Couple of takes on 2 wheel drive though the Bee-eeM looks slightly less painful to ride than the one beneath which looks like it escaped from a field .. and you look a bit of a berk riding it .. 

3 pic looks like any other smoking late 90's R1 but take a look at the front hub on the other side and it's the 2 wheel drive hydro system developed with Ohlins .. 

 

On 12/16/2020 at 2:44 PM, ballpoint said:

Rolls Royce engines

 

A bit more info about the R R Meteor engine , a derivative of the Merlin has surfaced .. W A Robotham , head of chassis design at Rolls was contacted by Leyland who were building a new prototype infantry tank circa early 1941 but were bemoaning the lack of powerful and reliable engines as the M O D had demanded 20 hp per a tonne in the spec' .. Robotham mused that a Merlin would do the job so one was assembled from used salvaged parts minus the supercharger , prop' gearbox and other ancillaries needed for the aero engine and with the camshafts mirror reversed for it to run in the opposite direction to the norm used on aero engines .. duly stripped back it was fitted into a 20 ton Crusader tank with remarkable results when tested at Aldershot test grounds clocking 50 mph .. concept proved now they had to source them .. R R thereselves did not have the capacity to build them alongside the Merlin but initially allowed Robotham to assemble a team from his dept to build from parts salvaged out of crashed planes and components rejected by the higher standards required for aircraft but perfectly acceptable for a land based engine to be installed in the new Cromwell tank .. at this point Robotham and his team became quite involved in the design of the tanks being proposed and split the production of the Cromwell away from Leyland to another engineering company but the problem of supply of engines became even more pronounced with R R maintaining that without additional investment in production facilities along with the undertaking that there would be no beauraucratic interference from W D there was little they could do , with the bottleneck arriving on the desk of Lord Beaverbrook Minister of Supply who issued Rolls with an unprecedented guarantee of a million pounds and the pledge that Rolls and Robotham would be allowed to get on with the job .. such was the demand that Rolls soon found thereselves still unable to keep up and a partnership was struck with Rover and Morris to begin production of the Meteor at their plant's .. A further exchange with the jet engine Rover had been developing but had struggled to push on further going to Rolls with pretty much all Meteor production going over to Rover .. 

The Cromwell debuted in 1944 with a 500 hp Meteor giving it exceptional speed and mobility to the point that it had to be governed back to prevent suspension and transmission damage but lacking the 2 other main precepts of armour and firepower needed in the ideal tank .. the Comet that came into service early 1945 addressed those issues with a higher velocity version of the 17 pounder Q F anti tank gun already shown to be deadly against the Panther and Tiger tank's along with a substantial upgrade in armour ( the front glacis plate went up to 125 mm of RHA steel ) and another 60 hp from the engine for good measure though now the maximum speed was governed to 35 mph to save trashing the tracks and suspension .. weighing in at 33 tonnes this actually took it closer to the 3 precepts of mobility , firepower and armour than most other tanks in the war had achieved prior to that point .. The Meteor then went on to power the Comet's successor the Centurion right through to the 60's and in its most powerful specification of 850 hp the huge 70 tonne Conqueror but it's swiftness was nullified moving such a monster around with that machine becoming almost as handicapped as the similarly weighted King Tiger of WW2 .. 

Bottom pic' 1945 Comet ..

 

12 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

A further exchange with the jet engine Rover had been developing but had struggled to push on further going to Rolls with pretty much all Meteor production going over to Rover .. 

 

This is the key bit for me. Rolls Royce didn't want to build tanks so they said to Rover. "Why don't you take over producing all the tanks, or engines for tanks, as they are a bit like the engines you already build and we will take over development of that jet engine that you are getting nowhere with". ...And the rest as they say....

Chrysler multi bank as fitted in the Sherman Firefly .. five , straight 6 cylinder lumps orbitally arranged around a central crankcase giving it just over 20 litre capacity .. not overly powerful at 370/80 hp but was quite reliable and is said to be still capable of running and moving the tank ( abeit slowly ) even with 2 banks shot out .. 

 

Manly ...  I did something like that on my Suzuki 125cc TS back in 1978 in Thailand.  Ouch!  Didn't break anything, but sprained one of each body parts that could be sprained. I wobbled back to town on my bike. Couple stupid kids

ran a stop sign ...

 

 

23 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

my Suzuki 125cc TS

 

Had one of those in Indonesia in 1999. Still the bike of choice there for rail riding in the mountains.

13 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

 

Had one of those in Indonesia in 1999. Still the bike of choice there for rail riding in the mountains.

The TS 185 would have been nice.  About the same weight and 4 more hp.

On 1/15/2021 at 10:07 AM, Damrongsak said:

Manly ...  I did something like that on my Suzuki 125cc TS back in 1978 in Thailand.  Ouch!  Didn't break anything, but sprained one of each body parts that could be sprained. I wobbled back to town on my bike. Couple stupid kids

ran a stop sign ...

 

 

I did the same thing on my old DT200R about 25 years ago. Speeding along a flooded dirt track out in the rice fields when the front wheel dropped into a ditch someone had dug across it.  Next thing I knew, I was lying on my back in the water in front of the bike.  To make things worse, it happened right in front of a group of people planting rice. The bike started first kick and I headed straight home to dry off and get changed, to find that news of my fall had already got there ahead of me.  Amazing how fast gossip travelled even before mobile phones were invented.

OK, it's a Harley.  But a very nice one.

 

Another "It's a Harley" ...

Ride what you want.

Let others do likewise

Always likes the pans....

 

I think the same people that hate Harleys hate Starbucks, McDonald's & Apple....

 

9 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Always likes the pans....

 

I think the same people that hate Harleys hate Starbucks, McDonald's & Apple....

 

I quite like Starbucks, McDonalds and Apple....

Interesting ...

 

MV F4 after the Zagato style studio makeover .. 

 

2 wheel drive and hub steered Drysdale based on a Maico 250 .. and with wannabe T34 armour .. 

 

Russian IZh's .. top bike looks suspiciously DKW RT like and the bottom bike a bourgeois and decadent twin with water cooling , the Jupiter 5 ..

 

^ I'd go for the water cooled version.????

Motorcycle meets F1. Honda 1.5l v12

 

 

It was mounted sidways!

 

 

 

In situ' ^ ..

Later RA273 V12 in the more conventional longitudinal layout but with the 'arris about face idea of the exhaust ports exiting into the Vee and inlets on the outside of it .. not a clean looking engine this even though it revved to 12,000 rpm .. nor particularly successful and was dropped after one season .. 

dig that dinky little oil cooler at the back though .. 

 

2 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

Motorcycle meets F1. Honda 1.5l v12

 

 

It was mounted sidways!

 

 

125cc per

Nearest rival to the R R Meteor engine would be the Maybach V12 HL series that powered the Panther and Tiger tank's of Germany .. started out at 21 litres and 650 hp before being enlarged to 23 ltrs and 700 gee gee's with a not insignificant 1364 lbs/ft of torque at 2100 rpm .. downside being Tiger 1 in battle trim needed 220/250 gallons of fuel to go a 100 mile across country .. 

King Tiger weighing another 13+ tonnes needed even more which seriously impaired their abilities when fuel became scarcer as the conflict came to an end .. Not to mention in the later Tiger the engine was at the very edge of its reliability envelope moving a 70 tonne tank about .. Maybach were developing a fuel injected version at 850 hp and a supercharged variant with over a 1000 for the King Tiger but that would have only consumed greater quantities of fuel stressing a supply line even more and then the end came before it got anywhere near being ready .. 

Bottom pic' is overhead view of the 4 twin choke carburettors needed to slake it's thirst .. 

 

An engine from the Russian T -34 tank  , a V 12 diesel engines putting out about 500 hp named the T-34 as that was when it was first designed  in 1934 ,the one that was used at the Battle of Stalingrad ,etc.

The early Russian tanks were shod with petrol engines ,in the war with Japan, pre WW2   the bad workmanship ,ie holes and gaps in the armour plating ,enemy  shells would pierce the armour ,exit one tank ,almost a bomb on tracks ,so they decided on a diesel engine ,a bit safer 

It was not the all singing and dancing tank that we were led to believe  mainly Russian propergander ,not at all reliable,but with the simple design  from 1941-43, 30 000 T-34's were produced ,compared with  5 000 German Panzer IV ,the average T-34 used to go for 200 km before a major repair .

In just six days of fighting the Russian tank brigades lost 326  out of their  400 T-34 ,but just 66 of these where combat losses -the rest were all due to breakdowns. 

it was not all bad, the front of the tank had a 60 degree  sloop to it and with 45 mm thick armour German shells use to just bounce off the body, it had a very broad tracks which made it good for going through mud and snow.

 

Excellent contribution on the T34 above by Kickstart .. 

Yes reliability was not it's strong point with the gearbox in particular rarely lasting 100 kms , being essentially a tractor design crash box with no synchro hubs at all .. the driver quite often carried a hammer to belt the lever back when changing .. early ones were 4 speed only with 4th so tall it was only usable on level roads so off road they would start in 1st then hammer the lever back into 2nd which would get it up to about 15 kmh , hammering it into 3rd could get it upto nearly 30 kmh's but it then became quite unstable as the suspension wasn't damped so they would start pitching and wallowing and become difficult to steer or stop causing many to crash into other tanks and anti tank ditches or roll over on rough inclined ground .. the lack of damping was also a problem when trying to take a stationary shot as the gunner had to wait for it to stop pitching and settle before lining up the gunsight .. not what you want in the heat of battle .. 

Germany captured hundreds of them during the early part of their invasion with some being repurposed for their own use but they quickly found out about its reliability issues so would use them until they broke down and if it wasn't easily repairable destroy them in the field .. and some were sent back to Germany for assessment by the military and numerous engineering companies with a view to reverse engineering it .. the angling of the armour increasing shot protection was not disputed but they concluded that the general design and the suspension that was attached to the outside of the hull narrowed the crew compartment unacceptably and along with other short comings to the design as they seen it just further developed the armour angling into the Panther that debuted 1943 .. 

'34 with a spare transmission strapped to the engine deck .. 

 

This came up in my suggested videos on YouTube.  Maybe I should be worried at just how well they know what I like...

Anyway, a nice little video on the history of board track racing.  Great stuff.

 

Following on from the previous video, a 1912 Indian Single and a 1913 Indian Twin.  Gorgeous bikes:

 

 

I very likely never will be.  But I'm trying to work out if that's a good or bad thing...

1 hour ago, ballpoint said:

I very likely never will be.  But I'm trying to work out if that's a good or bad thing...

 

Never saw a lion but I saw monkeys. Also saw two bikes crisscrossing and a go-cart on the wall at the same time, with a girl driving the cart.  Motordromes or  "The Wall of Death" were very popular in the US. I worked for a carnival from '76-'88 and the show I worked for had one. Saw the "Globe of Death" a few times booked in as well. 

 

I'm sure there are a few still operating if you have an interest, they are (or at least were) always hiring...

On 1/21/2021 at 3:10 PM, Justgrazing said:

2 wheel drive and hub steered Drysdale based on a Maico 250 .. and with wannabe T34 armour ..

Looks like something you'd find at a John Deere tractor dealer.