My second motorcycle

Yes thats a dead deer. I was in Lysight Wyoming and everyone hunted, so for my first deer hunt I scouted and hunted alone on my new Kawasaki KE175. Good thing the dear looked much bigger in the rifle scope then it actually was or I would have had to make 2 trips! Notice this is one has no horns, we hit what we hunted so trophies were not allowed.

My 1955 Sears Allstate sv175 (Puch)

Craigslist is dangerous for a moto head! I cruise the list looking for deals on bikes often. When I saw this bike for sale I knew I was going to buy it. The pictures that where posted where terrible and the description didn't help the add at all! I researched a little and found that Sears and Roebuck catalog company sold these bikes as the Allstate brand. This model and a few others where actually made in Austria by Puch. These are also known as a Twingle, a twin cylinder that shares a common combustion chamber. I had read about these somewhere and as an engineer I was intrigued by the design. This is a 2 stroke engine that burns more completely than any other because of this design. It also has more torque than a normal 2 stroke motorcycle.

                                         This is what it looked like when I brought it home.

The Badge is European style, not like an American made bike would have. The number is the Sears catalog item number for the bike, used when ordering parts.

About half way through repairs.

This is a good shot of the quality of casting, this is with the generator and ignition points removed to clean and replace crankshaft seals. 2 cycle bikes must have good crank seals or you can't get good vacuum because it sucks air past the seals!

The Quality of manufacture is even apparent in the way you adjust the chain! The way the axle shaft is held and the nuts that hold it are amazing....

      This is where the foot rest attaches and the muffler is hung all from the same point, great design.

         Primary chain and clutch and transmission are oil bath, sealed separate from the crankcase.

The baffle system looks like a German rocket combustion chamber! The exhaust changes directions 180 degrees 7 times! Very quiet and any excess oil gets trapped in here, this was fun cleaning job for me.....

 German electrics, full hydraulic suspension, solo seats set on springs, this bike is amazing for a "cheap" small cc moto.

                                                               I just LOVE the deco styling!

     First run after rebuild, fuel bottle is because I just cream coated the tank and didn't want fuel in it yet!

Its hard to tell how small this bike is in these pix, but its defiantly not a little bike, just petite. I had to order a front fender from an Austrian supplier, it finally arrived a week after I old the bike.....

Gadgitman's bikes

 My slightly modified Honda ST90. It has a CM90 motor (manual clutch), smaller rear sprocket for more speed, street tires, taller handelbars and longer cables I made with Venhill kits, chrome top street shocks, and a spiked dog collar.

 My Dream 305 and Baby Dream 160. I really fell in love with the mini dream and then just had to have a full sized one too! The solo seat isn't exactly correct but a real one would cost as much as the bike did!

 This is my 150 mini dream being reassembled after the rebuild. Yes that is a motorcycle lift IN my living room! A woman I dated upon seeing this said "you have a unusual attraction to motorcycles", she didn't last long.....

 The classic lines of the Honda Dreams are liked by many generations. Square headlight, stamped steel front forks and a chrome tank, whats not to like?

 This is my Dnepr its a Russian military bike. That is my cousin Jada in the car, she is a avid rider. Her and her husband have matching Harleys his pulls a small trailer and they tour all over the United States. This is what it looked like after I just put it together and got it mostly sorted out. This bike has its own blog, you can see it in my blog list.

 This is what it looked like when I was done modifying it to drive on California highways. I had to change the final drive gears and ad a independent oil pump for the large cooler and filter system, the cooler had a fan for low speed driving in traffic. It was hard to stop when loaded at highway speeds!

 Ammo can storage seemed to work great with the image of the bike, and was very useful!

 I got this Z50 just because it was cheap. I changed the tank to a earlier model because to me it looked much better. Couldn't get it licensed for the street....

 I went to the Honda dealers buy some parts for Butcher, my custom CT90, and bought a new Honda Grom! Its been a blast to drive and customize! Just right for a quick trip to the beach or store. Honda really hit the mark with the design of this very popular bike!

 This is my very rare CT70H. They came with a manual clutch and international gear pattern. At one time I had 3 CT70 bikes, no obsessions here!

 I thought the QA50 Hondas where so cute I bought 2 basket cases, one early (above) and a late model (middle), and another early one bellow I gave to a friends kid. Yes thats my living room again, small bikes a great decoration for the apartment!

More to come!

  It's been some time since I last posted on this blog, so here I am posting the latest picture of Butcher.
This is what I made to haul this bike around behind my truck, it was made early on to make it easy on me loading and unloading it by myself. It is mostly made from Harbor Freight parts and one from Ebay. First is what was sold as a hand cranked lift for a small platform to fit in a receiver hitch, then added a heavy duty loading ramp and a motorcycle wheel chock.

Someone recently asked me what I would sell this bike for. At first I said "I couldn't sell Butcher!" then we talked a little and I said that if someone offered what I believed was a Lot Of Money I would sell it. Every thing has it's price and that price is different for each person!

Now days Butcher hangs out in my living room and goes to shows a couple times a year. about once a month I take it for a nice ride up to La Jolla or Mission beach.

New motor, kinda Frankenstein.

I had only bored the cylinder and installed a new piston and ring set in the original motor when this bike was first tagged.Now the right side motor case is from a honda ATC 110, I wanted it for the larger crank and cylinder area in case I make a stroker out of it later. The large oil pump was a bonus! The 2 cases side by side above shows the different oil pump passage and the area around the kick starter that had to be modified to fit it, atc 3 wheelers have no kick starters. You can see I had to remove lots of metal to make it function. The right side case is from a Honda CM90. I wanted to do away with the Hi/Lo sub transmission of the ct90 and make it look smoother! It also makes it easyer to try different front sprocket sizes. The left side cover is from a Honda CL90, the sprocket cover is from a Honda S90. The transmission, shifter, drum, and manual clutch cover was from a CL90. Clutch is all N.O.S. Honda S90. The crank is from the CL90 with new bearings. The transmission has new bearings too! I used the CT90 complete head and cylinder set, from the original motor, just repainted it and the intake manifold. The clutch cover already had the vent installed so I just went with it. It is much quieter now and runs much better at high R.P.M.s! It is very different to ride now with a manual transmission! I changed the shift drum to get the normal 1 down 3 up shifting pattern and now need to relearn how to shift.

Correcting the stance issue

I had noticed the front was slightly lower than the rear. I must have welded the neck on the frame lower than stock. To correct this I adapted a front wheel assembly from a XL175, a 21 inch, 2 inches larger than the stock 17 inch.

 It was fairly easy to fit the much larger wheel and new tire to the front forks. The axle shaft on the 73 ct90 front forks I used on this chopper project has a axle shaft 12mm around, the 75 XL175 front wheel and brake plate that I used in this upgrade has a axle of 14mm. I could not find bearings to make the size swap so I just used bronze bushings from the local hardware store. The brake cable inner wire was just 3 inches to short , so I ordered another Venhill custom cable bundle and used just the larger inner. I cant say enuff about Venhill great stuff for custom bike builders!                                                                                                                                                                                

Memorial Day Car Show

This Memorial Day (may 30) I took the bike to the San Diego Cool cars show at Quall comm stadium in San Diego California. This is the 1st time I have entered this bike in any show. It was alot of fun! Talking with the people for me was the best part. Most people enjoyed my creation and had some Honda trail bike experience to share. Some thought It was some kind of parody, a joke or a non-working prop, I was expecting some of this. I did not build this for anyone but myself, and I am fine with bringing a smile to some ones face!

I took the 71 QA50 hoping I could ride it, great idea! There where 2 Chinese pocket rockets and a few old school mower motor powered mini bikes roaming around! Next time I will be better prepaired with a table and some pix from this blog to show the progression of the CT90. So many great cars at this show I could make a blog of just those pix! Not very many bikes, was hoping there was a bike only trophy but not so. It would have been nice to win something, but no,,sigh,,,sniff,,sniff,,,, But hey, I didn't get beat up and thrown out! 

Now this is what a custom car show is all about! These stroller/wagon whatever you wanna call them are COOL! I thought just 1 pic of them would be ok.
It was a all around fun,first of summer event!
After the show I tilted the QA bars and put it under the cover of my truck and the ct on the bumper carrier and took it to downtown San Diego. Parked the truck in Balbao park and road the chopper all over down town and the harbour district! Turned many heads even though I had lots of compitition from everyone with a hot rod,custom, lowrider, kit car, exotic,classic,ect. After all it is Southern California!

Refined, Defined, but still slightly UnCivilized!

Now we get the party started! Take the whole mess apart, apply lots of paint remover, solvent, sandpaper, bondo, primer, more sandpaper, more bondo, more primer, glazing putty, lotsa paint, lotsa clear coat, WoooHoooo!

Tank from a 75 ct, front forks from same. Nice smooth black paint, taller bars, better headlight,speedo,grips. Santa Rosa style seat, forward pegs, custom cable kits, chrome shocks shortened for ride height. Down swept exhaust with fishtail. Leather bags for covers, and a custom plate and tail light bracket.

What better place to put all those pesky wires, getting the braided stainless steel covering into that hole around the wires was kinda fun, but well worth the effort!

I drilled a 1/2 hole on the left side front lower body, right above the motor and enlarged the original hole on the right so i could run the coil wire thru one and both fuel lines thru other.I modified the battery cover several times trying to find the "look", never did,,I always wanted some kinda place to stash stuff, tools, parts, papers, maby a beer, started looking for some kinda soft bag, and just thru the size I needed I found out lots of fork bags where that size!!

Lots of body work here, ground down welds, fixed the bad ones, reinforced, blended, smoothed, and some of it you may never see! It really needed foot pegs alittle further forward, not easy on this kinda frame! We tryed to think of way without attaching to the tubes! Back to reality, gotta attach to the tube, this is the fastest, easiest,,hardly any fab work way to do it,,re attach the stock skid plate and weld foot pegs to it! And it looks great! look the angle of the rear shocks and the front down tubes on the chrome skid plate match! All I had to do was fab out a small plate with 2 holes to match the 75ct skid plate holes (68ct skid plate attaches vertical and the 75 horizontally) and weld it to the bottom of the lower tube, it was pure luck that the exhaust pipe cleared the skid plate! I used the old mount for the spring bracket on the now missing center stand for the muffler mount. The fishtail is from a Harley aftermarket tip, I just cut off the fin and about 1/8 of the of the pipe where it attached to the pipe and just spot welded it on top of the muffler. Looks lots better like this,,not what I imagined, but good for now. I don't think I will ever really be "done" with this project, I may abandon further improvements!

I know running without a front fender is hard on frame paint and anything else this sandy pavement will throw up on the bike, but that old, fat, British tire looks nice hangin way out there all naked! The 2inch chrome speedo and mount worked out well using a universal mirror mount to stick it to the bars. Nice visored chrome headlight with a standard H4 bulb, I found a H4 6V 35/35 watt on eBay for like 8 bucks!

Up top here you can see the cut down seat springs, because I changed tanks and welded the neck on lower, the angle was low in the front. Making the seat a good angel ended up with almost no springs! Had to leave them on there no matter how short, cause it was getting awfully black back there. Only 1 1/8 rear travel. I now have to really watch for potholes, dips, speed bumps, and ANY puddles! This is not a bike for riding in the rain.

The 1st working prototype

Notice that its still mostly 1968 parts, and still has stock muffler. The seat really started looking too tall, so I rebuilt it with new shorter foam, still looked too high and now it makes my butt sore!

Rough, Ratty and Ready To Roll! Tagged, titled, and insured . Now a street legal bike! Handle bars are actually for a bicycle, headlight bucket is a repro plastic unit for a 65 Honda s90 with the original speedo for the 68ct stuck in with a toggle switch for the headlight with orange high temp silicon gasket maker! Hey its what I had layin around.The tail light is a old plain round trailer universal unit that I drilled holes in the bottom towards the tag for night tag illumination. Exhaust is 1 1/2 O.D. out of head to 1 3/4  rear part with a turn down that has a very acute cutoff, really liked the way the tip turned out! It proved to be a bit obnoxious, sounded ok,,but a bit loud, so i cut of the larger pipe and made a 2 stage internal muffler baffle out of 1 in pipe drilled fulla 1/2 in holes plugged half way. One day the end of the kick starter snapped off at the swivel, so i welded a large short bolt to the end, more rat style.We painted the wheel hubs black one day, really looked better, the originals where discolored and pitted. The rear of the fender was just pounded until it was 90 strait up then trimmed to about 1/2 in, this is where I welded all the rear seams and re profiled the rear fender,,to match the arch of the now farther back wheel, that took 3 trys to get right! Again if i would have just cut a template out and layed  over and used it as a guide it would have been right the 1st time! But that would have ruined the whole feng schwa thang!

I had a copper bar laying around, made a nice light and tag bracket. Wrench in swing arm stands out nice.
Now that I know it will work,and I can get it legal, it will get refined!