phoned up last night with a progress report on the motor. The hold up is the crank, when he stripped it to replace the floating bush with a roller big end the drive side flywheel had been galled where the crank pin had been pressed in during manufacture. This is now at Alpha bearings getting the two flywheels line bored to accept a new slightly larger pin. Otherwise everything else in and on the motor is ready to go back together. I'm not really fretting about this as it's got to be right, and from what Andy is saying it will be a joy both to look at and use.
So I'm afraid it's gonna be a little longer yet chaps.

Bloody Snow !!!!!!!

The wheels are done, or so I'm told. Can't get over to pick 'em up due to the prevailing weather conditions. Ho Hum!

A Strange Affliction

The Madras Marauder is my sole means of transport, and as such gets used in all weathers including the sub-Arctic conditions we are experiencing across Britain at the moment. Generally the Ol' Girl is fine, starting and running on demand on the coldest of mornings, and that hasn't changed. However, of late, after running for a mile or two it started to miss, well not really missing as the exhaust note still sounded about right, but there was a decided un-willingness to rev and a hesitation. So I checked the points, the plug all the normal shit but to no avail, still the same. Thoughts of big end failure started to sneak in, and wouldn't go away, although stopping and starting again when it was in this condition was not a problem and it certainly felt free and smooth enough on the kick-start.

I'm running a 180 Watt alternator with a solid state rectifier/regulator package, all bought from a well known aftermarket manufacturer of such things, and a 60/55 Watt Halogen headlight bulb. For the last six months it's been overcharging when running without lights, so I've been lights on man since then, no problem there, just a bit gay I suppose. I wondered if that was the cause of the new problem, although the ammeter showed a reasonably well balanced state of affairs, I'm not sure if the AC from the alternator was "getting through" the regulator and screwing with the ignition coil. As a quick and easy test I opened up one of the two alternator leads and inserted a switch in line. This allowed me to effectively remove the AC input from the system when the problem occurred, just to see if there was an effect.

An effect there certainly was, when the gremlin kicked in the switch was operated to isolate the alternator and the cure was immediate, back to smooth normal running. This brings another force to bear though, drawing about 6 Amps from a small battery is not a long term prospect. So with temperatures struggling to get up to freezing it was a fun filled ride to the salt mine this morning, groping around under the seat to hit the switch whilst wearing gloves, being a manual cut-out type of thing.
Problem found then, but not the cure as yet, because of the weather and Britain's refusal to concede that we live in Northern Europe, the postal service is all to cock. I mean, snow at Christmas who would ever of thought it ? I phoned Paul Goff today and he is going to get a rectifier/regulator in the post Special Delivery so hopefully it'll be here Monday and normal service can be resumed. Just a point here, Paul did not supply the original unit that has gone FUBAR so this is new ground we're covering here.

Yokohama everywhere

The ripples from the Yokohama show spread far and wide nowadays, it is rapidly becoming the International show of the year. Came across this earlier from Stoop Motorcycles in Japan, now I ain't sure myself as to the aesthetics of it, but it does go to show that the Bullet is gaining a following within custom circles. A quick peak at their site reveals a novel approach to the hard tail conversion.

Up and coming over at Sideburn

Gary and the boys over at Sideburn have been given/lent/donated a barely used EFi Bullet by official importers Watsonian Squire. They will, of course, not be leaving it as it is, Gary reckons that there are some radical alterations in the offing for this unsuspecting puppy. Judging by their previous projects it should be worth following, and it will be on here.
Not really sure what is available yet performance wise, although Hitchcock's are listing a Power Commander for them, so it could be ground breaking stuff.
Good luck chaps, you've got backing from this corner.