Goat

Had ol mate @kicker blast my carb in his cabinet. Oooohweee. Looks like a bought one. A few months later... with the covers all cleaned up, and now on a new bike table (why did i not get one of these earlier. My god what a difference), it was ready to pop the gearbox back in. Absolutely essential stuff had started to turn up from the states: Now there was a whole debarkle around the kickstarter. The setup on these is mickey mouse at best. These are such a cunt to kick over, and all the force it placed on this thin cast alloy sprocket cover. So they just shatter. Good thing this is an electric start model.... with all the starter equipment removed. yay! I ended up tracking down new kick start shaft, and a new sprocket cover. I made up a supporting bracket to help take some of the kickstarter force. So hopefully the cover should be good for a while anyways....

While waiting for the bits, i set to work cleaning up all the corroded engine. Well, just a quick pass to make it not look like it had been pulled out of the sea. Making a start. Looking good. Has potential. This was just a quick 400 grit with some CRC, then a quick going over with some autosol.

Gearbox out on bench, you can see the damage. Which must have happened previously. As there were no bits in the gearbox! Looks like the problem was the shifter rod had popped out of the shifter caddy. So Thats all the problem was. Yay. However, i wasn't happy with the condition of the gears.... This one was completely missing a dog! The others had loads of chips on them: I managed to track down all the gears i needed as NOS. Great. Were cheap as chips too. Howevere, it took almost 3 months for them to turn up from the states..... Project parked.

I got the gearbox out and could see what was happening: Still no chunks of metal. So that was good. Though you can see in the back of the engine cases someone has been in there to repair. So it has had a catastrophic failure at some point in its life.

So the only description was that it was a non runner, suit parts. Gearbox broken. Cool, exactly what I was after! an expensive unknown on the opposite end of the island. Perfect. So first step was to try and figure out what was wrong with the gearbox It was stuck in gear and the clutch wouldn't disengage fully. Real easy to maneuver around. So whipped the chain off.: It was a shit to get the clutch out. But made some tools to help. The oil looked disgusting. But there was no broken metal (yet) so hadn't grenaded, good? i suppose?

So yeah, many years ago I met this cool dude called Chris. He lives in Christchurch. Apparently he was a born loser, but I liked him anyway. It turned out he was a bit of a badass, and was into the devils bikes. He had an Ironhead Harley. A handsome dude with a handsome bike. I was in love. Every time I'd call in and visit Chris, id have to pop into his shed and sit on his Ironhead chop. It was just the coolest thing. I knew I had to have one. Fast forward a few years, and an auto bid on a friday night. And I had purchased this non running, broken gearbox, POS. Yay, just what I need. More projects. But I enjoy self inflicted misery. So yeah, cool one. nice. Took my shitter of a ute all the way from Wellington to Wellsford to pickup this turd. Had my dad rolling up with me. We share a love of misery, projects and motorcycles. So both were equally excited at the prospect of acquiring another non running project. Both of us never thought we'd see the day when either of us would buy a Harley! Low and behold, April 2021, I became a Harley owner. Who would have thought. Made it all the way home. What a mish. We stayed in cambridge. But boy, a lot of driving in a turd of a ute. A relief to have it back in the garage. I'm sure the Harley would appreciate its new stable, adorned with French vehicle memorabilia, and sharing its space with and Italian stallion Laverda, a Miata, and some of japans finest 2 strokes!

Doesnt seem to support foot pedal. How often do you tig welders use a pedal. I've only ever welded with a pedal, but i can imagine that it would be a right PITA for 90% of welding jobs.

I was going to buy the one on trademe cos its 200 bux cheaper. Hah. Havent bought it yet. Trying to find more info about them. Can't seem to find any reviews etc. But $800 with a 2 year warranty, cant be that bad?

This thing goes like a cut blanket on a cat. So much grin. Can only imagine what its like with the big boy carb.

Has anyone had experience with the BOC Raptor Tigs? https://www.boc.co.nz/shop/en/nz/boc-raptor-180-acdc-tig-welder-raptortig180acdc-p Can anyone see any red flags? I'm pretty keen on one of these.

I will not be able to make this thursday

Its all about finding the cheapest parts. So you can have 15 bike projects on the go at once.

This dude is legit: https://www.cruzinimage.net/ Pistons, rings, carb boots, carb kits, gaskets, you name it. Got some stuff for my gs550 from him. Was good quality.

Just wow. Highlight of my day seeing there is an update on this. Fuck you get alot done. So awesome man.

Sweet tail lights

My mate had one of these when we were at uni. Was wickedly fast. His dad was an awesome engineer, and built him a custom close ratio gearbox by sourcing all different flavours of honda that had boxes with these internals (IIRC Legends, Integras and Accords among others) just to get the biggest varieties of ratiors, then chose the best ones to put in the final box. I think he pulled down 13 different boxes. Was REALLY quick after that. However, the britishness finally caught up with him and he had a short in the engine loom and it burnt the whole engine bay out. Car ended up at pickapart. If only people had known the effort that went into the gearbox. He should have kept at least that! As always, love your build/fix ups. Looking forward to the next installment.

Can also recommend Simon. GC.

C3's are dope AF. Good score Phil. Super keen to see what you end up doing to it. P.s. Convert it to manwell.

Its a bit far, I'll try and make it though.

Will you need to add a but more oil metering to compensate for bigger carb?

Thankyou for documenting your builds so well. Always makes my day when I see one of your updates! Must be pretty rewarding to have it move under its own steam.

kay three three en

@Roman Ping me if you need wheels collected and stored dude. Can probably get them to swapmeet or even further north in August.

Be good to catch up. Can fairy you around if required.

Don't ever change John. Love your style.