anglia4

With the old trailer sold I put together a cut list and purchased all the steel, which sat in a bundle in the shed for a year or so. Earlier this year I finally managed to make some space in the shed and found some time to spend a day cutting and grinding. Then it sat in this bundle for a good few months until Wednesday this week when I got stuck in. I’ve got the whole bottom frame welded out, and the front frame tacked up. I’m pretty bloody chuffed to finally be getting into it. It’s really going to push the limits of what I can build in my shed. It barely just fits under the door, luckily the door rollers are flogged out so I can push it up the 20mm it will need to go to get the thing out the door.

Ok so with that thought in mind I set about some designing. My mate with the little box trailer carried all his gear in his van, I want it all to go in the trailer… so I made it a little longer as I want to make a frame in the front for toolboxes and fuel etc… Then decided to make it a bit taller so I can get closer to standing up in it as I’ll probably camp in it at the track now and again… Then I decided it would be handy if I could fit 3 bikes in it as more family members started getting into racing. So I made it a little wider over the wheels… And then… I started getting serious about the resto on my Austin 7, so I thought I would see how much longer it needed to be for that to fit. Not too much being the answer. So I made it a bit longer… So yeah… compact handy little trailer has gone out the window. But I think this one will tick a lot of boxes.

Initially I was going to make basically an exact copy, as it was so compact and just a handy little trailer. I nabbed the motorcross bike trailer we used when I was young as it was about to be sent for scrap metal. I was going to use it as a base to build on, but later decided that it was too heavy, too short, too narrow and was going to be more hassle than it was worth. So during lockdown #2 I refurbished the old trailer, cut out all the rust, added some new steel, cables, lights etc and sold it to fund the steel purchase for a new trailer from scratch.

This story starts in the past. I have always used my typical dirt/rubbish/gib moving trailer for transporting my bucket bike. I've got a little wooden frame I drop in the front to hold the wheels and that's it. Great for taking it down the road to the local track. But a couple of years ago, a North Island champs round at Edgecumbe happened to coincide with my family camping trip to Ohope beach. So I asked a friend if I could borrow his enclosed bike trailer, loaded up the bike, threw ALL the camping gear in the trailer, and away we went. It was so bloody awesome for camping, and great being able to pre-load the bike and gear a few days out, and leave it safely locked away in the trailer for the whole trip. I had to have one. It was really nice and compact and light to tow. So I measured it up before returning it, and then set about doing my own design.

Fuck yeah. Accommodation booked. Form filled in. Leave booked. FIZZING

What's the yellow car in the reflection?

It would be a loooong 3 days aboard that!

So much giggling in that video.

Nicely done. Those carbon foot pegs look ultra slippery though! I would highly recommend spending a few grams on some skateboard adhesive grip tape to put on them. I did this with the nylon pegs on my bucket racer and it makes a massive difference when you are riding. A+++ wouldn't ride again without it.

The other thing we have been working on around here is decidedly more miniature. This JR50 belonged to my older cousins, and then I rode it when I was little, and then it saw use again at the occasional party when @Duke Blackwood and I were big. A while back my daughter spied it hiding in the back of grandads shed and went and sat on it. She doesn't usually have the courage to go and sit on scary things like motorbikes, so it was a bit of a big deal for her, but at this point her favourite thing to watch on the TV was Dora (The biker, not the explorer). Here she was sitting on it in grandads shed doing her best Dora spec bike tour: I pushed her around the lawn on it and then we took it home for a restoration. Its been slow going as we have tried to work on it together and she's not always interested, being she was only 2.5 years old when we started and all... We stripped it down at xmas 2020 so its been an 18 month rebuild so far. (Peanut butter lid air filter cover my dad made once upon a time) We have pulled the whole thing down, powdercoated some bits, painted some others, new bearings here and there. Lots of old stock suzuki parts. New tubes and tires. New forks from China. Whipped the barrel and head off and had them vapour blasted and honed. Its very very close to finished now. The last piece of the puzzle is the fuel tap. Suzuki used this fuel tap on 2 models from 79-80, so its rocking horse poo. I'm going to have to make something special up for it and haven't quite managed to make it happen yet.

OK so my small bike experience has started to escalate... so I'm changing this thread to be a catch-all... First is the GT"50" - Silver Bullet Then there is the GT50. Its tucked away waiting its turn - hint, its been queue jumped... The RGV50 Frame is still in the shed. I still haven't quite figured out why I brought it. And then this happened... Scrolling the old Facebook buy and sell one night, and up popped this CRM50. It looked rough in the photos but mostly complete, the price was OK, and it was local! So I jumped on it and started messaging. Then I started getting messages from other oldschoolers asking if I could go and look at an old Honda for them haha. No sorry, its mine! Its been tucked in the shed for a few months due to lack of time, but with the next east cape ride looming I've decided to start seeing if I can get it sorted. Seller says "It will run, but pisses fuel out of the carb". I've had it started, so it does run, which is great! Last night I pulled the carb out for a look-see. There as definitely been some diddle fingers here... First thing is the choke plunger is broken and was held together with a hose clamp. Then I pulled the bowl off to clean and set the float needle. That doesn't quite look right The float needle is missing.

So by the end of the last east cape ride this had a really horrid vibration, made more horrid by the petrol tank rattling. Last time I took it out for a ride I had a fairly solid look over it all to work out where more issues might be. I found the chain was quite loose, the cush drive sloppy, the petrol tank issue and a loose engine mount. I'm hoping the engine mount might be what was letting the vibrations out. I got a new tank rubber set from Ali, machined up a thing and set about modifying the mount: Much better! Last night I cleaned and tightened the chain, and have whipped the wheel off to inspect the cush drive. Yup that's fucked. So I need to sort that out, clean the air filter, advance the timing and then start thrashing it to work again, hopefully keeping my will to live intact.

Yes. Only negative is that my knee regularly finds the pointy bit on the end of the cord guide.

I’ve got a similar setup as a computer desk

$30 is still less than the cost of the massage I’ll be booking for the 14th

Registering a tentative solid "Fuck yeah". I loaded my new bike up onto the work table last night to start into the prep. I am fizzing to get it running.

Mayor Tim supports this motion

I kept my pleasure at that news under wraps from my wife

Yeah its got to be designed to be fit for purpose. I would like to think the drive shaft manufacturer would know all about it and ask you what kind of speeds you are expecting and what kind of diff ratio / wheel size etc, and design the shaft to suit. i.e If you are going to be doing 200km/h with 13" wheels and short diff gears, then that shaft is going to be singing, and likely need to be a bigger diameter.

We have a one piece in our race car and it is fine. That's 640hp and a live axle rear, so its turning fairly quick and moving through a range of angles.

Oooh I remember the coffee. And the guitar... Swoon

Sheeeeiit thats a lot of car on a single axle trailer!

This one does... If you're picking up what I'm putting down

Just to update the thread as well. I managed to beg borrow and steal enough parts to get it back together again for the next race day after the big crash. Its got an RS125 style tail on it now, because that's what I could steal from dads shelf. I actually think I like it better. The new clip-ons are on a slightly different angle to the Honda ones, so have to re-learn the muscle memories, which is mildly annoying. I need to find some time to paint the new tail and get some new stickers made for it.