willedoo

I've got a copy of the Ion Idriess book on prospecting for gold somewhere. Haven't read it in many years but I remember it as a good read.

This bloke needs help:

I still get the shudders when I think of the WLA Harleys that got away. It was around late 1971 or early 1972 when I heard the story of a pile of war surplus Harleys on a farm about a half hour drive from where I lived. I heard about it from the local bike shop mechanic who said he'd seen them but didn't remember exact directions. I knew the approximate area so rode out there on my AJS. At one stage I saw a farmer riding an ex-army WLA with an open box side car around his paddock so I pulled up and walked over to the fence. When he came over, I quizzed him about the bikes and as it turned out, it wasn't him who had them but a neighbour down the road a bit further. When I rode in the driveway and pulled up, I saw a solo restored registed WLA parked there. As it turned out, it belonged to a farm hand who had bought it from the property owner. The owner was an absentee type who lived in Central Queensland and had a manager running the farm. I had a yarn to the manager and he showed me around. As we wakled over to a shed, I spotted a WLA with box sidecar in the long grass beside the shed. It was oxidised from the weather but you could tell from the lack of seat wear and lack of dents and scratches that it had been hardly used. Lying all round the place in long grass were lots of Harley engines, gearboxes and bits, along with old Willys jeep stuff. We went around into the shed and there was another WLA with sidecar and three solos stacked there. At that stage, I thought there were the three solo bikes and two outfits plus a heap of bits and pieces in total. Unfortunately I was a bit young and naive and didn't push hard enough. The owner in Central Queensland for some reason had no phone contact, so the manager said he would be down to the property around a certain date. In hindsight, I should have got his address and rode up there to make him an offer in person as the manager said he would probably want to sell them. Anyway, I rode back out there on the date he was supposed to be at the farm and ended up walking right into one of those 'you should have been here yesterday' scenarios. The manager told me the owner had come down a bit earlier than expected and a bloke who was stationed at the Oakey Air Base had bought all the bike stuff from him only a matter of days before. I was told he took away a semi trailer full of Harleys and parts. The owner sold the lot for $200, about five weeks wages back then. At a later date, the mechanic who gave me the original lead asked me if I'd looked in the other shed which I hadn't. He said there was a heap more Harleys in there along with a pile of new old stock parts. That fitted in with the managers description of the size of the truck load compared with what I'd seen. In those days there were a lot of farms with old stuff lying around in sheds, but nothing like this one. I was only 17 at the time and not real savvy so missed the mother lode. It's funny when you look back and how we took that old stuff for granted back then when it was plentiful. Around the same time, I followed another lead on a so called barn find, a Panther 600cc Sloper. All it needed was a new clutch otherwise it was in really good condition. The farmer wanted $20 for it but I passed it over thinking it was not worth that price.

Was it one of these Nev, with the 750 motor.

Likewise, congratulations Peter; I'm looking forward to reading the book. My very limited gold experience was all in 1986. I worked for a time for a Brisbane based drilling company and we did five weeks of diamond drilling on an old abandoned historic gold mine near Inglewood. We were tracking a quartz reef that was about 4' deep and only about 6" wide. 60 degree angle drilling if my memory is correct. The boss made a lot of money on that rig. It was an old ex New Guinea Mindrill that he picked up for $4,000. 35 days drilling, 12 hour days, it would have paid for itself in no time. It was mounted on a 4 wheel trailer and towed behind a truck. Made in Melbourne I think and basically just a glorified lathe. Had a 5 cylinder Lombardini main motor and a little 2 cylinder mud pump. The old mine shafts were those old scary narrow ones. It was one of those mines that closed in WW1 due to lack of manpower and never restarted again. Not long after that job I left the company and went over to Halls Creek and did some subcontracting for Freeport, basically just constructing access and pads for gold test rigs. After that I worked for a while for an alluvial miner at the Old Halls Creek area. The creeks had been picked out in the 1800's and there were only a few odd exploratory trenches dug out from the creek banks. I'd strip and stockpile the bank area top until we found some gravel that indicated where the ancient creek bed was. Then it was a matter of very slowly shaving off a couple of inches at a time so the miner and his partner could go over the exposed gravel bed with detectors. That thin removed layer was stockpiled and they would run a detector over the heap after the wet season had washed it. If they fell on hard times, they would get the dry blower going and put the stockpile through it. Hot, dusty, hard work and the least desirable option compared to detecting and picking up nuggets. I saw my first decent sized nugget on that job.

You have a point there Jerry about the risks of 18 year old motorbiking. At least in my case, 18 was the year of most risky behaviour and I was lucky to survive it and almost didn't. Things were different back then. No such thing as learner approved motorcycles. We didn't even have learner permits then; once you turned 17 you could get an open bike license and go out and buy and ride the biggest, fastest motorcycle you could afford. As far as risky behaviour was concerned, you could get away with a lot. Police numbers were very small and policing was reactive and rarely proactive. There was no random breath testing (not until the end of 1988), no hidden speed guns (they hadn't been invented at that stage), no random roadworthy pull-overs, no roadworthy certificates; I could sit here for an hour and add to this list. We did have police speed radars but they were very rare and very obvious. It wasn't hard to spot a copper sitting on a chair under a tree with a big radar set perched on top of a small table. We didn't do cafe racing, more like pub racing, high speed pub crawls on bikes. In this district now, the police number in the high hundreds, whereas back in the seventies there was probably only about fifteen or twenty at most and usually only two to patrol the whole district after hours. Riding a bike back then was a bit like the wild west. I bought my first bike at age 14, a BSA Bantam 175cc, although I'd been riding the neighbours Francis Barnett for some time before that. At around 15 I graduated to a 250 Honda Dream for a paddock basher around the farm. On turning 17 I got my driver's license. No written test from memory. In those days we had separate license categories for car, body truck, semi trailer (one category to cover any number of trailers, no separate road train category like now), motorbike, and category G which was tractors, harvestors, graders and all sorts of general machinery. I got them all in one go and the only driving test was to drive our old AA160 International truck down the road and do a handbrake start on a sloping rail crossing. I had a neighbour's little Commer semi trailer lined up for a test, but the copper asked me if I'd driven it and was satisfied with my word that I had (8 miles down a straight, flat road). He also said he wanted to see me riding my first legal road bike, a 1957 AJS 500 single, before issuing a license. He knew I'd been riding it without a license but just wanted to check I could handle it ok. I drove the truck home, got on the bike and rode back to town,. As I pulled up in front of the police station, he was standing there with my license in hand, which he handed to me and said see you later. I never even got off the bike. The joys of a country copper back in the day. These days the bike license is the only separate category you have to have. All the others are covered by the highest level category. For example I have mototcycle and heavy combination (semi trailer). HC covers all those under it like car, body trucks, tractors and machinery. If I had a road train license (multi combination), my license would be only two categories, MC and motorcycle which would cover anything you can drive on the road. Around the time I had the AJS at age 17, I also had a 741 Indian unregistered for a restoration project that never happened before I sold it. After that came the Norton Commando and the 18 year old dangerous period. Other bikes I had over the years were a Yamaha SR500, a Suzuki 50 stepthrough and Honda postie bike. I'm not sure if you'd call the last two bikes, more like toys.

Nev, that's what a mate of mine did. He had a Triumph he'd been riding for a lot of years but gave away riding at age 70. He just didn't feel confident with all the traffic these days and health issues from a couple of heart attacks. I don't know how I'd go on the road these days. I haven't ridden a bike on the road for thirty years and it's a totally different ball game here now with the big population and car increases. A mate of mine is 67 and has just taken it up again after a lot of years. He's just recently bought a new Bonneville Speedmaster. One thing on his side, he lives north of here in a slightly quieter area with less traffic, and he rides with his son and his son's mates (all Harley riders) and they are all very protective of him and keep a good eye on him. The Speedmaster is a good old bloke's bike - nice low, very comfortable seating position, good for touring. His only issue with the Bonnie is that it sounds like a sewing machine with the stock pipes so he's ordered a set of straight through drag pipes from that mob in Tasmania that make after market pipe systems for a lot of bike brands.

Regarding the bridge, the local mill stopped running locos some time before the mill shut down and relied on road transport during that interim period. As a consequence, it fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled due to public risk with people using it for fishing and jumping off it into the water. Eventually the company who owned the mill (Bundaberg Sugar I think it was at the time) came to the decision that their assets had more real estate value than they could make from crushing sugar so the sold it all up so developers could grow houses instead. Sad really to see one of the district's biggest industries vanish after being part of the place since the 1800's. The area had a lot of character when the cane industry was still solid. I live up on a hill and the old tram track used to go past the bottom of my property. Lots of good memories sitting on the verandah at night, listening to the locos rattling past and watching the cane fires out on the floodplain. Burning was not a very sustainable practice but it was very visual. For five to six months of the year it was like having cracker night every night. Over the years they ended up breeding varieties that produced less dead leaf trash and most burning went out of practice. What trash produced was left in the paddock to act as mulch in a way. Obvious benefits like more moisture holding ability, less weeds etc., but they had to develop machinery to be able to work it. There's not much cane grown here these days as it needs to be a high price to break even on trucking it some hours north of here to the nearest working mill. The only time they burn now is if they are harvesting what they call standover cane which is cane that has been left over to the next season or even longer. The more years it grows, the thicker the stalks get and the more trash and leaf growth there is, so it has to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. The sugar content drops as well with old cane. I miss the cane; these days instead of looking down over nice green cane fields, all I see is thousands of acres of weeds. It puts a lot of people out of work when a whole industry collapses. Farmers aside, a lot of the mill workers were multi-generational in their history there. I used to work occasional cane seasons harvesting cane and a lot of mates are local cane farmers or ex mill workers so I have a personal connection to it. I was born and bred in cattle, sheep and grain country so the cane was a big novelty to me when I first moved down here to the coast. Also here there's plenty of salt air to create rusty bits for making rat bikes (just to stay on topic).

It was. It's gone now for quite a few years.

Years ago myself and a mate used to ride our bikes (Norton Commando and Velocette Clubman) across this drawbridge; one of those tasks where you had to hold your mouth right and not look down. What made it extra tricky was that both bikes had clipons. The gap between the two planks would grap the front tyre a bit just to make it more interesting.

That's the salt air down here. On the other side of the great divide they just go brown. I think it's past practical rebuilding. A few years ago I was planning to make a wine rack out of it, but considering I've just recently clocked up 7 years on the wagon, that idea is obsolete. A good boat anchor maybe.

Speaking of cafe racers, I was at the local bike shop today and spotted this 2019 Continental GT. I think it's there on a commission sale. The tank colour reminds me of the 750 Fastback I used to have.

I've heard and used the term cafe racer all my adult life and had never given thought to the origin of the term until recently when I saw it explained on a youtube video on British bikes.

I don't remember the ruling in Joh's day, but the authority to order three or more people to move on came in with the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act in the year 1997 under the Borbage National-Liberal Coalition government if my memory is correct. The act had a follow up version in the year 2000 under Peter Beattie, so it might have been in that later version, I'd have to check. Original post edited.

Thanks Litespeed, that's good info. Luckily the advantage of rat bike builds in the context of guards and panels is that the more imperfect it is, the better it is. Rust, oxidisation and generally worn patina is the order of the day. The main thing I don't have is a proper fair dinkum, original old anvil. It's hard to get a good second hand one under $1,500 to $2,000 these days, crazy prices. I've just got the usual stand-ins for smaller anvil work, eg: railway track and a piece of UB for flat work. One thing I do have is a lot of old aeroplane parts, so I might be able to find a few handy bits and pieces there. For the sidecar seat, there's the option of an old cast steel plow seat like the bike will have, or a Martin Baker, or an Antonov 2 seat. The issue with the aircraft seats is that they might be too wide for the copper boiler ; I'll have to measure them up.

I've put some thought into sourcing an old BMW engine to use as they would be ideal. As far as the other aspects, it's good advice and I appreciate it but it's outside the original intentions. The idea is to build a bike, not modify an existing one, and by being a non registered bike not for the road, it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want without having to worry about legalities and compliance and basically bending to the rules of others. If the bike got a bit lonely at home I could always load it on the trailer and cart it off to one of the local custom bike and rod days. Road riding is not so much fun around here these days with all the traffic; it's now mainly just an exercise in staying alive.

Back in the early 70's I had a 741 Indian. I also had a Dusting sidecar I intended to put on it but sold them both before that happened. Sold the Indian for $50 and the sidecar for $30. Not one of my wiser decisions.

It would be good to have an English wheel, but I've never used one. A bit of skill involved with them I think.

Combined with those high narrow handlebars it would be very interesting.

The fun part is hunting around the place for the components. This afternoon I did a trip down to the bottom shed in the hope that I might have kept a full set of 16" lugged skinny tyres that were originally part of the Suzuki LJ 80 gear that I once had. Fortunately I'd kept them and one of them would make a good front tyre on a spoked rim. The second attached photo is a pic from the net showing one on a front wheel. It gives it a chunky, military look. These two photos are of an old copper hot water system tank that I was hoping to use as the main body section of the sidecar. At this stage I'm not so sure about it. If it was 20% bigger in dimension it would be perfect. It's a bit small, around 600mm at it's widest point and at the point where the opening would be cut, it would have an opening of around 500mm.

I wish I still had some of the five truckloads of stuff I sent off to to the scrap metal yard in 2021 when I had plans to sell up and move. Those plans changed due to some health issues, and now I'm here for the long run minus a lot of really good junk. The things I really miss are the various gears, axles, diffs, gearboxes and transfer cases. I had a variety of Nissan, Toyota and Suzuki LJ 80 stuff. The Suzuki LJ 80 drive train gear is particularly handy due to it's small size and the thing about them I really like is that they have a stand alone transfer case independant of the main gearbox.

With actual building and design, the first place to start is with a motor then design the rest around it. A big decision to make there. A motorcycle motor gives less design headaches compared to the physical dimensions of car motors. With bike motors, Harley motors are good but too expensive. Virago engines and the Honda V4 are solid and cheap, but I'd rather not have a Japanese motor. Another possibility is to try and fit this V6 3800 Buick into it. Width is no issue, the big issue is height if you want to incorporate a traditional motorcycle type fuel tank on top which I prefer. At least this older model has a fairly low profile intake plenium. The later models have a much bigger plenium which gives them more torque and grunt but increases the height quite a bit.

First a disclaimer: at this stage this thread is very speculative, but from time to time I can post on any (if any) progress. The thinking is to convert some of my junk into a rideable non road registered rat bike. What brought this on is that I've recently been doing a complete workshop renovation, and when that's up and functional, a build project like this would be a bit of fun for the rainy days. The plan at this stage is: 1. Finish the workshop renovation. The 6x6 metre space has been mainly cleaned out, so at least I'm able to walk around in there and do some work in the shed at the present time. There's still a lot of structural changes to do - relocating diagonal braces, walling in one whole side, building more benches and shelving etc. and finally get the lathe, mill, presses and other gear set up. 2. Start mustering up parts and bits and pieces. As a basic starting point for the design, number one priority is to build it as a sidecar outfit as I no longer have the physical ability to ride a heavy weight solo bike. Secondly, I prefer the more moderate style rat bikes rather than the extreme steampunk types where the builder has added every contraption known to mankind including the kitchen sink. Those types are a bit amusing, but not my cup of tea. As an explanation, the first of the attached photos I would describe as a fairly moderate Mad Max style, the second is way too bizzarre for my liking.

It's funny how the memory plays tricks on you. I've had a rusty old V8 block hanging about the place for a few decades and hadn't laid eyes on it for years. From memory it was a flathead Ford block, but when I finally found it yesterday, that couldn't be further from the truth as it was an ohv block. After a lot of googling and youtubing I finally identified it as a 273 Chrysler block. Most likely out of a Valiant.