|
 February 2007
As the riding/ racing season approaches (for most of us anyway), we are busy trying to get not only our customers engines finished but also our own!
Racing News
Rogers frame was damaged in a couple of incidents last year including his infamous Lydden crash (one shoulder blade and one collar bone), and a less serious spill by Paul Dobbs at the last meeting of the year at Cadwell Park. It has spent some of the intervening time at Spondon engineering in Derby, where it has now been expertly repaired by steel frame artisan Dave Teale.
Dave has also made provision for the footrests to be moved forwards and also the tank has been shortened. This will allow the weight to be moved forwards without feeling like you are sitting on top of the tank!
Spondon owner, Bob Stevenson made many steel racing frames in the seventies and eighties for all kinds of machines, and indeed it is a copy of the 'TZ' Yamaha frame that George Silk used for his Scott engine based bikes.
Interestingly from a point of historical interest, Dave also built these frames.
Bob said that for some years they only did aluminum work as the demand for steel frames had disappeared, but in recent times with so many of their old frames being put back into sevice in classic racing, he is now able to have Dave work on steel 100% of the time. The Aluminium work is pretty good though !
One of his 'bread and butter' jobs is the production of manx frames, to service the likes of Summerfield and Molnar engines, and it was very interesting to see the famous ultra-light featherbed in its jig.
Now we just have to rebush the forks whilst the frame and tank are being painted,and get the refurbished engine back together, before we can finally rebuild her...
Then we'll be ready for the Season!
After selling last years engine for my racer ( to help towards the seasons expenses) I needed to build a new one.
The crankcase is almost finished, although i do have to do the final inlet porting, recondition a set of rods, rebore a block, and grind up a set of silk pistons before i can put the thing together.
I still need to modify the exhaust to give me a better power spread lower down but i am pushing to have the engine finished by the middle of march.
I think we both have to step up a gear to get everything done!
Work
We have a good crop of engines in the shop at the moment.
A couple of s/s 500's, A s/s 600, and a number of l/s 600's all in various states of completion.
We are boring barrels and grinding pistons, and next week we will be preparing some big end rings with their intial grinding operations.
Also there are several flywheels being weighted as we speak (well maybe not on a Sunday) and some more 22 tooth drive sprockets on order.
Plenty of Scott engine action thats for sure!
We also have a 1930's Vee twin Husqvarna engine waiting for an overhaul which will be interesting...
Roger has also been working on a flywheel generator to go in the new sports engine he has made for his Silk Scott.
This will hopefully create enough power to run a lighting set too, but we have to run tests before we know what it will really do.
Socially, We had a nice surprise when Titch Allen came around for a visit last week ...
Titch is a veritable fountain of anecdotes and information on all matters related to Scotts, and his enthusiasm for them seems not to have wained!
If you want to hear some stories from a conversation between Roger and Titch on a previous visit...
click to visit Scott stories
Ok .. thats it for now...
If you need any help .. you know where we are!
Best wishes
Richard Moss
|
|