Rat Bike Project

[facthunter]

Oily rag restorations are Better. When you start making something RUN It' s hard to Know where to stop. I don't believe in working on Fossils. They are for Patterns only. IF it has  to work Pay more for Better. Over restored is ruined, in my books.  Don't Polish bits that were "as Cast". Something well restored Looks as if it wasn't restored in the Normal sense.  The Original "Look" is always worth More at the end of the day. Plating things that weren't Plated. Plating often causes internal corrosion and makes things Brittle and the Plating on Nuts Peels when a spanner goes on it if it's crook Plating. It also ruins thread fits as the Plating goes on thicker at the ends and your parts Look like they came out of a Bathroom. Nev

 

[willedoo]

10 minutes ago, facthunter said:

IF it has  to work Pay more for Better.

That's a good rule to stick by. It applies well to buying motors. You see a lot of cheap junk motors on the market but when you do the mental arithmetic of doing them up, it just doesn't stack up to buying something already up and running. I think some people buy cheap flogged out motors with missing parts thinking they've got a bargain, but when they price the work and bits required, soon realise they've bought a boat anchor.

[facthunter]

Scrap Metal or an idea of how it was. Nothing more. Unfortunately some good condition things do go for scrap but they were all consumables of some kind anyhow. New stuff is not as  suited for repair as much as it was but there's always been examples  of items designed to be difficult to repair.. Even in the Teens some engines had a Max overbore of Half a Millimetre on the diameter of the cylinder. .020"  Nev

[willedoo]

I've estimated there won't be much ratbiking happening until later in the year. There's a lot of shed renovations to finish before that happens, but in the meantime a bit of parts sorting and sourcing is still happening.

 

On the shed/workshop renovation side there's still a fair bit to do. Some steel diagonal braces need to be relocated for better workbench fitment. A couple of windows need to be finished off and a couple more timber wall purlins swapped out for steel. Where one diagonal brace set is to be removed, an existing timber wall frame in that quarter section will be converted to a bracing wall with rods and bracing ply, double braced and insulated. Then a six metre long wall section leading to another shed room will be walled in for bench and shelving space. The steps leading into the other room will be removed and alternate entry to that room sorted. That gets the walls done, so then it's on to positioning existing work benches and building a couple of new ones. After that, the shelving set up.

 

That's all the hard part. The easier, fun part will be filling those shelves and sorting out tools and bits and pieces and setting up the workship equipment. The goal is for everything to have a fixed home instead of the mayhem the shed is now. I'll also lash out and get a sparky to run permanent wiring, lights and power points. I'm over plugging leads in and out all the time. This is a bucket list goal to get the workshop set up the way it's supposed to be. It's been a cluttered half workshop/half storage area for the last eighteen years or so since I built it, and it's been hard to do any major work in it due to all the junk in there which now has to go.

[willedoo]

To summarise all of the above post, basically I've got to spend less time fooling around on this computer and more time swinging a hammer.

[willedoo]

Another new/old toy picked up today, a 1970 Ural M-63 frame. Frame is original from the steering head back, including the rear guard. It also has left hand sidecar mounts which is a bonus. I haven't identified the wheels and forks as yet. The light is an Everwing, probably an old Datsun driving light. The bloke I got it from had only just recently bought it for a Yamaha 500 single motor that was in it. He said the engine was a tight fit in the frame which probably explains why the longitudinal brace below the steering head has been cut out. It's the closest I've been to an old Cossack since 1972. Second photo is what an original looks like for anyone who doesn't know the model.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

They were $600 when new. I newly bought one but bought a Yamaha RT1 for similar money.

[willedoo]

Yes, I remember them being cheap. Solid frames but often had awful Soviet era welds. Factories used to supply free vodka to the workers; maybe the bad welds happened when the vodka ran out. The new Ural Gear Up 2WD outfits start at $35,000 for the standard model. 

[facthunter]

They are Not good enough to be worth that price. Nev

[nomadpete]

22 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

They were $600 when new. I newly bought one but bought a Yamaha RT1 for similar money.

In Sydney they were called Voskod. A 650cc was $650. So I bought a Yamaha for half that. It went faster, stopped better and went around corners faster.

[nomadpete]

Even when new they were not worth the asking price. No idea why they are collectable now.

[pmccarthy]

57 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

In Sydney they were called Voskod. A 650cc was $650. So I bought a Yamaha for half that. It went faster, stopped better and went around corners faster.

Yes there were three models. Each was $1 per cc of capacity. They were called Cossacks where I lived. A mate bought one with mild steel valves. Apparently they had to produce a certain number each month or the factory manager fell out a window. 

[willedoo]

The new ones are a handy thing but certainly a bit expensive. For the last two or three years the ones imported here with left hand sidecars have the gear up option, which is 2WD on demand with the sidecar wheel driving for dirt road/off road use. It's a straight drive, non differential. Before that it was only the Russian/European/U.S. models with the right hand sidecar that had the 2WD option due to the drive shaft being on the right hand side. The new ones drive a lot better with a sidecar compared to the old ones that had telescopic fork front ends. The newer leading link setup pushes the front wheel as far forward as legal and makes them behave a lot better. They're headquarted in the U.S. now and have moved production from Russia to Kazakhstan to get around the war sanctions. 

[willedoo]

The Urals like that M-63 frame I posted above, were made by IMZ-Ural who had a plant in the Ural Mountains. They moved there from Moscow during the war when a lot of manufacturing moved east. Their sister bike was the Dnepr brand made in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR. A lot of the frames and engines were identical and in the early days IMZ supplied engines to them. I think after that they were probably license built engines.