12 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

1. Gearboxes have been sawn off both engines and the bike is running a separate Big Twin box which (gulp) still runs a kickstarter.

Tranny always a weak link in the Iron Heads if you try for big power.

Agree - bike is a thing of beauty, clean, crisp, and quick.

IWC's Spitfire .. Taking off from Goodwood today to commemorate a round the world flight which it is attempting to repeat .. Over a 100 stop overs are planned which is understanderable given they rarely had a fuel range of more than a 1000 kms .. This plane was complete before resto' which took 10 yrs and is said to be 90% original now .. Just love the all over polished look usually found on P51's .. 

 

Another low flying Spitfire, a CCM Spitfire Scrambler:

 

While in Spitfire mode, although a car, both parts of its name make it entirely appropriate for this thread.  Triumph Spitfire:

6 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

While in Spitfire mode, although a car, both parts of its name make it entirely appropriate for this thread.  Triumph Spitfire:

Indeed one of the dying embers of the Brit' motor industry was the Spit' by the early 80's .. as is always the case now there are very few left the value is going skywards .. Not the easiest motor to get into the 4 pot got itself a bit of a rep' as a hairdressers car but the more powerful and hirsute 6 banger GT6 was seen more as a poor mans E type if you didn't have the dough for the big cat .. But thankfully both could quite easily stick you backwards into a wall courtesy of the goppy transverse leaf spring rear suspension nicked off the Herald ( ever seen a herald or spit' jacked up at the rear where both wheels drop to an alarming camber angle .? ) .. 

6 banger GT6 ..

 

5 hours ago, ballpoint said:

Triumph Spitfire:

One more brief flirtation with 4 wheel Triumphs the Stag .. On paper quite possibly a world beater .. 2+2 luxury convertible , Italian styled with overdrive and a brand new 3 ltr OHC V8 .. The Americans will love it thought the upper echelons of BMC who had Triumph under the wing and were banking on the car being a big hit in North America .. And the American market did buy to a degree 'till they started overheating courtesy of the ( in ) famous cooling issues that dogged them all their lives .. The gear driven water pump ( the larger orifice at the left of the block ) sits in the top of the block rather than the front above the crank as per norm' convention and originally only carried an 8 bladed impeller but was later up bladed to 12 .. Insufficient movement of coolant because of this meant they would run hot and with different expansion rates t'wixt Iron block and All'y 'head , cyl head gaskets would get stressed and start leaking coolant and as was common of the day the system would be topped up with water only which is quite possibly the worse thing to top up with .. Engine gets hot stresses gasket a bit more loses a bit more coolant runs a bit hotter until they blew proper .. The fun then starts .. All'y heads that slid down over steel studs would corrode themselves to the studs because of the water used in topping up making removal to change the gasket a " challenge " to the point that in extreme cases a special extraction plate would be needed to be in with a chance of saving the head whilst trying to get it off the studs .. numerous overheats before the gasket finally gave up often warped the head also which then required refacing before refitting .. An engine driven fan didn't enhance the system's capability either whereby an electric 'stat operated job would have been more efficient in low speed traffic when they tended to boil up .. Sad end to a car that could and should have been more .. 

 

Some Yam's ..

XS650 , SR250 and a neat XS750 .. 

 

Loads of XV's out there confirming what a good engine it is as a start point .. Here's 2 .. 

 

16 hours ago, ballpoint said:

Another low flying Spitfire, a CCM Spitfire Scrambler:

 

Reminds me to add some action shots of that Terrot trial bike i posted earlier;

check the concentration out on the old geezer-builder's face - proper;

 

 

 

Just a note of thanks to all that post here. It one of my highlights of the day. Opening the forum in general and this thread in specific. I have been convalescing so haven't been able to get out for a bit but am living vicariously through this forum. Thanks ever so much to all and keep up the great work it is greatly appreciated.

24 minutes ago, Randell said:

Just a note of thanks to all that post here. It one of my highlights of the day. Opening the forum in general and this thread in specific. I have been convalescing so haven't been able to get out for a bit but am living vicariously through this forum. Thanks ever so much to all and keep up the great work it is greatly appreciated.

Sorry to hear you ain't been well Randell .. Good to know this thread brightens the day up .. We'll try and keep it going .. And let us know if there are any particular bikes to you're liking .. 

Might not get many likes with this post...

The future?  Yamaha TY-E electric trials bike.  Lithium battery, carbon monocoque frame, weighs less than 70 kg.  Still has a mechanical clutch though.

One more XV and a nice W650 Kawasaki .. 

Beautiful shot of the IWC Spitfire doing the world tour .. 

 

Grip it and rip it...

 

Grip it and rip it...
 

Then flip it and dick it...

On 8/5/2019 at 6:15 PM, Justgrazing said:

( ever seen a herald or spit' jacked up at the rear where both wheels drop to an alarming camber angle .? ) .. 

My Vitesse had a anti camber bar thingy bolted across the back courtesy of SAH Tuning (I think from Leighton Buzzard) amongst other bits.

Velo' and a Yam singles in Norton frames .. 

 

One more XV and a nice W650 Kawasaki .. 
Beautiful shot of the IWC Spitfire doing the world tour .. 
 

The Silver Spitfire will be at Ubon Airport for 2 nights from 14th October (then DM&CM before going to Burma)


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7 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Velo' and a Yam singles in Norton frames .. 

 

The first pic is lovely.

The 2nd pic, much as i love my Yam SR4/500's, and the build is a great one, is sacrilege.

Whoever built that needs to be burnt at a stake.

 

Rule Britannia and all that...

 

 

 

Rule Britannia 2.0...

 

Don't get a more BRITISH name on an engine than J. A. Prestwich...

Made in London, England...

 

 

Maybe this is more to your liking? 555

 

JAP's! Thousands of 'em!

 

 

A bike of unknown origin.  If only manufacturers would put more labels on them...

 

Alright, it's a modern JAP, built by the reincarnated J.A. Prestwich Industries in 2009.

A couple of JAP mongrels:

a '38 JAP 500 bobber.  Though I bet it costs a lot more than that.

 

And a red nosed Norton-JAP 988cc Sprinter, built in 1959 by Francis Williams:

Top one looks like the work of Master Artiste Max Hazan.

Bottom one - prolly the first Featherbed frame i've ever seen with struts in place of rear shocks.

 

15 hours ago, thaiguzzi said:

Whoever built that needs to be burnt at a stake.

 

Rule Britannia and all that...

Blimey Guzz' .. No leniency there .. 

The one beneath is all Brit' but .. 

 

100% all Brit' and no added Imp in either .. 

 

I'll see your Triton Trident and raise it with a 1000cc bored and stroked Norman Hyde kit.

Always thought a triple suits the Featherbed frame so well.

 

 

Concur - the Imp motor is hideous, and no amount of alloy polishing will hide it.

Come back SR500 Yam in a Norton frame - all is forgiven.....

 

12 minutes ago, thaiguzzi said:

Concur - the Imp motor is hideous, and no amount of alloy polishing will hide it.

Come back SR500 Yam in a Norton frame - all is forgiven

Indeed the Imp motor was sh*t anyway .. always blowing head gaskets as it was stuck in the back with the rad' which was cooled by an engine driven fan .. Talk about p*ss poor design .. There's an even worse Norton with Imp engine out there ( note i did not diss' the name by calling it a Nor*mp ) with the lump canted forward which does duck all for the looks .. 

I have also disco'd Featherbed's with H D lumps in them .. Now that is heresy .. Or Hershey as my mate Dave says .. 

Better than than Yam .. 

Top bike has been up before but is still worth oggling .. 

Red bike is interesting .. Looks like a starter motor's been fitted .. Is that a T160 lump which had a starter fitted O E as far as I can remember or is it an earlier lump retro fitted with a starter .? You're considerable knowledge of Brit's is needed here Guzz' .. 

 

 

Since we seem to be on a British bike theme now, here are a couple of pictures that I took in 1970 at a motorcycle gymkhana in Sayama, Japan. These guys were members of the Tokyo Trials Club. Their metallic blue helmets with white stripes showed me that. I was only 16 or 17 at the time and I thought they looked pretty cool, so I took a few pictures. 

 

My father was US military and we were fortunate enough to be living in Japan at the time.

I was a member of a rival club. We had lime green helmets and I rode a 1967 Kawasaki A7 350 Avenger.

It was a 338cc rotary-valve two-stroke twin and it was incredibly quick.