Richards newly found race bike.......

Has been taking shape over the winter of '06/'07 . Since being reunited with it in the summer of '06 he has been busy restoring it to race-ready condition & to as near its '64 specification as possible.

Rather than refinish & replate every item it was decided to treat the bike to a "sympathetic" restoration where parts were left in "as last raced" condition if at all possible. In some cases this was possible - the original petrol tank will retain the dent in its side which was put in it when Richard dropped the bike loading it into the van in '64. Its internal condition will be perfect & coated in a modern sealing compound but the external painted surface will remain with original scrapes & scratches just as when it was last raced.

The one-piece exhaust pipe & mega was very rusty, dented & devoid of original paint. Rather than make a new one the original has been derusted & resprayed in the original heatproof black. It looks just like it was in '64.

Some parts have had to be refurbished & refinished. The front fork legs being a good example. The stanchions were rusty & one was seized into its fork leg. When both stanchions were dismantled it was obvious they would not be serviceable. It's impossible to buy new stanchions &, whilst new ones could be made, it was decided  that the originals could be saved by hard chroming & regrinding back to original diameter. The sliders themselves were slightly oval in the ID & were ground internally to a true diameter before being powder coated in gloss black as original   

The rest of the rebuild has been tackled in this fashion, if its usable, safe & original it stays. Unusable but repairable is kept. Only totally worn out, or safety related, parts have been renewed or replaced with NOS or modern alternatives.

The finishing of components has to be a compromise between the OE finish (which often in the case of RMs bike was not the same as the equivalent road bike) & what the EEC will allow us to use these days. Cadmium plating for instance is all but impossible to source being a very toxic process, a variety of zinc plate is as near as can now be easily achieved. 

The engine

While the cycle parts were easily recognisable as RMs original factory built bike the engines which came with it were not & were in a variety of states.

On the principle that pictures speak louder than words the following pix will to illustrate the lows & highs of the stripdowns.

The lows.....

The highs.....

The pictures above illustrate some of the wonders revealed as the engines were stripped - a disintegrated piston, a smashed gudgeon pin, a bent oil filter, a hammered con rod.....& a 5 speed gearbox!

More as the job progresses.....