Here are a couple more shots of the Comet
I had a spare UFM under the bench, so, what to do with it? Unearth a Comet engine from under a friends bench that had been there for 30 years. Go on E-bay and buy inner and outer chaincases and g/box hanger. Chat with mates in pub about building a special, friend says I've got a front fork that I don't want, find out it's off a Gilera CX125 complete with front wheel. You can have it says friend, I insist he is paid so £60 changes hands. fitted them to the UFM with taper rollers and some metric/inch bodgery. Spoke to Patrick Godet at the Manx GP to see if I could buy one of his inlet manifolds. He said to get in touch after which he sent me a raw casting FOC. E-bay tuned up an unused clip fitting 1 3/8" GP carb for a snip. Godet manifold fits his heads not std. Vin heads, so made up an adaptor plate and machined the stub to fit the carb.
Obtained a bucket full a scrap that resembled an AMC g/box from under the same bench as the comet engine. E-bay used again to buy the Honda VFR400 back end c/w wheel. Machined a housing for the swinging arm pivot
using Vin taper roller assembly. Cut off the front of the Honda swinging arm about half way through the big hole where the Honda spring/damper unit passed through and welded the new housing in position.
Cut out a new G50 plate to suit the AMC box and made g/box adjusting links, spacers etc. Friend Howard suggested a quad bike spring/damper unit that might be suitable, £22 off E-bay so worth the punt. Spring too soft so obtained a Fireblade spring from under the same bench as the engine and machined collars to suit. Purchased tyres so now had a rolling chassis. Cut out the seat support plates that bolt on the back of the UFM. Purchased seat, throttle, control levers, rear brake cylinder, Baker headlight and other bits from the Stafford classic show just up the road. Friend purchases a basket case Comet with a rough fuel tank with a big carb cut-away in it. I buy him a new tank from India and have his tank. Some years ago I bought a couple of Motad silencers for my Shadow racer but never fitted them, so one of these was mated up to an exh. pipe made up by cutting and welding a couple of 2" u-bends bought through E-bay. Bob Cooper from Stafford looked after the chrome plating.
when obtained the front wheel was painted a dull grey colour and the Honda wheel was yellow. I had the tank painted Gold to match the forks, but the auto-jumble at Stafford turned up the Yellow hugger for £4, so that was it, the Yellow Peril was born, Yellow it had to be. The main part still missing was the special front brake caliper to suit the funny fork. Bob Wright in Somerset used to deal in Gilera,s and he happened to have one of the funny forks in his workshop still with a caliper fitted, which he let me have together with new pads and seals. The fork is difficult to mount anything on. On the Gilera everything is bodywork mounted so a Truimph front mudguard was E-bayed and a bracket fabricated to bolt it to the back of the fork. A bracket was made to clamp around the tube that contains the spring/damper to mount the electronic clocks and ammeter.
The engine was started for the first time a week before the show and very surprisingly it picked up cleanly and even ticked over. There are some small jobs to do before it hits the road which will be soon I hope.