A profitable waste of a Sunday by the looks of it

I had an RD250D & an R65 at the same time - does that make me weird?

--
Krusty.

http://www.muddystuff.co.uk
http://www.muddystuff.us
Off-road classifieds

'02 MV Senna '96 Tiger '79 Fantic 250

 

Not as wierd as owning a 79 Fantic 250.........................lol

k

 

That doesn't, though knowing this, if ever I come across anyone else who
has owned such a combination, I shall treat them with the utmost
suspicion...

/waves/

 

Ah - I'd better keep quiet about when I had an R80GS & Ducati MHR at
the same time then...

Actually that might be ok as the GS is generally considered a 'cool'[1]
bike.

[1] For BMW values of cool.


--
Krusty.

http://www.muddystuff.co.uk
http://www.muddystuff.us
Off-road classifieds

'02 MV Senna '96 Tiger '79 Fantic 250

 

There! And I've only ever had one BMW (which I still have) and it's only
the second non-British bike I've ever had.

I've had a few bits of foreign ones - a DKW 500 twin engine, several
Rumi engines, but not enough to do the dastardly deed I was
contemplating - chopping off the gearboxes and mounting the engines
(125cc two-stroke twins) in a (500cc) 90° V8 formation, driving on to a
single shaft through a Norton box. That was mid '60s. If I could get the
Rumi engines now, I'd like to have another go at that.

 

I understand the engines of the Rumi scooter are unit construction and
you can keep bolting on more pots on the non power take of side. I had a
mate with a Moto Rumi scooter with three pots. His foot would rest on
one as he rode it.

 

Hmm I think I had an R100S, an RD400 and a TS250 all at one time. Would
be 1983ish

 

The message <$>

Interesting - but since it was a 180° crank, you'd need to do some
fiddling with the ignition. Really, you'd need three of them at 120° to
get the best balance.

 

I know no more. The guy was in the last year of his engineering
apprenticeship and very capable. I don't know if it was two together one
on its own. But knowing the guy it would have been a 120° split.

One of the apprentices I started with was machining bits up for his
dad's 1000cc Club (?)[1] single seat race car.

Rear engine jobby.

Four Aerial Arrow engines with the nuts tuned off of them, gearboxes cut
off driving a common shaft, onto a clutch and ZF gearbox/axle. The lot
was cased in perspexs with a bit air scoop for cooling behind the
drivers head.

Sounded AWESOME!

[1] SWK will belong to say what race category it was in.

 

Well at the time I had a 150 mile round trip to work, and using the RD400
for that would have lost me my job in no time, my boss would have tired of
"the bike broke down again" pretty quickly I think.

The difference between these did cause one little incident. I was using
the BM and I lent the RD to a mate, I think his KH250 was playing up. We
went to the pub one evening and, fortified by a jar or two, I fancied
riding the RD home. The pub is at the end of a long straight with a
sharpish bend at the end. So I hacked off down the straight and chucked
the RD round the bend, looked behind and there he wasn't. So I went back
and found a kindly passing driver assisting my mate to get the BM out of
the ditch. He fancied himself as a fast rider (and was indeed generally
faster than me) and wasn't letting me get away. But he'd never been round
a corner on a BM before

Regards, Ian

 

The message <>
from Mick Whittingham <> contains these words:

/rumi/

Well, the layout is a crankcase and gearbox in unit, split horizontally.
IIRC the barrels are a single casting, and when that and the top half of
the crankcase is removed, the precisely engineered and glittering
internals are laid out, reminiscent of the sort of thing you see when
opening a watch.

The crank has four full circle flywheels, balanced and I think, padded

Get the lead in that, and no-one following would have a clear enough
view to get past...

Probably smelt like a regiment of lawn-mowers.

Which reminds me of an old fiend from my café racer period - he had a
souped-up Arrow, and people would ask him what lube he used in the oil,
and he's say "Castrol R."

Then there'd be the disbelief, "But - R isn't miscible with petrol!" but
as he smoked-off, you could smell the stuff. He confided to me (who used
R in the KTT and one Douglas, and *KNEW* it wasn't miscible) that he
used to put a tablespoon of R to the gallon of petrol, and that was
enough for the smell. It caused a lot of argument amongst those who
didn't know what he did.

 

The message <>

Um - I've never found cornering very different - or does that come from
having had a large Douglas stable?

 

the R65 does...

 

ooer. wot is it?

 

that's just perverted.

 

The message <>

R80 with as yet unattached sidecarriage.

Was intended for right-mounting, but the suspension has now been chopped
off and remounted on the bottom of the chassis so it will dress to the
left - as is proper.

 

As it happens, the latest issue of La Vie de la Moto, wot has dropped on
my doormat this very day, has quite a few pages devoted to various
aspects of the Rumi. There's a handy picture of the innards with the
crankcase halves separated. 'Tis indeed unit construction, the cases
split horizontally but it looks like a quick bit of work with a hacksaw
could separate engine from gearbox. There's even a handy "cut along
here" groove in the casting.

One of the articles mentions one Guiseppe Fabri who made several
Rumi-engined machines with 3, 4, 6 and 8 cylinders - there's a photo of
the 4 cylinder bike. Also a Rumi converted to DOHC by Felice Rolla.