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Does anyoone still have Whitworth tools? I traded mine for a box-o-Ducati back in '84. At the time I thought it was a fair trade, but I wish now that i would have kept them.

My God! 80% of this board dosn't have Whitworth's??
What do you use to work on your Rudge's and Royal Enfileds!?

I still have a Whitworth bike, so....

And how can you adjust anything on your Spagthorpe VME 497 without them, I want to know...?

darthrider wrote:My God! 80% of this board dosn't have Whitworth's??

We used to have one, but I think J.C. Penney bought them out.

What do you use to work on your Rudge's and Royal Enfileds!?

Isn't this supposed to be a family-friendly board? I'd really rather not hear about your "Rudge" and your Royal-blue-whatever!

Old Brit bikes are great...they have *interesting* nicknames & slogans:
Triumph - Turnip, Trumpet
BSA - Beezer, "Bastard Stopped Again", "Best Scooter Available"
Norton - Snortin' Norton, Notrun
Royal Enfield - Royal Oilfield
Brough Superior - Rough Inferior
Rudge - "Don't trudge, It, Rudge It!"
Ariel Square Four - Squariel

Help me out here you old timers...the memory is the first thing to go. Can't remember what the second thing was!

I learned something today!

I had heard Trumpet and Beezer before, but didn't have a clue what they were.

Stick with me Gomer...you will learn all kinds of worthless crap!
I named my little dog "Beezer", one of my cats "Shadow" as in Vincent Black Shadow, the other "Cammy" as in a DOHC Norton racer, aka "Cammy Norton".
I had nicknamed my as yet unborn son "Norton", not being smart enough to realize that would have likely stuck with him all his life...and not even knowing if it was a boy. Fortunately my very savvy mother gave me a swift kick in the ass and made me back off. My son Bill has been eternally grateful!

Norkins anyone?

How about Norvin? Triton? Beezumph?

I don't think I've ever heard a Matchless called anything but. And then there's your AJS.

Hey Old's cool, rider...know what AJS stands for?
And there was/is the Tribsa.

Dave,

AJS stands for Porcupine, doesn't it...?

Or Albert John Stevens, I forget which.

Congratulations Arkilne, you've just won a prize!
I will send you a somewhat used example of the famous Lucas 3-position light switch: Dim, flicker & off!

Dave,

I think I've got at least one of those already...

Tell you what though, hoist a cold one for me when it is safe to do so.

Don't forget JAP engines, the mainstay of flat trackers every where. And for the Golden Prize, what does JAP stand for, Darth, no fare you answering.

I *know* what JAP stands and nobody needs to get a kink in their PC panties, either!
Dean-O...wasn't "JAP" a boyhood chum of yours?

Ah...J.A. Prestwich of London. I cut my teeth (and knuckles!) on a few of these engines while my older brother would find a way to destroy them every weekend.

Ah...J.A. Prestwich of London. I cut my teeth (and knuckles!) on a few of these engines while my older brother would find a way to destroy them every weekend.

Where was that? What bikes...racers?
I'm not old enough to have worked on those...I'm only 61!

For those 68% that don't know, an English engineer named Joseph Whitworth was most famous for (at least in the world of motorcycles) for devising the first common standard for fastener sizes including threads patterns and hex sizes. British bikes and cars up through the mid sixties used this standard for fasteners and anyone who worked on these classic beasts had to own a set of Whitworth sized wrenches. Around the mid sixties, most British manufacturers changed to the metric system.

I used these tools in the mid to late '70s to work on older bikes that my brother raced. Whitworth was the single most important reason why I learned the proper technique for tapping threads. (Although I had the Whitworth tools, new fasteners weren't always available.)

More generally, he was known for being a very ingenious engineer.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SCwhitworth.htm

Darth,
It's no surprise that you aren't old enough to have worked on these engines. To my knowledge, the last built were 1938 or 1939.

My brother, Rip Collins, used to race at the Creek County Speedway in Kellyville, Ok in the 70's, but he wasn't really very good.

When he was building his 1969 Mustang Mach I in '76, he befriended an ex-cop in Broken Arrow that had a garage full of old engines. We inherited two 500cc single OHV, and one 600cc V-twin OHV engines and proceeded to make a bike for the "classic" event that they held prior to the real deal every Friday and Saturday nights.

We never got the V-twin running or mounted, but we traded the singles back and forth for a season in a hand made frame. It wasn't competitive with the BSA's and Triumphs, but it sure was fun keeping it running. Of course most of the moving parts were made in my neighbor's machine shop. Because Rip spent his time keeping his real bike running, he let me build and tune the JAPs. I was 15.

I found this picture on the internet, but if you were to ugly this bike up a bit you would have an idea of what our entry looked like. It was more fun than fast, but you'd be surprised how fast those old engines can go.



He did win a few races on his XR750 over a four year period, but his crashes were much more spectacular than his wins.

Were you guys racing speedway or flat track?

Sorry Dave, I guess I could clarify. The classic even was a failed attempt to bring speedway racing to the track. There were two heats and a main just to show off the sport. It didn't take off and was cancelled after two years.

The normal racing at Creek County was flat track.