Vincatii

Pushrod Twin

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They had a long wheelbase by today’s sport bike standards. Gives me hope for the Comet as it ended up longer than planned.
Comet ended up longer that planned; Longer in the wheel base, or longer to build?

One of he likable traits of the Bevel Ducatis, I feel, was their ability to be ridden with relative comfort on a gravel road. My mate Roger, & I rode around the East Cape together, he on an Australian export 860GTE, & I on the 850GT Guzzi I had bought off Roger a year earlier. When we turned into the gravel road leading to the light house, he took off, leaving me wallowing literally in his dust. Both Loop & short Tonti Frame Guzzi have always un-nerved me in the gravel. I guess I was spoiled learning to ride on AMC Jampot frames.
 

Oldhaven

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I really agree with that about off road capability with a bevel Duc. This is a picture of me 10 miles off the main road on a weekend fly fishing trip with my wife and another couple on the Dead River in Maine. The road in was used by a lumber company working in there at the time and was not your average gravel road. It was like a trials course. At the end of the trip the result was a slight crack in the bottom of the crankcase from hitting a rock. A bit of Seal All smeared on and it never leaked again for years. You can find Dead River Maine on Google Earth and see that they are still cutting trees all these years later

Ducati.jpg
 

Little Honda

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Who mentioned Comet, it looks wide enough for a twin !! and what person of sound mind would ride a Vincent anyway. That certainly doesn't describe me.
That Monster frame would do to put my spare bevel drive engine in, but the shipping is probably more than the frame's worth.
What about yr spare bevel engine? Wld swap it for a couple of nos Black Lightning valve springs plus spark
plugs! Free postage.
 

Peter Holmes

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In a moment of madness I purchased a Ducati 750S, it was advertised locally to me, and the chap was also selling a BSA Gold Star, at the time (approx 20 years ago) both bikes were similar money, a road test was out of the question, but I was allowed to ride it up and down his not inconsiderable driveway a couple of times, I loved it, especially its looks, and it ran really well, so I parted with my money and made arrangements to ride it home, Fawley to Bourne End, not that far at all, after a short distance I knew I had made a dreadful mistake, very uncomfortable riding position, wrists killing me, certainly would not want to do more than 50 miles on one, at that time 250 miles on the Vincent was easy, in fact a pleasure, and still is.
I kept it for a few years, my Son loved riding it in between riding various Kawasaki ZXR bikes that he owned, he reckoned that it went very well and of course always drew a crowd, but it had to go, it was no good to me, I sold it on for what I paid for it, maybe a little more, I forget now, but since then the values have rocketed, as a financial investment I really should have kept it in mothballs, or purchased the Gold Star instead,
c'est la vie.
 

Cyborg

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Comet ended up longer that planned; Longer in the wheel base, or longer to build?

One of he likable traits of the Bevel Ducatis, I feel, was their ability to be ridden with relative comfort on a gravel road.

Both.... it’s been a long time in the making. Not just adapting oddball parts, but also spending lots of time making parts and then... although happy with the way the part turned out, it looks out of place when installed.
Longer wheelbase than planned because the initial swingarm was shorter. It was made for eccentric adjusters and all was going well until I had a brain fart. Everything was strapped into the jig for a test fit and things lined up quite nicely so figured why not just go ahead and weld it. If I had been thinking, I would have welded it in stages. As one would expect the area that holds the eccentric adjusters warped slightly. That wouldn’t have been an issue if I had welded the arms separately. Then it would be a simple matter of bolting the arm into the mill and correcting the out of round. The welded assembly is to large to fit in the mill. I suppose it could be attached to the carriage of the lathe and bored that way. Things were dragging on so I grabbed a 650 BMW swingarm out of the dumpster and used that. It needed machining and welding, but was a quick fix. The Comet is still shorter than the V11, so should be fine.
The other thing I found with the GT and 750S is that they seemed to be very forgiving. You could screw up steaming into a corner and make corrections that would cause other bikes of the era to try and spit you off.
 

Pushrod Twin

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It was made for eccentric adjusters and all was going well until I had a brain fart. Everything was strapped into the jig for a test fit and things lined up quite nicely so figured why not just go ahead and weld it. If I had been thinking, I would have welded it in stages. As one would expect the area that holds the eccentric adjusters warped slightly. That wouldn’t have been an issue if I had welded the arms separately. Then it would be a simple matter of bolting the arm into the mill and correcting the out of round. The welded assembly is to large to fit in the mill. I suppose it could be attached to the carriage of the lathe and bored that way. Things were dragging on so I grabbed a 650 BMW swingarm out of the dumpster and used that. It needed machining and welding, but was a quick fix. The Comet is still shorter than the V11, so should be fine.
The other thing I found with the GT and 750S is that they seemed to be very forgiving. You could screw up steaming into a corner and make corrections that would cause other bikes of the era to try and spit you off.
Eccentric adjusters, I love them. Except on 860 & Darmah Ducatii where they are mounted at the front of the swing arm, what were they thinking?? I have a swing arm design drawn up with eccentric adjusters for my next Egli project. Good call regarding machining the bores before welding the legs, it is difficult to ensure alignment in a small mill unless you have a guaranteed method of maintaining squareness to the swing arm pivot. I have a right angle spindle adaptor for my Kondia, (Spanish Bridgeport copy) which allows me to set the boring head horizontal, could set the swing arm bore in clamped vee blocks and flip it between operations, maybe.
How is your V11 on gravel roads?
 

Cyborg

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Haven’t had very much exposure to gravel with the V11. I now live in an area where it’s very uncommon. That little bit of gravel riding tells me to avoid it. The V11 is a bit of a pig to pick up.
 

Martyn Goodwin

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Haven’t had very much exposure to gravel with the V11. I now live in an area where it’s very uncommon. That little bit of gravel riding tells me to avoid it. The V11 is a bit of a pig to pick up.
Had a 'modern' V7 for a while. It was easy to pick up - good thing as the geometry was all over the place and in slow corners it would constantly be falling on its side .
 

Pushrod Twin

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Haven’t had very much exposure to gravel with the V11. I now live in an area where it’s very uncommon. That little bit of gravel riding tells me to avoid it. The V11 is a bit of a pig to pick up.
Yes, I had the use of a new V11 a while ago, stayed away from gravel. I also had a 4 valve Daytona Racing for a short time, they were both recipes for licence donation! I'm happier with my '72 V7 Sport and 2 Lemonverts. One started out as a MK IV Lemans, the Square engine now drives the torque converter & 2 speed in a Convert chassis registered as a LM II. Shortly that power plant will return to the 16" wheeled frame & become my sidecar tug. The "original" roundbarrel will be built as a 950 with LM II heads and return to it's LM registered Convert frame. Keeping up?
 
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