Weekend Ride to Broadford Classic Races

The Historic Motorcycle Racing Association of Victoria held the 31 st Southern Classic race on the weekend of 20 and 21 st of October at the State Motorcycle Complex , Broadford  Victoria  Australia .
This is a grass roots race meet which provides an entry point for those who love to ride and compete without needing a fortune behind you , you will however need a couple of mates a good toolkit and a bike trailer beside the obvious bike . The racers range from the slickest teams with immaculate bikes and gear to some of the roughest machines you have ever seen [one of which won its race ] being a classic meet ,almost all the riders were old enough to know better but shelved the common sense for the weekend , we did too .
It has become the habit of our rider group to attend this meeting as matter of great urgency , we all love the casual organisation of the meeting , for instance Jules picked up four free tickets at a hill climb two weeks earlier so it was free entry for us , parking is anywhere you like , food and drinks available ,camp on site , you can stand beside the starting line [two metres from the bikes ] and wander through the pits at will .I think the ticket are about ten dollars , program five they sell some quality shirts and stuff  and they have the club members on the counters giving a nice feel to the place .
The format for us getting up to Broadford is preceded by a series of text messages phone calls and even a conference call [ may need to take minutes next year ] eventually we decided I'd meet with Andy in Ballarat and both Commandos to meet with two ZX14 's at Ballan and all ride up together via Trentham , Woodend ,Lancefield , Kilmore , Broadford , and to the track . Perfect weather once we crossed the Great Divide and enjoyed mid twenties blue sky and had to use sunscreen . We move around and take a few pics always run into other blokes and have a brief catch up  and spend lots of time in the pits and of course watch the races
Late afternoon we jump back on the bikes and ride up the Hume Highway to our digs at Seymour ,a few beers a big steak [ 600 gms] a wander around the town and off to bed by midnight .
Sunday morning late rise and over to a small cafe for a big bacon and eggs breakfast and back home via a few new roads , one of which I liked very much , putting the question to the boys " why didn't we come up this way ?" they answered..... " we did " ..

The weekend went off well , I suppose the key ingredients are the company the weather the event , probably really is ,only the company , but I managed to plan the fuel stops better for the thirsty Commando with the 11 litre tank and we didn't have rain or even wet roads , just really want to do it all again .

Here's the pics , click on them to blow them up
Also see Tarsnakes report on
         www.tarsnakes.com.au

The starting line, I have a close up of the motor, number 29 the others are a Bultaco and a Indian twin , quite a lot of these racing some with four valve heads exposed rockers , like the early Rudges .

Nasty little right hander , always hated right handed bends, the line of punters in the background are at the starting line, the noise is deafening on take off clouds of blue smoke from the two strokes , and from some of the others too !

 

 7R  hybrid

Close up of motor, number 29  a rigid girder pre war  ES2 fitted in a cradle frame .I had a bit of a chat with the owner / rider and was surprised when he said that he is running a Rudge steel crank with a remade barrel to give the motor square diementions or close to .
Also note drain tubes from the valve wells ,34 mm Concentric carbi , and not shown third order lever to depress the clutch like a 20 s Ajay instead of the Norton spiral arrangement .I watched this bike race and was surpised how well it went , success is the sum of rider and bike .well done !

 Slick looking Yamaha

JP in foreground with Coke

Triumph ,this bike won in at least one race

What can I say that hasn't been said before some times the parking area is more interesting than the pits and more creative !

 Dual twin Triumph unit , didn't hear this run or see it race but would imagine it would have a bit of go .
 Note the left engine must have had its rotation reversed  with implications to the cams  ignition and the oil pump

JP entered into negotiations to swap his ZX14 for this unit but the owner wanted too much !
Just fancy how this would cut through to air like a knife with that aerodynamic chair .
 The only machine I have seen that rivals this is a R series BMW in the Birdwood Museum SA set up for touring

Nice emblem on the front guard, I must keep my eye out for something for the Commando

 Our riders , over the years the line up has included a 500 AJS, R75 BMW ,ZX9 , ZX10, CBR600 , VFR 800 and this line up in every case the change has been to a bigger engine .

Norton Model 19 Restoration

Most blokes that have a collection of motorcycles will understand that the focus of interest can shift from one bike to another and back again over a period of time [ perhaps even years ] it seems to me that the reason for this could be attributed to a number of factors  .For instance the Cannonball Run in the US has had me thinking more about early flat tankers , when your resto has hit the wall and you need a grand of readies to tip into the project to move it up to the next  level , well the project will just have to slow down . Sometimes its parts that stop the progress and having to work for a living is a decided downer , with a date fixed for a weekend getaway to the classic races the focus needs to be on the rider bike to get it prepped up .Despite not completely finishing the Domi , my focus for the last six months has been a collection of parts I choose to call a 1938 model 19  Norton , I have been for some time now studying Roy Bacon's Norton singles book and have admired the classic lines of the pre war rigid framed girder forked Nortons and thought if the bits come my way I'll grab them and see where I end up . I started with a bottom end of a model 19  82x 113 and a tank which I think is off an es2 or a model 18 and started adding bits picked up a frame on e bay from Tassie [ thanks Steve ] a set of Indian made girders also from e bay , motor parts from Sydney, gearbox case from WA  various bits from mates locally and hours on the lathe making nuts and bolts in stainless steel .Being a list person I have a good idea of the bits I need to ensure that I get this bike running , and now I am actively looking for a back wheel and brake , front wheel and brake and the hardest thing of all to find a cylinder barrel  82 x 113 , as the chassis is virtually the same as the WD models there is a lot of repro Indian made parts available  tool boxes, guards, forks, speedos  and cables fuel tanks seats and so forth. I will post some pics below and get some commentary beside them when I get the time

 The Norton Dolls Head Gearbox, still in transition with positive stop mechanism on top and exposed clutch worm lever, a great place for oil and dirt to live .Early versions were grease lubricated, then changing over to gear oils the sleeve gear is supported by a row of rollers as well as a bush which was dispensed with in the AMC boxes, also early vervions used a caged roller to support the drive side of the layshaft changed to a ball bearing and then realizing the mistake advocated a roller again .What is basically a Sturmey Archer gearbox has become the gold standard of gearboxes .

The guts of the motor , I had quite a surprise to find the flywheels have been lightened by oxy cutting the centres out , they are steel not cast ! not sure what effect this will have on the motor 





Timing chest ..crank pinion engages exhaust cam and it engages the inlet cam so they run as a train of gears Norton said this reduced engine noise ???yet they reverted to the timing pinion engaging both cam wheels by the late 1940's ,this motor requires a clockwise drive magneto which I do not as yet have .Note early style finger followers riding on the cam lobes , cam timing became the net result of the follower shape interacting with the cam profile , this motor used flat followers note layer of hardface  stellite ??

 More bits, note the rear sprocket , also repro foot rest hangers cast in bronze I made the top gearbox bolt and nut 5/8 x 26 tpi slowly getting better at cutting threads on the lathe .

 The tank I wanted to use was badly dinted in lots of areas so I bit the bullet and cut the bottom out of the tank this made it easy to fix the dints but I will have to get a skilled welder to mig  it back together for me . These days my eyesight  would  prevent me from learning to weld to the standard I want for this job .I'll post some more pics of the tank resto as it progresses , I intend to paint it myself but it will need pinstriping and I will need to research that first .

36 th All British Rally

This years All Britsh Rally was held on the 28th and 29th of April 2012 at the Newstead Racecourse Reserve .This event is the major works of the BSA Motorcycle Owners Association Inc, and the organisers bill it as " The largest gathering of British bikes in the Southern Hemisphere ! " a pre booked ticket to this event gets you a camp site for two nights, free fire wood, use of camp facilities ,a show bag of M/C goodies a very nice enamel badge ,entry for the raffle, prize this year a lovely restored 500 Ajay, out door movies Friday night  and live band Saturday beside a bonfire , bakery lunch on Saturday at Maldon bakery and some stuff that I have forgotten .All this for $ 50.00 !!!  too much to resist ,I was there with all the bike people wandering around chatting with other owners sitting around a fire at night [ didn't rain this year ] and generally having a great
time in the  beautiful environment of Central Victoria . Here's some pics and a bit of comment .

M20 Beeza  and owner , this guy rides his M20 from Mt Gambier to Newstead every year , the idea of the rally is to actually ride and camp , we generally cheat and trailer the bikes up and do the ride over to Maldon trailering the bikes allows us to enjoy a few creature comforts like bedding and food .But I do admire these blokes for their commitment and endurance .

 First in best dressed , our campsite comes with under cover parking for our bikes .

" Its a beautiful day..... don't let it slip away " ......I didn't

Post war Norton single, might be Mod 18   19 or Es2  my next project will be similar to this machine but will have a high level exhaust .

Historic Maldon ,over run with British Motorcycles and their owners  for the day , literally  millions of dollars worth of bikes, I saw four Vincents, one for sale at $ 50,000

Pic of Mrs Tarsnakes Andy and I in the queue outside the Maldon bakery
pic courtesy of   . tarsnakes .com 

Deja vu on the Dominator

Saturday morning I had an early lunch geared up and headed off on the Domi I turned right onto the Highway and took the first left and left again onto the Colac Apollo Bay road .I ran to the Birre back road and turned left into Warncoort Cemetery Road and followed this down to the Cemetery,parked the bike and took a few pics of headstones, I thought, would be of interest to members of my family .
Next stop was a couple of miles up the Highway and more pics from the past, I remember vividly sitting on the Domi and riding down that gravel road with Keith on his Ajay beside me , this was the place where I learned to ride and drive and shoot ,we towed a sled up a dry creek bed with a Austin car in order to entertain ourselves , all were made welcome here and all came away the better for it .
The bike was running well and cruising nicely so I decided to cut across to the township of Birregurra through to Deans Marsh and up to Benwerrin and roll down the coast at Lorne .When I hit the curvy bit I found I was changeing between third and dropping back to second in the tight ones mainly for the engine braking it was a nice run, no cars infront or behind .I rolled into Lorne and went straight through without stopping got into the curves around past the Pacific Hotel and thought ,will I go to the Bay or turn back ? Just one more bend ,its easy to find your self in Apollo Bay and realize you are now going to be late for some function, so I pulled over at the St George River went over the bike took a pic and stretched my legs .
The Domi started first kick [after tickling the amal] so I rode back along Mountjoy Parade over the Erskine and up the Colac road and got stuck behind a 121 Mazda . I rounded the car up and climbed back up to Benwerrin, but the motor was missing in the mid range, if I tried incremental throttle openings , it only liked full open throttle [common symptom of worn throttle slides] but not in this case .The problem is I have fitted a Amal Concentric 600 series carby to the bike I have it set up with a 27 mm bore, 40 idle jet, 3 and half cutaway slide , 106 needle jet and a 170 main jet, with these settings it was running pretty well through the gears but wouldn't wind right out, the plugs were telling me its running lean. So I ordered a 180 and 190 main jet and a new needle jet 106 from Amal in Wiltshire . When the jets arrived I installed the new needle jet and the 190 main jet and thats where I'm at now , so I think I have to lean down the mid throttle section with slide cutaway and needle position .
Once I got out of the hills the bike ran beautifully on the flats back to Colac , speedwise Its hard to tell as I am using an original speedo drive 2 to 1 ratio and an Indian repro speedo ,my gut feeling is that its showing 10 - 15 mph fast in the mid range, got some more tricks to try with this later on . All in all I'm very happy with the bike , it tracks well, stops well for its age [with the new front linings ] starts first kick ,vibration is not a problem the only annoying trait is not being able to select neutral when stopped . This is caused by clutch drag and it seems to me that you have to walk a fine line between drag and slip I'll have a go at this later . " So endeth the lesson "
Click on pics to enlarge, you will need to wait for them to load up .

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The shearing shed

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There's fun to be had in dry creek beds the absense of rocks make them suitable for all sorts of mischief on one occasion Phil Provan trailered out his 650 Thunderbird Triumph and we got a taste of power that afternoon .

J

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Head out on the highway !
Jules recently recalled when on one occasion he was pillion on Keith's 500 Ajay ,and were doing laps of the gravel road, but this time when hitting the highway instead of turning around ,Keith pulled out on the bitumen turning right and rode down to the creek over the bridge and right into the driveway of the property owners and from there back to the start point .Pretty cheeky considering they were about sixteen on an unregistered motorcycle on highway 1, and it wasn't the last time either !

The Domi parked at the St George River

Ballarat Swap Meeting 2012

The Ballarat swap meeting , the write up states 2,300 sites and 30,000 visitors ,certainly must be one of the biggest swaps in Australia .Previously known as The Super Southern Swap Meeting this swap was run by an enterprising local who for a mountain of reasons relinquished the control to the Ballarat Rotary Clubs who have run the event as The Ballarat Swap Meeting .The new operators have changed a couple of things , the site holders and public have swapped their entrances and carparkes ? more toilets , NAB ATM's on site more street signs and the service clubs doing the food ,all in all an improvement .
The site is located on land abutting the local airport and has an old landing strip running through the centre of it, this lines up with the operational strip and we were swooped by light aircraft most of Friday afternoon , a minor matter more interesting than irritating ,they use this bit of seal to line up cars for sale ,we arrived to set up camp / site on the Friday afternoon, with temps in the mid to high thirtys Andy was keen to get the fridges plugged in to the batterys and in some sort of shade . When the camp was set up its time to tramp the streets and pick up the real bargains before the public are allowed in on the Saturday morning , but we found none! probably less than half of the sites would be occupied at this stage and some sellers kept stuff under wraps until the official opening .The afternoon progresses with sellers rolling in from interstate and setting up , so you wander over and peer into their trailers searching for stuff on your list . By 7.00pm the swap moves to stage 2 the social stage we pull up chairs under the annex and settle down to bike talk with a string of visitors who drop in with a couple of cans and talk motorcycles only .
When I first went to this swap I was surprised to see a number of special purpose vehicles made by the shoppers , the distance involved at this swap is huge ,serious blokes bring push bikes to cover the distance [ I have never seen all of the sites ]so carrying junk becomes a big problem in the past I have seen blokes wheeling push bikes with milk crates mounted ,bag trollies ,kids 4 wheel carts ,and then the hybrids ,converted ride on mowers with esky racks and shade sails and my favourite was half lawn mower and half a supermarket trolley, the driver sat over the motor and the thing articulated in the middle to steer a bit like a scraper. Unfortunately they had to crack down on all these motorised units and you don't see them any more .

The spoils of war ,various bits I thought I might need in the future , the other half of that Big 4 crankshaft will be hard to find , Geo managed to grab an original Model 7 front guard for me on the Saturday morning some bastard has cut one side of the front edge away , my guess is that it has been reversed and used as a rear guard and needed to be trimmed to clear the rear chain .

The camp / site , on Saturday morning while the tail end Charleys were still trying to find their sites a four wheel drive pulled up and a woman got out and addressed Chris and said " do you know that you're flying the Union Jack upside down " Chris immediatly replied " yes , whe're in distress " . It was a half truth really ,but I thought he deserved 10 points for the quick retort .

Northerly view looking down the disused runway , the place is still pretty quiet at dusk on the Friday evening but was humming by 9.00 am Saturday .Pics from ground level fail to convey the magnitude of this swap meet ,the website has an ariel pic that gives a true impression ,on Saturday morning the wind was getting up and many of the site holders were pulling down the cabana's and tarps and so forth for the fear of having them go West ,or South in this case .

This pic is taken from the South West corner looking East down along a fence line, the layout is in a 'L' shape with the tarmac running down the centre of the L, the service blocks admin ATM's food tents are located in the crook of the L and the two entrances and associated carparks are at the distal points . I found a map showing an approximate area designated "motor cycle area"we're about in the middle of that zone . One little tip for anybody thinking of pitching a tent near the tarmac ,they will need a small sledge hammer and good sturdy tent pegs .

Revised Club Permit Scheme Victoria

Vic Roads , the governing body in Victoria AUS have done us a great favour by introducing this new club registration scheme . It came into effect on February 1 2011, I had the Commando on the Red plates on the 14 th , the day before the full rego ran out. The cost of the full rego for the Commando was $ 444.40 the Red plate rego for this year $ 66.10 . I now have the Dominator on Red plates as of the 10 th of January ,I found it interesting to note that the rego number of the commando is 1782-H and the Domi is 3284-H leaving 1502 plates in between the 14 th of Feb 2011 and the 10 th Jan 2012. Works out at 136 bikes a month , actually its 136 number plates a month , these plates may be in the rack at Vic Roads or on bikes ?. Not too sure if the bean counters have done due dilligence in this matter but things that seem too good to be true usually are not ,or at least short lived .
The scheme requires that the vehicle be in excess of the age for the category [25 years in my case ] I think for Historic plates ,you must be a financial member of a approved club , you must fill out a simple log book for each trip .You can choose to have 90 days or 45 day rego for the year .The club that I belong to has set subs at $ 30.00 PA and if the vehicle is pre 1980 a club officer does the vehicle inspection at no cost and a current roadworthy is not required .
Malcolm Fraser is wrong ! I have found the free meal of motorcycling ,I have a debt of gratitude to the the club people who lobby government for my benefit and at there cost , so I resolve to make an effort to support the local club and its events .

Colac Heritage Festival

The Colac Collectable Car Club ,that enables me to qualify for the club permit registration, usually supports the Heritage Festival by providing a display from the members collections .Now that I have fixed the Domi's gearbox I thought I would ride the Domi in and leave it there for the day .I had a chat with a few blokes and a wander around talking to other exhibitors , the committee decides on a theme each year and this year it was Fordson Tractors Ford Cars and the Potatoe and Wool industries.I took a couple of shots of bikes ,a Military M20 and one with a chair [very nice ].

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Some of these people go to a lot of trouble at these shows and one display I took a pic of ,shows a set up ,with an oil engine running a small flour mill,from which a bush wife them makes scones and bakes them in a cast iron stove [all portable] ,note the husband spent the day talking to the punters and this poor woman worked like a trojan all day in 33 degree heat .<
You can just make out the husbands back as he chats with the punters , forgot to mention that the young daughter in this family is operating a sewing machine, probably mending Dads clothes