OME's Pride & Joy

[ossie]

Cool looking motorcycle there Mark......

 

 

[old man emu]

So its a flathead...

Yeah, and I'll be breaming over with excitement when I get it.

 

OME

 

 

[winsor68]

Yeah... I reckon it is a good investment. Looks like a nice ride.

 

I have always enjoyed riding Harleys at the yearly ride day... the crazy dealers let you thrash the guts out of them ,in fact the dealer rider is usually the one everyone is trying to catch up with! The fastest I have ever traveled on a Motorcycle was on a dealer demo day... Triumph not Harley... but the only time I have chucked a wheelie on a Motorcycle was on a Harley ride day!

 

I think I should stick to the flying!

 

 

[kaz3g]

Very nice, OME and I hope you gain much pleasure from your toy.

 

I was always a fan of British bikes and started with a Malvern Star pedalcycle fitted with a Villiers 2-stroke, had the usual Trumpy Twin's and AJS's, and then a BSA 650 Golden Flash A10. All long before I was old enough to hold a licence

 

Wish I still had the Beeser... they are bringing more than $10k now and I paid 30 pounds for mine.

 

kaz

 

 

[facthunter]

Fixing old bikes is a good distraction. Keeps you off the streets. Nev

 

 

[Bryon]

My first bike was a BSA 500 single ZM20. Paid $50 for it, sold it for $70 and bought an ex army olive green WLA 750 complete with leather army saddle bags for $100

 

Had a couple of other bikes as well, but kept the WLA throughout. Finally sold it for $400 a few years later

 

 

[Gibbo]

Much prefer my 2011 650 Kawka Versys. It doesn't breakdown, starts first time with a push of a button and doesn't deafen me. lol

 

The plan for my long service (in a few years) is to buy a BSA or Enfield in India and ride it to Moscow or London. :) If my Kidneys make it - I will be impressed.

 

 

[IanR]

Fixing old bikes is a good distraction. Keeps you off the streets. Nev

The problem is it sometimes keeps you off the streets when you want to be on them !!

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Don't forget that 90% of all the harleys ever made are still on the road, the other 10% made it home

 

 

[facthunter]

Never give up on it do you FT? Poor OME is over the moon about his purchase and you say things like that. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

I think I'll do what my African relatives do, and go stick my head in the sand

 

Nev can go stick his up his fundamental orifice.

 

OME

 

 

[Deskpilot]

So its a flathead...

Don't 'flat heads', or side valve engines, have more torque at low revs than over head valves? Is so, why, apart from efficiency, aren't they used in planes?

BTW, nice ride OME, I can still remember some of my fathers tank shift bikes.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

the head distorts and the head gasket fails. not saying that will happen just that it can.

 

 

[Guernsey]

My best and only bike was a Royal Enfield 125cc with a hand operated gear shift lever on the side of the tank, my Brother had a BSA Bantam 125 and we used to race each other.

 

Burning along at full throttle it was great to have a 'slight breeze' through your hair. Wish I had OME's.

 

Alan.

 

 

[IanR]

I guess the main questions is when will you have it at Camden for us locals to have a look ?

 

 

[facthunter]

They sometimes "slog" better than OHV's but that is only because the engines were not tuned for high horsepower. A similarly "detuned" OHV would go better because it would "breathe" better. (All othere things being equal). Flywheel weight helps slow running. The main advantage is that they are compact and a bit cheaper to produce. It is very hard to get them to have a high compression ratio because of the large combustion chamber area. This is why they are inefficient, and there can be a large amount of distortion around the exhaust port area, which causes a loss of compression. (blowby).

 

Just after WW2 they managed to get 68 HP out of a 750 sidevalve derived from OME's model 42 WLA. The fast motor was a KR TT model

 

The 45 HP lycomings were Side Valve. Some were actually built by the Indian motorcycle folks under licence.

 

In a bit of a revival Gas Gas ( I think) have produced a Sidevalve Trials bike, in the last few years Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

First week in April. Hangar 740 Camden Airport.

 

OME

 

 

[ayavner]

Verrrrry nice OME....

 

Sold my bike before I moved to Oz, Yamaha Vstar 1100. It was OK but not my favourite... did the job. I would say that honour would have to go to my black Triumph Thunderbird... loved that bike. So many others, but that one sticks out. I rode a Harley from Alice to Darwin once, that was an amazing experience - Heritage Softail I believe??

 

Anyway, if I were to get another bike, I might like to try one of those monster BMW GS enduro bikes like Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman rode in Long Way Down. But, I think at this point I'm more likely to want to buy an RA aeroplane!

 

Beautiful pics here, let's see more!

 

 

[nomadpete]

GOOD GRIEF ! I recall almost buying a 42WLA some time ago, back in 1970 there was a chap in Sydney assembling them out of piles of ex army surplus stuff - he was charging quite a lot (abt $500) for a matt green pre-war 750 cc bike that my japanese 125 could outrun (and outstop).

 

Don't I wish I had bought one and kept it in a shed for my superannuation package !

 

 

[farri]

Retard to Start, then advance to run. OME

Geeze OME, you`ve taken me back a while!

 

Way back when!... I had a 360 BSA and a 350 Matchless..... I raced them on dirt and grass track and to get maximum power out of them I would advance the spark timing as far as possible, the problem was, they didn`t have retard and advance, you set the timing and that was it.

 

They both had to be kick started and because the timing was so far advanced, if they didn`t start first kick, they would kick back better than a mule and almost throw me over the handle bars.... Got a sore leg more than once, but I had a hell of a lot of fun with those two bikes.

 

Frank.

 

Ps, I reckon the young blokes would be thinking, " What do you mean, kick start a motor bike, didn`t they have starter motors"?

 

 

[ayavner]

Hah, reminds me of some of the old 1-cylinder Yamaha's back in the 70s (dunno if they still make em)... compression so high you had to kick it through lightly to line up a little indicator before kicking it over, otherwise it would just about snap your leg in half on the kickback... good times....

 

 

[farri]

Yeah, I was just thinking about it and this one came to mind.

 

The single cylinder 2 strokes were just begining to come onto the scene and if I remember correctly the bike was a Bultaco, anyway, we were all lined up, side by side ready for the start, anxiously reving our motors, the starter droped the flag and this guy on the Bultaco went screaming backwards!Everyone was amazed but fortunately no one was hurt.

 

I don`t know about the modern 2 strokes but on some bikes back then, if the timing was too far advanced, the kick back could start the motor running backwards.

 

Frank.

 

 

[facthunter]

That can happen. I've purposely started a Royal Enfield two stroke backwards, but a Scott that I had that my wife rode would do that sometimes without stopping from a slow idle. She refused to ride it untill I changed things so it would not happen. ( I don't blame her really.) Nev

 

 

[dazza 38]

My last bike that was kick start was my 2001 Yamaha WR 426. It had a special procedure for starting. Had to find TDC, then give it a real good kick.If done wrong it would try and throw you over the bars. It was funny watching people trying to start it.(Actually it wasnt funny they would foul my plug . I changed to Iridium.Never had a problem after that.) My KTM 640 ADV is a left hand kick start.Dunno why the europeans had to be different, stupid realy.Anyway I use the electric leg for that.

 

 

[old man emu]

I'm a very tired Old Emu.

 

I left Camden at 7:00am on Saturday morning and arrived in Warwick, Qld at 6:00pm (ESDT) that evening. After a wash and a feed, I went to meet the bloke who was selling me the bike. Had a long yarn and a couple of cleansing ales before heading back to the motel to try to sleep. Like that happened. I was like a 5-year old on Christmas Eve.

 

Woke up at Sparrow Fart the next morning; had the obligatory Macca's breakfast and went back to the seller's place where the trade was done. Then went on a short ride to get the feel of the bike. Riding that bike is better than sex (and I'll be able to go riding every day). Then we loaded the bike into my ute and I set off at 10:30am and drove until 5:00pm.

 

I spent the night at my mother's house and had dinner with her and some relatives. Up at Sparrow's again this morning and set off at 9:00am to finish the drive home. After arriving home at 3:00pm, unloading the bike and returning the ute to work, I finally managed to sit down for tea, and to watch some TV.

 

I've driven over 1600 Ks since Saturday morning. I'm sick of the sight of the cabin of the ute, and I hope the Boss doesn't sent me into Bankstown on Wednesday to pick up parts.

 

So now I'm ready for bed. Tomorrow I'll wash the bugs off the bike, fuel him up, and go do some practice so I can ride him to work on Wednesday.

 

Old Man Emu