Richards newly found race bike.......pt 2

Lots of hard work has been going on since the last site update in Feb '07.

The crank was rebuilt with a new Arrow rod & the assembly began on my kitchen table - note the large hammer.

No big problems. Tight bearing inners were eased by careful polishing of the crankshaft to allow hand fitting of the bearing inner (in the case of the drive side roller) & ball race used on the dynamo side.

The engine is being kept as near to 1964 spec as possible so the chain drive cam system has been retained.

Its not a system I have much faith in so we will be keeping an eye on the tensioning springs. A NOS timing chain was to hand so that is in there. Even the fibre oil pump/points drive has been retained.

A long days work produced a completed bottom end. RMs 5 speed box ,unlike any other Parilla 4 or 5 speeder, had to be loaded into the cases prior to closing them. The standard clutch & spring is retained too

Who said we wanted it to be easy?

That was the last I saw of the engine for a couple of weeks until it returned fitted to the cycleparts ready for wiring, ignition timing & fitting of the CEV 6055 "AC magneto". Since the bottom end rebuild RM had fitted the timing cover , barrel & (very distinctive) dynamo/selector cover. Quite a few alignment/adjustment problems were encountered but RM stuck with it & the gears now select perfectly.

The CEV 6055 was an unknown quantity to me having either used battery & coil or CDI systems. RM had used them with great success back in '64 so, as a batteryless system, it was worth a try & of course entirely correct for the bike. I selected the best looking unit we had & removed the internal condenser replacing it with an external (& easily replaceable) new unit. Old condensers always give trouble in my experience & the one in the 6055 is hard to get at & soldered in to the wiring - not ideal for "Paddock Panic" replacement!

The remote points, with manual advance, is a far better system than the internal, fixed advance type first used with the 6055 but the points cam gave us some problems. It was not possible to get the correct timing within the adjustment range of the points backplate. After much head scratching another points cam was tried & we were able to get 50deg on full advance. I'm not sure if this was due to a cam that was "stoned" or just indicative of the poor quality control of the period. Testing gave us a spark so the 6055, which could not be simpler, might well prove to be the system of choice, only its need of an AC coil (not a common unit) concerns me should replacement be needed.

RM now was able to refit the head & start to prepare for the engines first bark in 43 years....

So Saturday 2nd of June 2007 was set for the first fire up of the now fully rebuilt bike. Luckily it was a dry sunny day & she was looking good propped up outside RMs front door.

A few "bumps" provided the odd whimper but nothing which could be considered as "running".  The oil used in assembly combined with our over enthusiastic "tickling" had wetted the plug. A session with a gas blow lamp dried out the plug & we tried again. Luckily RM had invited his son Chris over so we had two enthusiastic pushers to keep it turning over. After a few yards she struck up & the strident bellow of a Parilla on an open mega was heard.

A couple of laps of RMs (thankfully circular) drive allowed us to savour the moment & enjoy a sound not heard for quite some time.

Now the bike could be fully assembled & taken for its first track "shakedown" session

So the date was set for its first track outing - Mallory Park afternoon practice session Wednesday 6th of June '07.