RISE of the SPIDER BOBBER to E-TYPE CARROT

ANLAF

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Fellers

If you remember the Spider Bobber project that took up a good deal of the Smallest Workshop in the World I can tell you the engine is now stripped and rebuilt, new clutch, hydraulic clutch, about to order a Hugh's PMA, Boyer ignition, and helicoil one of the right hand side casing bolt holes. I dawbed some Hammerite yellow on there while I mock everything before a decent powder coat job.

Don't believe a word of what previous owners tell you unless its over a vat of something really hot, or with some part in a vice - this engine could never have run the way it was, ever! Now it will (when parts arrive) and I used ThreeBond, too.

I have an original headlamp to put on, and speedo and tacho set-up, too. Just giving thought to rear mudguard and seat. I'm doing this on a budget, so no shiny chrome, no unnecessary add ons - except the tea urn and the pasty warmer.

The engine brackets are aluminium - PO strikes again. Anyone a view on this? I'm inclined to used some good old steel to hold the engine in there. Wouldn't ally suffer fatigue pretty quick?

ANLAF
 

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Fellers
I have an original headlamp to put on, and speedo and tacho set-up, too. Just giving thought to rear mudguard and seat. I'm doing this on a budget, so no shiny chrome, no unnecessary add ons - except the tea urn and the pasty warmer.
The engine brackets are aluminium - PO strikes again. Anyone a view on this? I'm inclined to used some good old steel to hold the engine in there. Wouldn't ally suffer fatigue pretty quick?
ANLAF

Hi ANLAF,
dont sweat the aluminium, those engine plates look thick enough to work OK and they make aircraft out of aluminium, right?
And, FREE BLING, shove a dowel in the drill press, slather the aluminium parts with grinding paste and spot-polish them like a Bugatti engine.
The thumbnail don't quite show, is the cylinder head to frame bracketry still there?
Keeping that kit in place should help hold the engine in too.
And yeah, while the tea urn and pasty warmer from the works cafeteria can be got for free if you are friendly with the nightshift guys, are you going with a trailer or a sidecar to haul them around with you?
 
Thanks Fellers.

Fredintoon, the engine head bracket I have in my box of parts. I have decided to lower the engine in the frame - bottom retaining bolt goes through two chunky barrells of metal sitting on the frame. I am thinking about grinding those off (if that won't affect the integrity of the frame) and weld others underneath the frame. In any case I will have top engine support - already secured at four points in the frame.

Yep, now that I am confident about its strength, I will polish those brackets - but you've guessed it, if I lower the engine I will have to rework those brackets or do others. What we do just to get it right.

ANLAF
 
- - - I have decided to lower the engine in the frame - - -

Hi ANLAF,
if you do that, think about building a sump guard plate.
Although the Political Correctness Police have torn out all the manhole covers local corporations have replaced them with Personnel Access Hatches which are also made of cast iron and stick up just as far past the road surface. Except for the ones that are below the road surface so your front wheel drops in and cracks the sump into the road surface instead.
 
Is my engine sitting at the height as the stock set-up?

Hi ANLAF,
what the photo shows is that the yellow bike frame's side rails pretty well guard the engine.
Dropping the engine down from there leaves it unprotected and hence vulnerable to damage from whatever sticks up to hit it.
Thus my suggestion that you build the thing a skid-plate.
BTW, if you can ever afford another tin of paint for the E-Type Carrot, here's a close-up of my XS11 sidecar rig, "The Flying Pumpkin"

P1010204.jpg


Tangier Orange, it's a GM truck colour.
 
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