It's all a bore!

A standard bore to be exact..... Today while off from toiling in the Postal salt mines, it was decided by Ol' Watosh to take the barrel for Vicky to SOS Cycles to see if Stu could check out the ID of the cylinder to determine if it was standard or had been bored out and if so, to what size.

Great plan except for one thing, Stu didn't have an ID measuring doodad, but he did say that across the way was a machine shop that should be able to figger these things out and so they did.

After doing the measuring of the bore and doing the mathematical figgering using the calculator, it was determined that the bore was.........drumroll.............standard and with a good honing should be as good as gold.

Not too shabby considering what state the motor was in when first found and bought. And with new(ish) bits being got, it'll pretty soon be like a whole new motor. WEEKEND UPDATE AND NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A nice, new, shiny Wiseco standard size piston with rings, clips and pin is winging it's way thisaways courtesy of SRM, them nice folks' outta Aberwrsywyth (?) in Wales.

Spinning wheel

Hopefully with new bearings it will be.Was going to do some more paint work today, but with one thing and another (read it being a nice day and being a wee bit lazy) decided to do something else instead.As all the paintwork is being done by hand, I figured that I'd do th ewheel hubs the same way too. Except the problem is that I can't see the point in taking the wheel completely apart to do that plus I didn't want to pony up money that isn't there to have the wheels rebuilt. Sooooooo the spokes were masked off near the hub to prep for spraying with primer and then with some heat resistant black paint.

Also took the wheel bearings out so they can be replaced.Was actually surprised to see that they had been replaced at one point by some sealed, on one side anyway, bearings. From the hamfisted way this once proud machine had been treated in the past, I figured the original bearings were probably still in there, beat all to hell and then some. But no, they had been replaced.

Anyway, back to the story, once the primer is sprayed and before it's painted with the black paint, some cleaning of the rims and spokes will be in order. Solvol, some steel wool and some elbow grease will be seeing pplenty of action to get these up to snuff....hopefullyThen before the painting, a film of Vaseline will be smeared on to make it easy to remove any overspray.If all works the way I want it to, should work out great.......if it doesn't, there's always Plan B....figger sommit else out!

Frank Conley

Just read that Frank Conley of Greeves fame died the other day, October 27 to be exact. Frank was THE Greeves guy in Carmel, California who basically could supply any part for any model Greeves there was. Never met the man, bought any parts from him or anything else other than that I know of him due to searching the 'net for info on Greeves' as that is one make, a trials model specifically, that needs to be in the stable along with others on the wish list. Here's a couple of pics of him, one with Nick Nicholson who used to have most of the Greeves parts in th eStates until Frank bought. Also in the pic is Dick "Bugsey" Mann, former motorcycle racer.

Nick Nicholson (L) Dick Mann (Center) Frank Conley (R)

Frank Conley Hopefully the shop and business supplying parts etc will stay alive, who knows I might actually get a Greeves trialss and need parts! RIP Frank!

Old and decrepit

And I ain't a talkin' about the Bodger here thank you very much!!! Several posts back there was mention of a trip that my lass Teri and myself had done to some wineries.....well this weekend was no exception. We went pretty much in the same area that we had before when a motorcycle shop was spotted but due to no camera at the time, a Kodak moment wasn't to be had. This time was different; after some diplomatic requests were made to SWMBO, we made a stop in the same town again and this time armed with the digital camera, pictures were taken. Still no idea what the name of the shop is or even if it's still active or not. At 11:30am there was no life to be seen inside the premises even though the lights and ceiling fans were on. Plus Bodger couldn't see a way to the entrance past the wrought iron fencework. Anyways, see for yourselves:

As you can see from the pics, the title above is justified. From peeking through the windows, plus the crudely made sign nailed above the doors, it looks like this is a place that may cater to Milwaukees finest. The few bikes that were outside were there a few months ago from the looks of the dust on them and they were, with one exception, Japanese dirt bikes. The lone example being a Hinckley Triumph. Anyways, this is just an example of what you cn find while out and about doing sommit else such as winetastings.