Most people here wouldn't know, but I'm immensely grateful to Keith and his crew for allowing me to use their extensive facilities on the Cannonball two years ago. My Ariel had lost compression when we reached South Dakota due to valve seat recession and significant wear of the exhaust guide. Who knew you could do an extensive rebuild of the top end of an engine in a motel parking lot at night and have the bike ready to ride in the morning? Anyway, without Keith's facilities (and his War Department surplus Norton valve guide), my ride would have ended only half-way across the country.I have just started a restoration of a 50 Shadow also. I plan on making as original as possible.
Me too. Relevant to this thread, I have modern bikes when I want a modern bike riding experience, but when I ride old bikes I want to experience them as close as reasonable to the way they were at the time they were made.I enjoy working on bikes as much as riding them.
As an aside, in no small part inspired by Keith's trailer on the Cannonball, I bought a trailer of my own this time last year and earlier this year completed modification of it with workbench, vise, LED lights, tie-down tracks, etc.
Enclosed Motorcycle Trailer: Design & Build
And now for something completely different, as Monty Python might say. A search of the 'Projects' forum didn't turn up anything similar to what will follow in this thread, which either means no one will care about what I will post, or that (I hope) it's just that no one has documented suc...
www.britbike.com
When I restored a Bultaco Metralla ~20 years ago to be in the Guggenheim's 'The Art of the Motorcycle', a friend who owns a shop in town took it to the guy who did his painting, conveying my instructions that I wanted the paint to look like it was done in pre-industrialized Spain. My friend reported back that his painter said it was the first time a customer had requested "a sh*t paint job."Trying to replicate the stove enamel is my real challenge. We only use paint on Vincents ... Often a bit too shiny.