tortron

Armed with a stripped down loom, I sprayed some petrol in the carb And nothing Cleaned the points, and now getting spark. Not amazing spark, but it's there. Got it to chuff on a couple of kicks, but that's about it. I will next test the coil, condenser, clean out the carb and probably do a leak down test, but it's promising at least. If the above checks out, I will make up a new loom, I have a feeling the coil might have gotten a bit too warm in it's little oven space

Got this wee honey running within seconds over the last 3 days after a slight adjustment on the timing. What a joy. There's no way to adjust the seconds on something like this. Some watches you can "hack" and move the second hand back or wind the crown in a certain way and it pauses the hand. But with this you just set as close as possible, within a minute was about all that was expected apparently. Even the railroad grade pocket watches don't have that feature, apparently a second stopwatch was sometimes used for that. Higher grade pilots watches have the hacking button, but they everyman just lived with it

This has been sitting out in the way for the last year or so, so I'm keen to have that not be. Today I removed anything too melted to use. Pulled the loom and it's currently in my ultrasonic cleaner getting a hot wash. Most of the front is melted through, so I'm expecting to remake it. On that note, I'm going to get rid of everything except for the ign circuit, headlamp, and a tail marker light. The switches are partially melted, so this makes sense to me. It's missing the rear indicators and the front lenses melted off. Speedo melted, glass shattered, and the cable is broken. So delete that too. My plan is a stripped down, mostly stock bodied trail/hunting bike (I. E what this originally was made for I guess) Something like these for inspiration

Luckily the aux tank and hose is still in good cond The shocks front and rear, well.... Do they actually have any fluid in them? I think the fronts did, as there's black smoo all down them.

And the backend is a little crisp

Some digging indicates it's a 1976 model TRAIL 50 Which is great because BEING A TRAIL 50 makes it easy to go on small bike rides The front all melted off

My cousin did some wheeling and dealing and brought this home one day. In exchange for taking away some Morris minor parts, this was thrown on top to keep them from blowing off the trailer. It's all there, I even have the bits that melted off into puddles on the ground. Story is the barn burnt down, this was in thr shed next to the barn, so although it got pretty hot, it wasn't ever on fire itself. Cousin put a new carb on for some reason, and got it going, it went up the tanker track, made a bang, and didn't run since I dunno yet if there's any plastic gears in the engine, but it kicks over and all the compression shoots out the exhaust flange Probably this mess has something to do with that

I remember seeing them get put on a new beetle for thr gambler 500 and they bent in half on the first dune they jumped on the test deive Probably not real world conditions mind you

The river bank next to old mechanics shops is always full of a mix of treasures

You will find them come up for a few quid from time to time on Ebay, theres some "speculators" that know what they have (and hope you don't)

I would probably keep my eye out for a smiths everest (what sir Ed used). A higher jewel count one will have less wear anyways. These pin pallet movements are known to be loud because each tick and tick is metal on metal lol

Yeah about that Turns out the crystal is slightly undersized and those marks are remains of the smoo that was holding it in. Most of it should clean off and I will reglue that dial. I have some new ones that don't fit, they want the edge reprofiled. (same with my other watches)

The band is the cheapest 0.001mm genuine leather over cardboard you can get out of China, so I will look at a nicer replacement. A stitched leather one is my usual preference, but a nato strap also looks nice on these I think, there were later black dial army issue ones that eventually came with those when they were invented. I have some info about the previous (who bought it new in 1948) owner that I will compile and post later on

Wore it all yesterday, quite like it. Shows that yea it's about 3min slow in 24 hrs. Seller said the ballance movement looked slow, but I don't think so, just based on seeing actually slow gunked up watches. Today I gave the adjustor a slight bump and ran it against a timing app on my phone, but the app seems to be hit and miss, probably down to general noise in the house and old watches often being all over the place but averaging out over 24hrs. Will wear it for another day and check tomorrow, that's a fine way to adjust when time isn't a worry. Gave the crystal a quick polish and it came up great here's the before

I believe they are called track mounts. 1999 ford Explorer has the same thing. You can look up rhino leg track mounts

Here's a example of heat and rust stuck rings These ones made a ping when they came loose

Apply heat till the atf heats up You will know it's hot enough when your eyes burn and it hurts to breathe

Yeah it's just low grade thinners

I get 20L at a time from PBS, last a long time as you don't need all that much. About 80bucks I have an old stainless steel sink. That drains into the previous 20L container

It amazes me that image search can telle that's a land rover enginebay.

You can clean all thr shit out of them, that one might be a bit far gone if it's fully stuck out. Il let you look into it. Key part is don't disassemble the spring part. I don't think you have to worry about explosive bits in that one Generally it doesn't take that much gunk for them to stick

Jumping forward a war I just picked up an "anzac". Welsh built between 1947 and 1950, a cheap, reliable, and austere watch for the average man of the commonwealth. The Morris Minor of watches, who wouldn't love one. This one is a single owner, the gentleman's first watch in fact. They have a 5 jewel pin escapement, which is a fairly low cost but serviceable movement. Certainly there are many still running today with next to no maintenance (Morris minors) and still getting within a couple of minutes at the end of the day Also It matches my morrie too

What a workhorse. How good

Give the blades a sharpen by applying valve paste and spinning them backwards with a drill, with the bar adjusted as close as possible. Will glide like a dream m8

Handles like it's on rails mate The rails