KTT 305: The Dry Build – Part 2 - Completion

There were still a few little jobs before the dry build was complete.

The head-steady stays (FK75 and FK75/2) were missing and the pair were fabricated from ½” diameter steel tube.

An original (from one of the other bikes) is in the upper part of the picture and a part-formed new one in the middle. In the lower part of the picture is the press tool that I made some time ago for forming the ends of mudguard stays and has come in handy more than once.

The steering damper was not yet connected to the petrol tank and a slotted connecting piece was made.

The bike, having been raced in vintage club events some 40 years ago, had long since lost its number plate and a new one was marked out using my standard cardboard template,

cut out with a disk cutter, bent to shape

and fixed to the rear mudguard.

2x long ¼” BSCY adjusters were made for the rear wheel

Up to now, there had been no means of attaching the filler cap to the petrol tank. The reason for this was that when I had the tanks made in India (10+ years ago - see here) I had no idea what filler caps I would be using. I have one original KTT cap but that belongs to KTT 55. I managed to get another one from Pete’s Bikes and that is now fitted to KTT 305.

The fitting to the tank is a bit fiddly to make.

Attached with silver solder,

it worked out well.

I found that the “swivel joint for the cam lever” – W-26 on the front brake that I had made was fine when installed

but was not looking so good after a few pulls on the front brake lever.

The reason is clear: the cable does not run parallel to the fork tubes because of the offset of the cam lever and so pulls the swivel joint to one side. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?

Unfortunately, I had already made 3 of these – one for each of the project bikes so these went in the scrap bin and 3 new ones were made, this time with a small flange to prevent it being pulled over.

The last detail to attend to was the bum pad; I bought a number of these some years ago – beautifully made, stitched leather etc and I have fitted these to a number of my bikes. However, these are too long to fit over the loop of the ½” diameter steel tubing mudguard stay and would spoil the flowing lines if fitted.

I therefore asked Mark Barker if he would make a shorter one – which he has and I have just fitted to the bike. As with the tool boxes, it is superbly crafted and completes the dry build.

 

Classic Motorcycle Racing in New Zealand

An excellent article by Bill Swallow in the most recent edition of Fishtail (Velo Owners Club magazine) about racing in New Zealand prompted me to hunt out pictures that I had taken on two separate visits to the country in 2017 and 2020. The first visit was a bucket list holiday; my wife and I spent 5 weeks there and after flying to Auckland, we hired a car and drove North to the Bay of Islands and then travelled down to Invercargill at the southern tip of the South Island via Wellington, the Cook Straits car ferry and Picton, stopping at many places en-route. I won’t bore you with pictures of hot springs and beautiful seascapes and scenery (or Hobbits) but I have got quite a few pictures relevant to classic and vintage motorcycles.

We met up with an ex-work buddy of mine, Bob Davis – an avid motorcyclist, in Auckland and it turned out that the early February race meet at Pukekohe coincided with our holiday …so off we went.

The same thing happened in 2020 but this time we didn’t plan a long visit but rather a quick stop-off for the racing at Pukekohe before travelling on to spend 3 weeks in Tasmania. Apart from touring all around Tasmania I was trying to find if anyone remembered the OHC AJS V-Twin that had resided in Launceston for which I was building the replica at the time; that ended up being a fruitless mission but a lovely holiday.

Our timing was not so good for the second visit – Covid had just hit the world. My choice of airline was also not good; I had chosen to travel with China Airlines via Beijing (because they had a really good deal on business class seats – and which had been booked many months in advance, long before Covid came out of Wuhan). Shortly after we arrived, New Zealand closed its airspace to flights from China – and so there was zero chance of taking our return flight a month later out of Auckland and we had to rebook with Vietnam Airways via Hanoi from Sydney. Oh well, at least we made it back to the UK.

Anyway, back to motorbikes; first, at Pukekohe in 2017:

A beautiful AJS GR8. This was raced by the lady standing to the left of the bike.

The GR8 was the sporty version of the G8 – 1926 OHV singles. I had a G8 at the time – pictured below

and so the racing version was of great interest to me – I had never seen one before and have never seen one since. Hers is a lot prettier than mine but I was very happy with the performance of my G8.

Some beautiful Rudges

An immaculate cammy AJS

1930s and probably an R10 – but I don’t have any further details. This would be the racing, rather than the off-road version that I restored.

The Eldee Velocette.

Nearly impossible to see anything – but I have some much better pictures without the fairing from the 2000 Pukekohe meeting – see later.

Anyone that is in New Zealand and is interested in old vehicles should visit the British Car Museum near Napier – reputedly the largest collection in the world.

…..and the owner….

Although it is well on the way to the Antarctic, Invercargill is somewhere that should be visited at least once in a lifetime by anyone travelling to NZ and has an interest in historical motorcycles and racing. There are (at least) 2 places of interest.

First is Hayes hardware shop which, apart from having a unique collection of vintage machinery, including many bikes, houses Burt Monroes legendary Indian.

The picture below is a replica of the bike that you can try for size.

I figured that Burt must have been a bit shorter than me.

The Indian

The Velocette

and, for me, the picture that defines the meaning of the expression Dogged Persistence.

The other must-see motorcycle museum in Invercargill is the Classic Motorcycle Mecca.

A couple of pictures on my blog can’t even start to do it justice - you need to visit.

Although nothing to do with motorcycles, Bill RichardsonsTransport Museum should also be on the list of places to visit in Invercargill.

Our 2^nd visit to NZ in 2020 – the one when we had to rearrange our return to the UK because of Covid, also happened to coincide with the Pukekohe race meeting at the beginning of February. By this time, I had got a slightly better camera on my phone (a Samsung S8 mini – yes, it's prettty basic, but it does everything that I want and I still use it now) and discovered that a sequence of still photos could be taken by holding down the trigger button – very useful for capturing images of racing motorcycles.

But, first a brief tour around the paddock.

A brace of Brittens.

The Eldee – now unfaired

A lovely Mk IV KTT

The start of the classic race

Around the course

A few of the bikes in action...

Fond memories…..